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NCAA alpine skiing it not a fair level of competition.

Mark1975

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Didn't they say the equivalent about Hermann Maier?
Yes, the Austrian team overlooked him at a younger age. He worked hard, made the team, and became a legend. He is a very rare exception for that to work out the way it did. It helped he was able to train in Austria. Honestly, the way US racing is set up, it would even be more rare to happen here.
 

robertc3

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As a long time club (part-time) not a ski academy coach, I am a huge fan of collegiate ski racing whether it's NCAA or USCSA. Over the years I have had kids race at both levels, although the majority of them compete at the USCSA level as that conference is growing while NCAA skiing continues to shrink, with some schools teetering on the edge due to funding challenges. NCAA skiing only has a total of 22 schools competing between the East and West. In SR Media today the first page announces "UVM Catamounts Dominate New Hampshire Carnival". On the EISA circuit UVM has traditionally been the Alabama of eastern skiing. However it's hardly a fair competition when UVM has nearly all their skiers in the first and second seeds of every carnival. So for the men's GS UVM had bibs 7,1,33,20,27, & 34 and the women's bibs were 9, 23,7,6, & 36. I couldn't find the 6th female skier from UVM on the results sheet. I realize this is FIS skiing but in this case it's kind of like Alabama is playing Florida Atlantic in football, but the Crimson Tide gets to receive kick-off every three out of four times. Again I love college ski racing, but it makes you wonder what is wrong with NCAA alpine skiing???
If the fairness issue is just about bibs, which depends significantly on your perception of the increasing trend in many sports to recruit internationally, there is an easy solution. If there are 10 teams at a carnival each team's #1 skier is put into a blind draw for spots 1-10. Each team's #2 skier is put into another draw for 11-20, #3 for 21-30 and so on. I don't think that is going to make a huge difference in the results, but it would take away one small advantage of having a very deep team. I have no doubt that if UVM's #4 skier is better than some other school's #1 skier the UVM skier will overcome the higher bib number. Maybe not if they are only a couple of points lower, but starting position isn't going to allow an 75 point skier to beat a 35 point skier.

The issue of international athletes in the NCAA isn't limited to skiing. You see it in lots of sports. I have a friend who a European junior champion in swimming who came to the US to swim in college. The rosters of all of the top rowing programs are littered with international athletes, same in golf, tennis, track and field, even sports like volleyball, basketball, soccer, and softball have significant numbers of international players. The only sports where you almost never see internationals in the NCAA are women's gymnastics (because the athletes peak in their late teens and have basically no post-college gymnastics career path), and football (which is just not played anywhere else in sufficient numbers). Short of an NCAA limit on the number of international players I don't see this stopping. Basically, if there is a pathway to professional leagues or national teams that good training and a free education can help there will be international student-athletes vying for those spots.
 

Zirbl

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What do the colleges get out of fielding foreign post-grads? Is there prize money or funding at stake?
 

Mark1975

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What do the colleges get out of fielding foreign post-grads? Is there prize money or funding at stake?
There is no real money in ski racing in the U.S. At any level.

There is no prestige for colleges with ski racing programs. Nobody in the U.S. cares. At the college level it is all about American football or basketball. Maybe hockey in some areas. For the rest of college sports, the general population doesn't care about them. The average recreational skier would be surprised to learn there is even such a thing as college ski racing. To put it into perspective, Penn State makes $200 to $300 million a year off their football program alone. The Big 10 football conference, in which Penn State is a member, just signed a $7 billion dollar TV contract to broadcast their football games.

The only thing in for winning is NCAA college ski coaches get to keep their job for next season if they have a winning program. It justifies their expense to the accountants. Basically it is the coach's ego to win. So, you have a number of NCAA coaches trying to piss on each other and will do anything to get good European talent, but not good enough to get on European national teams, to race for them.

What is it for the college/university? Foreign country government pays full cost for "students" to come to the U.S. Big profits for the university on foreign students. In return, foreign students get degree for a career (if they do not improve enough in racing to get on their national team), plus they get more training/racing experience. USST doesn't really care since they have their own pipeline from the ski academies.

When you think about it, NCAA ski racing is a messed up system that only a small number people in the entire U.S. care about.
 

S.H.

