Skiing Heritage News

Ishpeming, Mich. -- Headed by the irrepressible Picabo Street, four new Honored Members were elected by the voting panel of the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame into the class of 2004. Two were women racers, Donna Weinbrecht and Picabo, both of them dominating their competitive specialities during their competitive careers -- Picabo the women's downhill and Donna women's moguls.

Of the two men elected, Thor Groswold, son of the Denver pioneer ski maker, is a sportsbuilder par excellence, who spent thousands of hours of volunteer time educating, by example and by written rules, the officialdom of the Rocky Mountain Division of the USSA, and who became a major factor in the success of Denver's Winter Park resort, and then became a force behind the successful of the newly established Colorado Ski Hall of Fame.

The second man, Alan Engen, was for 15 years the conceptual and practical driving force behind the establishment of the Alf Engen Ski Museum in Park City outside Salt Lake City and saw his effort crowned with success when the museum opened in Utah¹s Olympic Park a heartbeat after the successful Salt Lake 2002 Olympics. Alan has also written two outstanding coffee table books on the ski history of the Intermountain region.

The four will be inducted into the Hall in ceremonies to be held on Friday, January 28, 2005. The Board of Directors meeting is scheduled for Thursday, January 27th and the banquet will be on Saturday, January 29th.

Alan Engen

The year 2002 went down in contemporary accounts as the highly successful Salt Lake City Olympic Winter Games; it was also the year that skiing history will record as the opening of the Joe Quinney Winter Sports Center with its Alf Engen Ski Museum at Utah's Olympic Park. One of the most striking ski museums in the world, this 29,000-square-foot, $10-million, privately-funded museum just outside the winter resort of Park City was thrust into reality at the end of an untiring, ten-year quest by Alan K. Engen.

Alan Engen created the concept 15 years ago and presided over the Alf Engen Ski Museum Foundation until his recent retirement from the position.. His volunteer board spearheaded the project while Alan deftly directed the expertise, resources and enthusiasm of those who shared his vision. This very modern museum building is not only a memorial to Allen's father Alf, but the repository of memorabilia from the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, the Alf Engen artifact collection, the Professional Ski Instructors of America Ski Hall of Fame and the Intermountain Ski Hall of Fame.

The Alf Engen Museum sheds luster on a long list of Alan's previous significant accomplishments. He has become the ranking ski historian in the Intermountain region, authoring For the Love of Skiing: A Visual History, an overview of U.S. ski sports from "its baggy-pants founding through the 2002 Olympic Winter Games and beyond," centered on the experiences of his father, Alf Engen, who was world ski jumping record holder and ski school director at Alta for forty years. The book contains some 150 vintage photographs.

Alan also authored First Tracks: A Century of Skiing Utah, an elegant coffee table book tracing the sport's beginnings in the state during the late 1800s through the 1980s. More than 430 vintage photographs and images grace this excellent record of Utah's skiing legacy.

Alan is chair and president of the Alta Historical Society, a former board member of the International Skiing History Association, charter advisory board member of the University of Utah Marriott Library's Ski Archives. He is the current Director of Skiing at Alta and has been a ski school director and instructor for more than 40 years, introducing skiing to thousands.

His roles as a ski historian, museum director, ski school director and instructor were preceded by a lively career as one of the last outstanding American four-event competitors.

Thor Groswold

Thor Brandt Groswold was born in 1928, the oldest son of Thor C. Groswold, founder of the Groswold Ski Company in Denver. Thor 's lifelong involvement advanced the sport of skiing in Colorado and across the nation.

He ran his first downhill race on Berthoud Pass at the age of nine and competed throughout his high school years for the Ski Club Zipfelberger. Through his father, he attended many of the early historic events in Colorado skiing. In 1936, he joined his father on a trip to the Highlands Bavarian Lodge near Ashcroft, Colorado, where Andre Roch and others began what would ultimately become in other hands the ski resort of Aspen. In 1939, at eleven, Thor attended openings of Pioneer ski area and the first chairlift in Colorado.

His began his serious competitive career skiing for Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado in 1947. For four years, he was among the region's leading four-way competitors. After graduating, he served in the U.S. Air Force as a survival instructor, then entered the University of Colorado, School of Engineering and graduated in 1957 as a mechanical engineer.

