Those finks! USSA and USST, I mean. Just when it looked like I might be back into a good thing, i.e., another prolonged U.S. Ski Association shoot-out, which could be worth reports in a half-dozen issues of SAM, they played a dirty trick: they settled.
Each side had circulated a couple of anxiety-filled papers at the annual USSA huddle May 1-4 in Colorado Springs and, just when it looked like we could be in for a lengthy wrestling match, the two sides agreed to agree. Of course, that USSA-U.S. Recreational Ski Association debate started out smoothly in early May 1983, too, and that took more than a year to finally settle. But the USSA-USST situation seems well in hand. Both sides earnestly want to get on to the business of developing skiers.
At issue was management of the Ski Team. The USSA, as national governing body, has the responsibility for coordinating the development of ski racers from youngster to oldster. Inherently, that means the Ski Team. However, back in the early ’70s it became apparent that USSA wasn’t doing the job, so a separate organization, the nonprofit U.S. Ski Educational Foundation was given the go-ahead to run the team, i.e., to focus on the nation’s elite racers. In short, the USSEF took care of getting the best skiers to international races while USSA was focusing on domestic programs, including the national championships and even local races or series.
When his lord high czarness Peter Uebberoth did such a superb fund raising job last year at the LA Olympics that they came up with a $150-million surplus—a surplus, it might be noted, that was more than the entire budget for the Sarajevo Olympics—it meant the U.S. Olympic Committee had big bucks to distribute to the national governing bodies of each sport: an estimated $1.8-million apiece.
On the floor of the convention, though, Tom Weisel, chairman of the U.S. Ski Educational Foundation and a San Francisco stockbroker, defused the anxieties. He proposed creating a new board to run the Ski Team; it would be a nine-member board, complete with four members from USSEF, three from USSA and two athletes. It was similar to a proposal put forth a month earlier by Whitey Willauer, USSA president, and, essentially, it set the tone for harmony.
So, now we’ve got the Ski Team about to be run by a nine-member panel which pretty well covers the sport. The USSEF, Mike Harrigan, USST executive director, believes will become more of a fund raising body, which is fine because Harrigan has lined up 30-plus fund raising balls in the next few months in addition to other money projects.
“The board is a good move,” says the pipe-smoking Harrigan. “We’ve got a good dialogue going and this gives us an excellent opportunity to integrate the coordination of programs. We try to get the athletes to think in terms of teamwork and this managing group helps firm-up the teamwork aspect at a different level.”
So, that’s about it from the (briefly reactivated) USSA Watch offices. The lawyers are attempting to get it down in legal-but-legible wording. Not as dramatic as the USSA-USRSA fireworks, not as much finger-pointing and rock throwing, which might make it poor journalistic copy, but great for the sport . . . and I think we’ll also crack a smile for that.
And now that Killington is closed, it’s back to tuning my skis.
Pablo