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If the fairness issue is just about bibs, which depends significantly on your perception of the increasing trend in many sports to recruit internationally, there is an easy solution. If there are 10 teams at a carnival each team's #1 skier is put into a blind draw for spots 1-10. Each team's #2 skier is put into another draw for 11-20, #3 for 21-30 and so on. I don't think that is going to make a huge difference in the results, but it would take away one small advantage of having a very deep team. I have no doubt that if UVM's #4 skier is better than some other school's #1 skier the UVM skier will overcome the higher bib number. Maybe not if they are only a couple of points lower, but starting position isn't going to allow an 75 point skier to beat a 35 point skier.

The issue of international athletes in the NCAA isn't limited to skiing. You see it in lots of sports. I have a friend who a European junior champion in swimming who came to the US to swim in college. The rosters of all of the top rowing programs are littered with international athletes, same in golf, tennis, track and field, even sports like volleyball, basketball, soccer, and softball have significant numbers of international players. The only sports where you almost never see internationals in the NCAA are women's gymnastics (because the athletes peak in their late teens and have basically no post-college gymnastics career path), and football (which is just not played anywhere else in sufficient numbers). Short of an NCAA limit on the number of international players I don't see this stopping. Basically, if there is a pathway to professional leagues or national teams that good training and a free education can help there will be international student-athletes vying for those spots.

I'm pretty sure (at least in EISA) the top 30 bibs are awarded based on points from carnival results--top 15 are drawn randomly, and then 16-30, and bibs 31+ are assigned based on FIS points. They're going to have a tough time doing the above if NCAA races are going to be FIS races. If NCAA races are no longer FIS races, then recruiting will be difficult. There are FIS-U start lists on the EISA website, akin to the WCSL. That seems fair.

Scholarships for skiing aren't really that plentiful, especially in the east. As long as NCAA allows skiers to be eligible until the age of 26, we're going to continue to see a lot of kids taking 2-3 PG years before "giving up" on the world cup dream and going to college, hoping to be the next Paula, Daver, Leif, Tanguy, etc.
 

BC.

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What do the colleges get out of fielding foreign post-grads? Is there prize money or funding at stake?Quality athletes that don’t count towards scholarship numbers and money.
High quality athletes that don’t count towards the teams scholarship #’s or money.
There is no real money in ski racing in the U.S. At any level.

There is no prestige for colleges with ski racing programs. Nobody in the U.S. cares. At the college level it is all about American football or basketball. Maybe hockey in some areas. For the rest of college sports, the general population doesn't care about them. The average recreational skier would be surprised to learn there is even such a thing as college ski racing. To put it into perspective, Penn State makes $200 to $300 million a year off their football program alone. The Big 10 football conference, in which Penn State is a member, just signed a $7 billion dollar TV contract to broadcast their football games.

The only thing in for winning is NCAA college ski coaches get to keep their job for next season if they have a winning program. It justifies their expense to the accountants. Basically it is the coach's ego to win. So, you have a number of NCAA coaches trying to piss on each other and will do anything to get good European talent, but not good enough to get on European national teams, to race for them.

What is it for the college/university? Foreign country government pays full cost for "students" to come to the U.S. Big profits for the university on foreign students. In return, foreign students get degree for a career (if they do not improve enough in racing to get on their national team), plus they get more training/racing experience. USST doesn't really care since they have their own pipeline from the ski academies.

When you think about it, NCAA ski racing is a messed up system that only a small number people in the entire U.S. care about.
cue in Metallica’s song “Sad But True”.….

FWIW…bringing in top high quality international student athletes is a trend, and not just happening in
NCAA skiing…..this is happening in other NCAA sports as well…hockey, swimming, soccer, field hockey, track, etc.
 
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TS
W

wolcoma

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I think readers of my post are missing the point. The entire reason colleges support individual sports like golf, track, tennis, and skiing is for TEAM competition. For example I had a friend who was a top track athlete at Princeton and made it all the way to the Olympic Trials. His two primary events were the long jump and sprints. I remember attending the indoor Heptagonal and he had to go through all the qualifying rounds like everyone else. In my opinion every team in NCAA should be given equal seeding for all their competitors, meaning racer one goes in the first seed, your second best racer goes in the second seed, etc. In NCAA skiing a few schools are stacking all their skiers in the first and second seeds, meanwhile the Colby Sawyers, St. Michael's, Plymouth, etc. are starting many of their racers in the back seeds. I don't think most of the athletic directors or NCAA administrators understand what is going on in college skiing? Again I want to see NCAA skiing grow, but if I was an AD where my racers are not even getting a fair starting number in a team competition, than why field an NCAA ski team???
 