On his return to Denver, he became-and remains-a mainstay of organized skiing in Colorado and the Rocky Mountain Division. In 1957, he joined the Board of the Certified Ski Officials Association, an organization responsible for qualifying and supervising ski competition officials. He was named Treasurer in 1958 and Chairman in 1959. He co-authored the nation's first timing manual, and became a certified referee, chief timer and jumping judge. He conducted clinics and examinations that dramatically improved the quality of officiating at meets.

Thor's home area was the Winter Park Resort, where at first he was actively involved in virtually every competitive event held there, including a number of national championships. By the early 1970's, Winter Park had hosted more National Championships-Junior, National Intercollegiate, and Alpine-than any other area in the U.S. and Winter Park's reputation as a host of competitive events rose extremely high and remains so today in part due to Thor's oversight of its standards of excellence.

He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Rocky Mountain Ski Association from 1972 to 1975, fostering the organization from its earlier days on. He ran the Winter Park Ski Jumping Program from 1967 to 1985, teaching youngsters the sport of ski jumping in a program that provided free instruction and coaching-and produced National, World Cup and Olympic Team Nordic specialists, including the following:

U.S. Ski Team Olympians: Landis Arnold, Greg Boester, Ryan Heckman, Bob Holme, Dave Jarrett, Todd Wilson, Todd Lodwick, Kerry Lynch, Dennis McGrane;

U.S. Ski Team members: Scott Clayton, Steve Gaskill, Dan Keenan, Ethan McGraw, Todd Scholl, Wes Palmer, Jack Turner, Zane Palmer, Carey Thompson, Ethan McGraw.

In addition, he inspired the following Nordic competitors to become coaches and national officials:

Steve Gaskill, National Nordic Team Coach Todd Wilson, Head of the Steamboat Springs Nordic Program Greg Boester, Coach and USST Foundation Trustee Chuck Heckert, formerly with Utah Sports Park and FIS Judge Alan Johnson USST Coach Greg Poirier, USST Coach Crosby Perry-Smith, U.S. University Games Coach

Thor first reached the national stage as a USSA jumping judge in 1967 and then remained as a Technical Delegate for many years. He was named to the USSA Jumping Committee; the Junior Nordic Committee; the USSA Ski Jump Engineering Committee; and Jumping Judges' Committee. His work had such merit he rose to international stature as Chief of Alpine Calculations at the 1960 Squaw Valley Olympics. And at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics where he was named Chief Steward for ski jumping.

Thor joined the Winter Park Resort fulltime staff as Finance Manager for the Mary Jane expansion in 1974 and coordinated the largest single ski area expansion undertaken to that point in the United States. That project was completed on time and under budget in December of 1975 and Thor continued as Vice President-Finance and finally as Senior Vice President. He was active in national ski industry affairs for many years and served as a member of the National Ski Areas Association's Economic Study Committee until his retirement in 1987.

In 1981, he joined the Colorado Ski Museum and Ski Hall of Fame as a volunteer helping plan displays and raise funds.. Named Chairman from 1983 to 2004 of the museum's Operation and Collections Facilities and oversaw renovation of exhibits that was completed in 1986 He planned the two-year project for relocation of museum to present site, completed in 1991. He developed a five-year exhibit plan for the museum.

He next served as the museum's Treasurer and Vice President and was heavily involved in the design and construction of the renowned Spirit of America's Champions exhibit featured during the 1999 World Championships and the next season displayed at the Joe Quinny building during the 2002 Olympic games in Utah. He has served as Chairman of the museum's Hall of Fame Nominations Review Committee and rewrote the rules for election to the Hall.

He wrote the museum's Collection and Collection Registration and Documentation manual. He was the primary moving force behind the development of the Colorado Ski Museum Resource Center recently opened in Golden. He investigated several possible locations, inventoried all of the artifacts in storage, obtained the lease of and relocated artifacts to the Resource Center space at 13401 W. 43rd Drive in Golden, and then held orientation meetings for the Resource Center volunteers and began the process of cataloging the artifacts as computer data. This unique facility provides storage and working space that will eventually make accessible an enormous collection of the Museum's artifacts and research materials and will serve as a model for future development of other museums.

The Rocky Mountain Ski Association awarded Thor its highest honor, giving him the 1973 Halstead Memorial Trophy. In 1991, he was elected to the Colorado Ski Hall of Fame. The rise of skiing in the Rocky Mountains and in the nation in general and the rise to excellence of the Colorado Ski Museum in particular could hardly have progressed nearly as quickly through their difficult early years without Thor Groswold's leadership, inspiration, dedication and selfless service.

