Each year there are individuals inducted either on their records as competitors, or as “sport builders.” Conceptually, there is nothing wrong with this. The trouble comes (doesn’t it always?) with the execution — with the machinery for selection. (We refer just to the sport builder category, having little knowledge of the ski competition scene.)
On paper, the procedural machinery looks sensible: a sequence involving nominations, screening by a competent committee with impeccable credentials, then voting and election. But in practice, we are seeing increased exploitation of the machinery to serve personal and business ends. The sports builder ranks of the Hall of Fame are in danger of being filled with people whose principal qualification for entry is their ability to orchestrate impressive support on behalf of their candidacies. It is tacky.
We would urge all involved in the selection process to apply the toughest of standards. Mere prominence should not be enough. Nor should longevity: people who have done their ski industry jobs long and well deserve rewards and compensations from their companies, but not necessarily induction into a body that should be recognizing the extraordinary, the seminal, the creative. It should be the architects and genius-touched artisans of sport-building who enter, not the developers and exploiters. The job is to select the creative pre-eminents from among the merely eminent or successful; the really creative builders from among the competent stewards; those who have earned stature from those who have just gained prominence.
The instincts of the screener should be exclusionary ones; screeners should be certifiable skeptics, ready to question a claim that may at best be based on a half-truth. It would not be unseemly for a screener to have a broad cynical streak, the better to wonder about the motivation of the candidate, to say nothing of the motivation of the endorsers who rush to support the candidacy.
Only the most compelling candidates should pass through the fine screen, and if that means fewer inductions, then so be it. We might suggest one technical criterion that could reduce the tack potential: candidates for sport builder admittance who are gainfully employed in the ski industry should be ineligible. This might cut down on induction as a commercial advantage. The determined would at least have to wait until retirement to collect their chits.
Maintain standards! The eye of the needle should not be easy to pass through.