Sibhusky

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I think readers of my post are missing the point. The entire reason colleges support individual sports like golf, track, tennis, and skiing is for TEAM competition. For example I had a friend who was a top track athlete at Princeton and made it all the way to the Olympic Trials. His two primary events were the long jump and sprints. I remember attending the indoor Heptagonal and he had to go through all the qualifying rounds like everyone else. In my opinion every team in NCAA should be given equal seeding for all their competitors, meaning racer one goes in the first seed, your second best racer goes in the second seed, etc. In NCAA skiing a few schools are stacking all their skiers in the first and second seeds, meanwhile the Colby Sawyers, St. Michael's, Plymouth, etc. are starting many of their racers in the back seeds. I don't think most of the athletic directors or NCAA administrators understand what is going on in college skiing? Again I want to see NCAA skiing grow, but if I was an AD where my racers are not even getting a fair starting number in a team competition, than why field an NCAA ski team???
I feel like you're saying really that you want to just eliminate seeding and just do luck of the draw because a few college have most of the best racers. But really, since the second run is reverse finish order from the first run isn't that start order being being compensated for already?
 

Average Joe

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I think readers of my post are missing the point. The entire reason colleges support individual sports like golf, track, tennis, and skiing is for TEAM competition. For example I had a friend who was a top track athlete at Princeton and made it all the way to the Olympic Trials. His two primary events were the long jump and sprints. I remember attending the indoor Heptagonal and he had to go through all the qualifying rounds like everyone else. In my opinion every team in NCAA should be given equal seeding for all their competitors, meaning racer one goes in the first seed, your second best racer goes in the second seed, etc. In NCAA skiing a few schools are stacking all their skiers in the first and second seeds, meanwhile the Colby Sawyers, St. Michael's, Plymouth, etc. are starting many of their racers in the back seeds. I don't think most of the athletic directors or NCAA administrators understand what is going on in college skiing? Again I want to see NCAA skiing grow, but if I was an AD where my racers are not even getting a fair starting number in a team competition, than why field an NCAA ski team???


If the majority of NCAA D1 schools are unhappy with having to follow the FIS-UNI subset of rules, they could petition the FIS to change the rules. But I doubt that the seeding format would be one of the changes.
 

wnyskier

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Carnival results.JPG


I guess if you want seeding by teams then that would be USCSA, which is a lower tier of racing, and that's fine. If you are making your case that the minnows such as SMC, CBC, PSU, etc don't get a fair shake in D1 skiing, I fail to see any evidence of that from the recent carnival result I picked at random.

If you think that no one cares about NCAA D1 in the East then you've probably not attended the UVM Winter Carnival. When I've attended there we more people at the finish than some WC races.

If you want to talk about the recent dramatic influx of Euros into the EISA ranks, and the displacement of young North Americans who have, in the past, used D1 as a stepping stone to WC (insert Smart, Nullmeyer, St Germain, Read, Mangan, Richardson, Moltzan and others I've missed), then we've got something to complain about.
 

fatbob

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I don't really understand the hypothesis that Euro skiers come to US colleges, pay big fees in order to race NCAA for no real prize? They can stay in school in Europe for way cheaper/ no fees and be closer to their national set ups if they have even a chance to be a contender.

It suggests to me there must be some scholarship $.


Though I imagine if your family has money its not a bad way to have sporting success and widen your prospects geogrphically for post racing.
 

Wilhelmson

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It’s the NCAA. Imagine a few 5th year basketball players decided to play college ball in Europe.
 

S.H.

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I don't really understand the hypothesis that Euro skiers come to US colleges, pay big fees in order to race NCAA for no real prize? They can stay in school in Europe for way cheaper/ no fees and be closer to their national set ups if they have even a chance to be a contender.

It suggests to me there must be some scholarship $.


Though I imagine if your family has money its not a bad way to have sporting success and widen your prospects geogrphically for post racing.
I dunno, there have been several Euros (mostly Norwegians, to be fair) jump from NCAA to world cup/ski both.
Leif (Nestvold-)Haugen (DU/NOR)
Jonathan Nordbotten (UVM/NOR)
Kristina Riis-Johannessen (UVM/NOR)
Tanguy Nef (DAR/SUI)
AJ Ginnis (DAR/GRE) - ok this is cheating

Europeans currently skiing NCAA with World Cup starts (some this year) ... not a comprehensive list, I'm sure:
Sara Rask (DU/SWE)
Filip Forejtek (CU/CZE)
Madison Hoffman (UU/AUS)
Kaja Norbye (UU/NOR)
Bjorn Brudevoll (UU/NOR)
Joachim Lindstoel (UVM/NOR)

