The College on the Hill

Though Sochi might be over 5,000 miles from our home here in Vermont, Middlebury’s connection to the home of this year’s Winter Olympics may not be as far as you think. Since the 1940s, the College’s Snow Bowl and Rikert Center have produced some of the nation’s most impressive nordic and alpine skiers. This year, the College has five alumni at the Olympics: Nordic ski racer Simeon “Simi” Hamilton ’08, men’s US Alpine Ski Team coach Forest Carey ’00, US Nordic Ski Team coach Matt Whitcomb ’01, women’s US Alpine Ski Team trainer Brie Pike Sprenger ’04, and US Alpine Ski Team strength and conditioning coach Bobby Poehler ’10. We even have an Olympian in our midst, alpine skier Yina Moe-Lange ’15 who went to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics! This week, the Campus caught up with some of these talented athletes and other former Olympians from the College to learn about their journeys from tiny Middlebury to the premier world stage of athletics.

Dorcas Wonsavage '87-- Nordic Skiing

Wonsavage ’87 has competed in three Olympic Games: Calgary in ’88, Albertville in ’92 and Lillehammer in ’94. From Hanover, New Hampshire, she began Cross-Country skiing in her senior year of high school. “Give the world your best that you have and the best will come back to you,” she recalled the quote she lived by. “I had parents who always told me ‘we don’t care what grades you get, we just want you to learn what you want to learn.’ It wasn’t about results or grades—and it was so liberating and that created a vacuum where I didn’t have huge expectations set upon me. But I wanted to prove them wrong.”

Even while directing her attention to passion rather than tallied victories, she delivers real results: She ranked 8 in Calgary ’88 women’s 4x5 kilometers relay race. Her best result was a 24th place in the women’s 20km skate race at Calgary—the top result of any U.S. or Canadian Cross-Country skier.

However, Wonsavage’s favorite Olympic Games by far was held in Lillehammer, Norway. “By the 1992 Olympic Games in [Albertville,] France, we were in a country where women, winter and sports like Cross-Country skiing were not highly valued. It was a tough two weeks!” she said. “But in Lillehammer (’94), where the entire country embraces winter sports. My husband would be leaving Storgatta at midnight to head to his house by the ski jumps and ski trails, and people were hiking up with huge backpacks to camp out and save a place by the trail so they could cheer on their country. In the middle of the trail system, fans had built a tent city where they stayed for the entire two weeks. We’d ski by during training and they’d invite us in for some aquavit! Families were completely at home outside in the snow. After the races, we’d see parents cut snow benches and tables, start a fire and roast hotdogs and marshmallows for their kids. We were from a country where our sport was overshadowed by the ball sports; but in Norway even when we finished in the second page of the results, they’d cheer us on by name.”

Wonsavage now lives in New Hampshire with her husband, Paul, and son, Max. Twenty years after the Lillehammer Olympics, she is still taking on new challenges, going back to school to get her masters in Education - Teaching of Writing. and never forgetting her Middlebury teammates, professors and coaches who constantly challenged her and made the journey fun. “I had my best results in my first Olympics, when I had no expectations and skied just to do my very best. I try to bring that same combination of humility and a sense of humor to everything I do. I love accomplishing something that no one expected me to do.”

Gordon Eaton '62-- Alpine Skiing

“I guess I just like going fast,” said Olympian Gordon Eaton ’62, of why he enjoyed competing in downhill alpine skiing, which is the fastest and therefore most dangerous alpine Olympic event. Eaton spent seven years as a student at Middlebury College because every other year he would take off to ski race on the world circuit. His experience skiing at the College was immensely defined by another Olympian: US Olympic Ski Team coach (Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy ’56) and Middlebury ski coach Robert “Bobo” Sheehan, whom Eaton describes as the best race day coach he ever had.

“We were always prepared, always eager, always fired up,” remembers Eaton, “and a lot of it had to do with Bobo’s character and personality. Everybody liked skiing for Bobo.”

Eaton’s hard work on and off the snow landed him a spot on the US Ski Team for the 1960 and 1964 Winter Olympics. In 1960 in Squaw Valley, Calif., he placed 17th in the downhill event, having the second best time of the American competitors. In 1964 in Innsbruck, Austria, he did not race due to injury. The experience of being unable to compete was disappointing to Eaton, but as he said, “You go into this understanding that there are gonna be bumps and bruises along the way, so it’s all part of the deal.”

