INSIDE THE LOCKER ROOM Garrott Kuzzy '06 explains his love for steak

Author: Tom McCann, Sports Editor

The Campus: When did you start skiing?

Garrott Kuzzy: I started skiing when I was four or five - alpine skiing - and then did that for fun till sixth grade when I started ski jumping. I ski-jumped for a year and my coach was a Nordic combined skier and so in seventh grade he got me to do some Nordic combined races. I liked the Nordic half so much that in eighth grade I went out for the high school cross country ski team and then skied cross country competitively in high school and then at Middlebury.

Campus: How did you get the nickname Kuzzy?

GK: It's my last name.

Campus: That's not what I've heard.

GK: [Laughs] It's a pretty good story actually, but I'm not sure if any of it's actually true. It's a story that got made up on a hiking trip during spring break my freshman year with a bunch of kids.

Campus: Are you going to elaborate?

GK: I don't think so. Let's just say it's my last name.

Campus: What's been you best skiing moment ever?

GK: It probably wouldn't be racing. It would be forerunning the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake. There's an overarching body for U.S. skiing and there's eight regions within it and because the U.S. hosted the 2002 Olympics they needed to have forerunners for the race to go out there and clear the trail before the Olympians go on. So they took the top male and female juniors from each of the eight regions of the country, so there were 16 of us, and paid for us to go out to Salt Lake City for a week during the Olympics and ski basically right in front of the athletes. That week was absolutely amazing. It was just gorgeous, perfect skiing. There was no pressure of having to race - just being out there enjoying the culture of the Olympics.

Campus: How far ahead of the athletes were you skiing?

GK: Typically it was more of a formality than anything else so we'd go, like, 10 minutes before the racers and we'd just ski pretty easily in a big group - no big deal. It's really important to have forerunners though, when it's snowing, because you don't want the first athletes to have the disadvantage of having to break the first tracks, so they sent us out in intervals of one minute starting 10 minutes before the first racer - this is for the Women's 30k Classic - down to 90 seconds before the first women. I got stuck with one other kid 90 seconds before the first women started and they were like, "alright, you guys need to go out and stay between 30 and 90 seconds ahead of the top women" and it was three 10k loops, so 30k total, but we only had to ski the first 10k so the women weren't going that fast. That was probably the most exciting experience and the crowd was just going crazy and it was snowing and it was Salt Lake City.

Campus: Are you going to compete in the Olympics?

GK: Four years is a long way down the road. It kinda depends. There's a few intermediate steps on the way but that'd be a goal so we'll see what happens.

Campus: What's your favorite event to watch?

GK: The relay. The men's 4x100k cross country ski relay. Definitely. It's less about the individual athletes and more about the countries and teams and it always comes down to an exciting finish, every year.

Campus: Is skeleton a sport?

GK: It's a pretty bad-ass sport.

Campus: Are they athletes?

GK: Definitely.

Campus: Bode Miller: Punk?

GK: Bad-ass. Yeah, Bode's a good dude. I think he's getting skiing out there and pushing things in the right direction. He's getting it attention, publicity - it might not necessarily be the most intelligent way to do it, but he's getting the name out there and he's definitely somebody who knows what he's doing. I heard him speak after the downhill yesterday and I was pleased with what he said. He gave a lot of credit to the guys that beat him and he didn't say that he had a bad race - he just said that those guys raced better than he did. I haven't really been following the story about drinking and drugs and stuff but I definitely think he's a good dude.

Campus: Do you have a favorite pre-event meal?

GK: Pancakes. If I can get them, I eat them. At some point, I got the crazy idea in my head that I raced better after I had pancakes. There was a two-race weekend and I had oatmeal before one race and I had pancakes before the other race and did better after I had pancakes, so, some completely random reason, but that's how people develop these little idiosyncrasies.

Campus: Most embarrassing ski moment?

GK: I would say handing out valentines at Carney Crush. We've got this really cool thing with all the eastern skiers on the carnival circuit for Valentine's Day, so like, this past weekend, was Carney Crush weekend and we race against the same teams every day, so everybody gets to know the other teams and it's all guys and girls mixed up and over the course of the season you kinda get your crushes on different girls. So for Valentine's Day at the Dartmouth Carnival everybody makes Carney Crushes and they hand out Valentines to their favorite skier. They always get pretty embarrassing - receiving and giving pretty wild valentines.

Campus: Who're hotter, Alpine or Nordic girls?

GK: Oh man, that's a toss-up. I don't even know how to answer that question - I'd say skiers in general.

Campus: Ever taken 'roids?

GK: [Laughs] No. No, a big juicy steak is about as close as I'm ever gonna get to that.