Many more on rosters with hopes to make it to World Cup afterward. NCAA allows for fairly high-level skiing (and access to the NorAm circuit) while also getting an education, exploring other interests, etc. It's definitely an option for those Euros who are on the cusp of making it on world cup but haven't quite made it.
 

robertc3

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I dunno, there have been several Euros (mostly Norwegians, to be fair) jump from NCAA to world cup/ski both.
Leif (Nestvold-)Haugen (DU/NOR)
Jonathan Nordbotten (UVM/NOR)
Kristina Riis-Johannessen (UVM/NOR)
Tanguy Nef (DAR/SUI)
AJ Ginnis (DAR/GRE) - ok this is cheating

Europeans currently skiing NCAA with World Cup starts (some this year) ... not a comprehensive list, I'm sure:
Sara Rask (DU/SWE)
Filip Forejtek (CU/CZE)
Madison Hoffman (UU/AUS)
Kaja Norbye (UU/NOR)
Bjorn Brudevoll (UU/NOR)
Joachim Lindstoel (UVM/NOR)

Many more on rosters with hopes to make it to World Cup afterward. NCAA allows for fairly high-level skiing (and access to the NorAm circuit) while also getting an education, exploring other interests, etc. It's definitely an option for those Euros who are on the cusp of making it on world cup but haven't quite made it.

The notion of skiing in both the World Cup and the NCAA at the same time is problematic to me. It is really the only thing with which I have an issue regarding NCAA skiing. If you have a football, baseball, or basketball player they don't get to train with their university and make spot starts for an NFL, MLB, or NBA team. You can't do both by the rules of the NCAA. When you sign that MLB contract you are done playing NCAA baseball. While you are in school, the only thing you can do outside of NCAA sports is to play in an amateur collegiate league in the summer.

If you take away the option to compete in WC, EC, or NorAm races while in college I expect you will see the flow of Europeans dry up to a trickle. Sure, some US kids may now become permanent PG skiers if they think NCAA skiing will hold them back from making the ski team, but there will be others to take their places. The quality of the competition will go down. Not sure if that really matters.
 

S.H.

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The notion of skiing in both the World Cup and the NCAA at the same time is problematic to me. It is really the only thing with which I have an issue regarding NCAA skiing. If you have a football, baseball, or basketball player they don't get to train with their university and make spot starts for an NFL, MLB, or NBA team. You can't do both by the rules of the NCAA. When you sign that MLB contract you are done playing NCAA baseball. While you are in school, the only thing you can do outside of NCAA sports is to play in an amateur collegiate league in the summer.

If you take away the option to compete in WC, EC, or NorAm races while in college I expect you will see the flow of Europeans dry up to a trickle. Sure, some US kids may now become permanent PG skiers if they think NCAA skiing will hold them back from making the ski team, but there will be others to take their places. The quality of the competition will go down. Not sure if that really matters.
But they let NCAA golfers play in PGA Tour events (can't win prize money). NCAA tennis players get wild cards in to ATP/WTA events and sometimes majors. They can't win prize money.

If you take away the ability for NCAA skiers to race in NorAms ... all those top-tier schools will become USCSA schools instead so they can take their athletes to NorAms. It's not really "professional". I see no issue with NCAA athletes competing on the highest level as long as they're not accepting (major) prize money. $500 for winning a local FIS race? Sure, whatever.

I don't think there is an *NCAA* issue with a football/baseball/basketball player making spot starts in the NFL/MLB/NBA...it's a CBA issue for those leagues. The NCAA issue would be with payment. NCAA hockey players regularly take part in training/development camps with NHL teams (because many of them have already been drafted). NCAA goalies are frequently EBUGs for NHL teams.
 

James

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So, what do you think of the “starting spot” issue? That’s the crux of the argument.
I suppose you could have the top skier from each low ranked team lottery for maybe a 10-30 spot, if needed.

But people in the back are multiple seconds off the pace, even if they went first. I don’t see the op’s egregious fairness issue.
 

S.H.

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So, what do you think of the “starting spot” issue? That’s the crux of the argument.
I suppose you could have the top skier from each low ranked team lottery for maybe a 10-30 spot, if needed.

But people in the back are multiple seconds off the pace, even if they went first. I don’t see the op’s egregious fairness issue.
I think that running NCAA ski races like other high-level ski races is fine.
 

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