Glacier Nordic welcomes new coach
Robin Brooks always wanted to live in a
quintessential ski town. A place in the mountains where snow falls
deep and where she can strap on her Nordic skis and shush to the
trails from her back door. After touring through the Lower 48 on
bicycle this summer — making an unexpected stop in Whitefish — she
thinks she might have found her dream town at the base of Big
Mountain.
Brooks, 25, recently moved here after
accepting the position as Glacier Nordic Club’s newest head coach
for the competition team. She replaces Ben Morley who moved back to
Jackson, Wyo., this summer after one season with the team.
The Seattle native stumbled onto both
Whitefish and the Nordic coaching opportunity in a “perfect storm”
of coincidences.
Near the end of her 16,184-mile long
tour of the country on bicycle, Brooks met with a friend in Jasper
National Park in Canada. The duo decided to bike together from
there to Glacier National Park. The plan was to part ways at the
West Glacier train station.
“But he couldn’t put his bike on the
train in Glacier, so I rode the few extra miles with him to
Whitefish,” Brooks said. “I was planning on leaving from Glacier
and heading down to Missoula. I wasn’t originally coming here
(Whitefish).”
Turns out, that stop over in Whitefish
might have changed the course of her life. That evening, the two
spent the day walking around town and through a bustling mid-summer
farmers market. They discussed the possibility of living in the
perfect ski town and how Whitefish could be that kind of place.
“I’m a mountain person, and I love how
Whitefish is surrounded by mountains but still is in a valley,”
Brooks said. “I’ve always wanted to live in a ski town. Growing up
in Seattle, we had to drive an hour to ski. I’ve always wanted
something right out my back door. I think the farmers market is
what really did it for me, though. That night, Whitefish just
seemed like such a great community.”
After sending her friend off on the
train that evening, she set up camp at Whitefish Lake State Park.
There, she called her family to check in and tell them about the
past week of her bike tour. Her father, Don Brooks, happened to be
browsing Nordic coaching jobs posted on fastskier.com and noticed
an opening at Glacier Nordic.
“The next day I went to the library and
looked up the job and set up an interview,” Brooks said. “Linda
Engh-Grady was able to meet me that afternoon. Then they invited me
to stay with her family.”
That weekend, Brooks helped put on the
club’s annual fundraising race up Big Mountain. She was
unofficially offered the coaching job before she pedaled west
toward Seattle.
BROOKS was raised on skis and the
passion for Nordic runs deep in her family.
“My parents put my siblings and me on
skis when we were two years old,” she said. “We have a cabin up on
Snoqualmie Pass that you have to ski into, and as little kids,
that’s what we did every weekend in the winter. Then as we got
older, my dad wanted us to have others to ski and train with, so he
coached all of us.”
Of the five kids on the ski team, four
of them were part of the Brooks family. Racing in the Pacific
Northwest division, Brooks went to Junior Nationals five times.
She and her sister, Holly Brooks,
eventually raced Nordic at the collegiate level. Robin skied for
St. Lawrence University in New York for four seasons in the
Division 1 Eastern Circuit. She was “competitive” her freshman and
senior seasons, she said. Her sophomore and junior years were spent
abroad, so her training regime was limited, but she always whipped
herself into good enough shape to make the squad.
Holly skied for Whitman College in
Walla Walla, Wash., and went on to make the U.S. Olympic team. Most
recently, she raced in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver,
Canada. She is currently a Nordic coach in Alaska.
THE SEVEN members of Glacier Nordic’s
competition team are already feeling the wrath of Brooks’ intense
training schedule. The team is practicing twice a day and focusing
on endurance and strength. Last week for their afternoon workout,
they skied from the high school to the top of Iron Horse on roller
skis.
Brooks says it’s important for racers
with lofty aspirations to put in the hard work now before the snow
flies.
“A bunch of the kids have really big
goals this year, and I want to help them achieve them,” she said.
“Stella Holt and Jack Steele want to make the Scandinavian Cup, so
I’ll be working those two really hard to get them ready.”
Whitefish seniors Holt and Steele both
competed at Junior Nationals last winter, and Holt already has a
national title under her belt as a J2 skier.
While the training will be tough,
Brooks hopes to help the young skiers from burning out on the
sport.
“You have to have a balance, and you
can’t just think about skiing,” she said. “Having these kids run
cross country and play soccer does hurt their skiing, but it’s fun
for them to be with their friends and play team sports. I think
it’s good to encourage other activities so they’re not too focused
on skiing.”
She says skiing is a lifestyle but one
that shouldn’t be completely dominated by training and racing.
“Particularly at a young age,” she
noted in her application letter. “Being on the ski team means being
part of a community, having fun while exercising and learning a
lifelong skill that encourages a healthy and balanced lifestyle. I
hope to help show young skiers the wealth of opportunity and
enjoyment that Nordic can provide.”
This year’s competition team includes
J1 racers Stella Holt, Jack Steele, Carl Talsma and Fischer
Gangemi, and J2 racers Henry Holt, Connor Gray and Madison
Grady.
Visit www.glaciernordicclub.com to
learn more about the team and how to join.