Luckily, Eaton had the opportunity to return to the Olympics in 1968 in Grenoble, France; this time as a men’s coach of the US Ski Team. After his Olympic experience, Eaton coached the Alpine ski team at the College from 1975-1978. Today, he lives in Middlebury and owns a restaurant, sells ski clothing to ski vendors and participates in ski design with K2. In his free time, Eaton still likes to ski at his old training hill, the Middlebury College Snow Bowl, and will sometimes meet up with his college racing buddies. “Going to the Olympics was awesome,” said Eaton, “but it’s the journey and the people along the way that still have real meaning to you [years later].

John Bower '63-- Nordic Skiing

John Bower, a native of Auburn, Maine, graduated from Middlebury in 1963 and went on the following year to make the US team for the Nordic combined event (a combination of ski jumping and Cross-Country ski racing) for the Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria. Bower said he was “awestruck” at the ’64 Olympics. The high pressure of the games interfered with his ability to ski at his greatest potential, and he placed 15th. Returning home, he put his “heart and soul into training” for the next three years. In 1968, he returned to Middlebury as the head ski coach, but was given the winter off to compete again in Nordic combined in the ’68 Olympics in Grenoble, FR. He hoped that his further experience at maintaining composure under pressure would help him perform better in his second Olympics, but he was still “trying too hard to win”, and placed 13th.

Only one month later, however, Bower competed in the King’s Cup in Norway against the same field of athletes. In this final competition of his career, he became the first non-European to win the cup. In Norway, Bower “figured out how to relax” and enjoy racing in a way that he had never managed to in the Olympics. As the champion, Bower met the king of Norway, who was “very congratulatory” and put Bower on his list of requested guests for a state dinner in the king’s honor at the White House. Bower described the black tie affair as “one of the most intimidating experiences of my athletic career. It’s a whole different level of social interaction.”

Bower returned to Middlebury to coach fall Cross-Country, winter Nordic skiing and spring Track for seven years. He saw several of his skiers go on to make Olympic teams, including Joe McNulty ’72. “There are a lot of distractions at Middlebury,” Bower admits, and it is the students that make sacrifices to stay focused and disciplined who are generally successful. Bower went on to serve as the Nordic team leader for the 1976, 1980, and 1992 Olympic Games, and to work as the Nordic program director for the US ski team in Park City, Utah. He is now retired and lives in Moab, Utah with his wife, Bonnie.

Yina Moe-Lange '15-- Alpine Skiing

From an early age, Yina Moe-Lange ’15 proved herself one of the best female skiers in Denmark, but she had not expected to meet the Danish Ski Federation’s qualifications. Her success in many competitions leading up to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics had distinguished her among her compatriots, and she was chosen to represent Denmark for the women’s alpine team.

“The Olympics were absolutely terrifying and exhilarating at the same time,” Moe-Lange said. The size and significance of the Games intimidated her, but did not affect her performance.

“While I probably could have skied a bit faster, I was extremely happy since I had made it down and had accomplished what most people only dream of doing,” she said. For her, the point was the surreality of the experience and the memories she made at the Games.

Now, Moe-Lange is competing for the Middlebury Alpine Ski Team, and the league in which the College competes “is about as competitive as you can get without becoming professional,” she said.

Balancing school and skiing is always a tricky maneuver, especially for Moe-Lange, who remains determined to devote one hundred percent into academics and athletics alike.

“The hardest part of it is having to complete everything you want to do while also doing a good job on everything, since both parts are so important,” she said.

But Moe-Lange is still thankful to be a Panther. She credits the College with teaching her the “magic of time management” and allowing her to converge the important things in her life. Her team, which she describes as a family, has allowed her to improve her skiing while simultaneously “bring[ing] out the best athlete in everyone.”

At this point, Moe-Lange has no concrete future plans beyond finishing her final year as a Panther and then taking a year off before “entering the real world to continue pursuing the dream.”

Simi Hamilton '08-- Nordic Skiing

Middlebury’s only athlete competing in the 2014 Winter Olympics is Nordic skier, Simi Hamilton ’08.  A native of Aspen, CO, Hamilton began skiing at the young age of two and his current sport, Cross-Country skiing, at thirteen. Before coming to the College, Hamilton collected an impressive nine Junior National titles and three Colorado high school crowns. As a competitor on the College’s Nordic team, Simi added three All-American honors to his resume and went to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics during his senior year where he competed in the 4x10km Relay, Sprint Classic and 15km Free. Since 2010, Hamilton was been a consistent scorer on the World Cup circuit, placing as high as seventh and earning him a spot on the 2014 US Nordic Ski Team. In Sochi, Hamilton placed 21st in the Men’s Sprint Free on February 11 and 11th in Men’s 4x10km Relay on February 16.