Picabo Street

On the U.S. Ski Team, she was "The Franchise." Picabo Street was one member in the 1990s very likely to give an electrifying performance. She is much more than the popular media's take on her-a cute nickname, "Peekaboo" and a set of fast freckles. She was so fast, it was a joke going around that "Picabo could've finished 1-2-3." She ruled women's World Cup downhill in the mid-1990s and rode an epic determination to win nine World Cups, and two World Cup season titles together with a fistful of Olympic and world championship medals.

Picabo Street had a "need for speed" and a fearless, unquenchable affinity for challenge, Her secret weapon she used to call "my tiger," an internal fire that fueled her gotta-be-first intensity, raising determination to an art form. She won in good snow, she won in bad snow, she won on glider courses and she won on steep downhills.

She was born in the town that parents Stub and Dee fell in love with- a tiny village near Sun Valley: Triumph. Idaho-a good omen for Picabo who was to become the most triumphant downhiller in U.S. history, male or female.

Born on April 3, 1971, with one older brother, she changed her first name for her first passport to match the name of an Indian tribe in southern Idaho whose word "Picabo" meant "Shining waters." The family grew crops and raised animals for a living. Money was not plentiful. The family practiced "integrity with simplicity," and Picabo grew up independent, self-reliant, and knowing the value of hard work. She was not your average little lady. She grew up the only girl competing with seven boys in Triumph-shooting BB-guns, playing tackle football and racing her bike in motocross. When her high school put skiing in its curriculum, it lit a fire. "Man, then it was cool-I always wanted to beat all the guys," she says, giving her wide trademark grin.

Picabo started skiing at five, cruising down here driveway, snowplowing to slow down-on a pair of used K2s. By seven, she was keeping up with her father on Sun Valley's Mt. Baldy and was accepted in the Sun Valley Ski Educational Foundation's racing program. At ten, she began dreaming of winning an Olympic downhill. At 11, she won every junior race she entered but one. At 14, she went to the 1985 U.S. Junior Olympics in Alyeska, Alaska, where she won the downhill, the super-G and the overall. At 15, she was allowed to race in the Nor Am series. In 1986, she was picked for the national development team and thereafter, regardless of several major injuries, she was on the U.S Ski Team for 14 years.

She won the 1988 Junior Olympics, winning the super-G and downhill and taking third in slalom. She finished in the top 30 at her first World Cup at Aspen. Promoted to the C team, she finished 24th in the 1989 World Cup downhill at Steamboat but picked up her first injury, tearing the anterior cruciate ligament-the pernicious ACL injury-in her left knee in the super-G. She took a year off for recovery. She won the overall Nor Am title in 1991 and then in 1992.

She broke through to international success after the World Cup at Cortina d'Ampezzo in January 1993. Weather had forced the FIS to add a second weekend of racing. "We had an extra week on this tough mountain, and Ernie [U.S. coach Ernst Hager] helped me overcome my fear and showed me how to get that fastest line," she recalled. She grabbed her first top-10 finish at Cortina.

A couple of weeks later, Street collected her first medal, posting the fastest downhill time in the 1993 FIS World Championship at Skizukuishi, Japan. By season's end, she had added her first World Cup race podium, finishing second at Kvitfjell, Lillehammer, Norway. She was off on her "parade of podiums."

In 1994, she won her first Olympic medal, the downhill silver at Lillehammer, Norway; and in 1995, her first World Cup season title, the downhill championship, with six wins, and so took home her first Crystal Globe. She was the first American to win the World Cup overall downhill title. In 1996, she became Women's FIS World Downhill Champion for the first time, taking a super-G bronze as well. In 1996, she took her second World Cup ocerall downhill title with three wins.

In 1997, during the second World Cup downhill of the season, Street crashed during a training run; she sat up, clutching her right knee. She had torn knee ligaments again. It was just 14 months before the 1998 Olympics at Nagano. She was out for the 1997 season but in 1998 rebounded in Picabo fashion. She and Head Coach Herwig Demschar decided Nagano's super-G course was more of a downhill run than a super-G-she climbed onto the same skis she had won the Olympic downhill gold four years previously and proceeded to win the 1998 Olympic super-G by the closest margin in Olympic history, just one-hundredth of a second.

A month later, on a Friday the 13th, Street crashed in the downhill at the 1998 World Cup finals. It looked like a routine crash but turned out to be a horrendous mishap. She tore her ACL in the right knee and broke her left femur in a number of places, injuries that sidelined her for two seasons. Returning to racing for the 2001 season, Street worked to regain her form, and to complete her career at the 2002 Utah Olympics.