“Everyone who’s reading this has probably had that experience at some point in their life of really wanting to do things over again,” commented Hamilton about his 11th place finish on his blog. “That’s pretty much where I’m at with how the sprint turned out. But what I’ve realized in the last few days since the race, is that I do get to do it over again, because there are going to be SO many more races—Olympic races, World Cup races, World Championship races—ahead of me in the future.”

For now, Simi gets to enjoy the privilege of being in the company of the best athletes in the world. He said on his blog of the experience, “to be part of a larger team—not just an American team but a World team—is the most awesome feeling that exists, I’m pretty sure.”

Chris Waddell '87-- Alpine Skiing

Waddell came to Middlebury in the winter of 1988 as a Feb and a promising member of the ski team. But on December 20 of the same year, Waddell suffered a skiing accident that paralyzed him from the waist down. After two months in the hospital, Waddell came back to campus. Though the College had never been home to anyone in a wheelchair, “they made everything wheelchair accessible,” Waddell said, lauding the community’s support and compassion.

Shortly after his accident, Waddell’s friends and teammates bought him his first Monoski, which is made up of a molded seat bound to an ordinary alpine ski. For the next three years, he stayed on the team, becoming captain as a senior.

“It was kind of like being a disembodied head,” Waddell said, laughing, of the transition from standing skis to the monoski. “My mind knew what I was supposed to do, and my body had no ability whatsoever to obey any of the instruction from my mind.”

But after just one week, Waddell was making it from mountaintop to the bottom without falling. His training mirrored that of the rest of the ski team, though he jokes, “Mine was more about trying not to kill myself, whereas they were trying to go fast…It really took me about three years to feel like I was actually good.”

But Waddell greatly underplays his achievements. In May of 1991, just two and a half years after his accident, Waddell made the US Olympic Disabled Team. After graduating in February of 1992, Waddell became a full-time athlete, competing in the Paralympics in Albertville, France.

Winning silver medals in both his events, Slalom and Giant Slalom, in Albertville, Waddell launched in on what he calls his “breakthrough year”. “Tthe year where I felt like I got good, and actually became the best Monoskier in the world, which was pretty cool,” he said nonchalantly.

In the 1994 Lillehammer, Norway Games, Waddell won all four races he entered – Slalom, Giant Slalom, Super G and Downhill.

Lillehammer remains the most significant Games in Waddell’s career because he beat all the other monoskiers–not just those at his level of sensation. Monoskiing is divided into levels based on what vertebrae the athlete has broken and the corresponding degrees of sensation retained. Waddell skies at a higher level of injury, with sensation starting at his belly button. He lacks a great amount of core strength compared to other monoskiers, some of whom still maintain walking abilities. Therefore, rising to the top of the monoskiing heap, in Lillehammer meant more to Waddell than his medal count.

But Waddell’s athleticism did not confine him to winter sports; his talent in wheelchair racing, a component of his dryland training, allowed him to compete in three summer Games as well. Waddell’s wheelhouse was massive, encompassing six events: the 100, 200, 400 and 800 meters, as well as the 4x100 and 4x400 relays. Waddell competed in the 1996 Atlanta Games, won the silver in the 200 meters in the 2000 Sydney Games, and appeared in the 2004 Games in Athens, Greece. His success in wheelchair racing has made Waddell one of the few athletes who have won World Championship competitions in winter and summer.

Since retiring his ski, Waddell has developed an organization called One Revolution, whose mission is to “turn perception of disability upside down,” he said.

“The definition of ‘disability’ is that you’re effectively something less,” Waddell said. In an attempt to overturn this conventional understanding of the term and to spread One Revolution’s message, Waddell climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in a hand cycle in 2009, aiming to become the first paraplegic to climb the peak.

But the trip went differently than he planned. Obstructed by one rocky outcropping, Waddell was disappointed that his team had to carry him 100 feet to a steadier place. Looking back, he believes the obstacle was rather a blessing, as it shattered the superheroic image that had shadowed him since leaving the hospital in Middlebury.

“A superhero never has a bad day, so [that image] didn’t allow me to be real,” Waddell said. “Not making it that hundred feet was actually the most liberating thing; in some ways, I failed, but it was also the greatest gift because it allowed me to distance myself from the superman doppelganger.”