Picabo was chosen for the honor guard that carried in the American flag that had flown over the N.Y. Trade Center and carried the torch in the stadium that lit the caldron opening the 2002 Utah Olympics. But at the downhill in Snowbasin, when the weather forced a one-day delay, it knocked out her final medal chance. She was rescheduled from the No. 2 start to No. 26 and finished 16th. "I have no regrets, no complaints. It would've been nice to go out with a medal," Street said, "but it's been a great ride."

Since her retirement, Picabo has been a spokesperson for NASTAR and Ski Ambassador for Park City. She appeared on numerous television shows, including Sesame Street and CBS Sports. Picabo dedicates time and energy to her newly established nonprofit foundation,"Picabo's Street of Dreams," which she established for the benefit underprivileged youth. She became a relentless ambassador for skiing, equally at home dealing with admiring kids or adoring crowds. Picabo's autobiography was published in 2002, characteristically titled: Picabo--Nothing to Hide.

Picabo Street has climbed heights of accomplishment unmatched in some ways by any other American, male or female. She has brought rich media exposure to herself, her team and the sport, clearly cutting a sizeable swath in the history of American ski racing with a shining record all her own.

Donna Weinbrecht

There were no bases in worldwide moguls competition that Donna Weinbrecht didn't touch during her travels on the international championship circuit where, time and again, she defined "champion" during her 14-year stretch on the U.S. Freestyle Ski Team. This consyitutes, incidentally one of the longer stretches as a team member in any discipline. Donna was tough, she was good and she had exceptional perseverance. In a discipline, moguls, where injuries are all too prevalent, she lost only one year to convalescence in all that time. Except for that year, she was out there banging through the bumps to the point that Weinbrecht and moguls were thought of as synonymous phenomena.

In spite of the fact that she dominated the moguls competitions in the mid-1990s, she started out as anything but a freestyle junior hopeful. Far from it. Her route to the moguls was roundabout. She had skied since she was seven but not in any serious way. Moguls were for fun not a career. Her goals were to be a fashion designer and simultaneously to become a competitive figure skater. But as she grew up in the late 1970s and early 1980s in West Milford, New Jersey, eventually figure skating got too expensive.

Then her design school folded. That left her with skiing as a route to excellence, a route her strongly competitive mature was always seeking in one form or another. So she decided to get serious about skiing. She spent the winter of 1985 at the family's vacation home near Killington, Vermont and found herself entranced watching the freestylers tackle the bumps and decided to try it herself.

In her quiet but naturally confident way, she taught herself how to run the moguls "by watching the guys." She watched well enough so that she was soon taking local and then regional mogul competitions. Finally she qualified for the U.S. championships in 1986 and 1987. In 1988, she was picked for the U.S. Freestyle Ski Team. At her third shot at the U.S. championships that year-the event was held just down the road at Stratton Mountain -she concluded her rookie season on the team by winning the national women's mogul title. A good start.

The next season, her first in international competition, she was 1989 overall runner-up on the World Cup Grand Prix (as the World Cup tour was called). The coaches on the tour picked her as 1989 Rookie of the Year. Park Smalley, then national head freestyle coach-Weinbrecht's first official mentor-recalls that "Donna's refrain was always, 'If the guys can do it, why can't I?'" As Smalley said, "Donna ignores the women; she doesn't watch them. 'D' patterns everything after what the guys are doing and how they do it."

Something worked for her. It was probably equal parts talent, determination and opportunity-she almost never bungled an opportunity. Smalley says, "There's nobody like Donna on the tour. Not even close." Until she tore her right ACL before the 1993 season, Weinbrecht, with her signature blonde ponytail, was the yardstick by which women mogul competitors measured themselves.

A look at her winning record yields quite a road map to the peak of moguls world. She was the first Olympic moguls women's champion,, once World Champioship gold medalist and twice World Championship silver medallist, five-times World Cup moguls overall champ. She had a lifetime record of 46 World Cup wins. She was seven-times U.S. champ. Not bad for an ex-figure skater.

JOURNAL OF ISHA, THE INTERNATIONAL SKIING HISTORY ASSOCIATION
The International Skiing History Association is a not-for-profit corporation, whose mission is to preserve and advance the knowledge of ski history and to increase public awareness of the sport's heritage.

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