PSIA-AASI

9.2.2010

The 50/50 Blog: Filling the Hall of Fame

I was talking to Curt Chase yesterday, one of the founders of PSIA-AASI, and I asked him who he thought should be part of ski instruction’s “second generation” of US Ski Hall of Fame nominees, seeing as all of the original seven were already in.

“Actually,” Curt said, in a very matter-of-fact tone. “I’m not in.”

He didn’t seem too phased by it. But I almost fell out of my chair. I had taken it on faith that all of PSIA’s original board—including Chase, Max Dercum, Jimmy Johnston, Bill Lash, Doug Pfeiffer, Don Rhinehart, and Paul Valar—had received that level of national recognition. After all, they created the standard for American technique and instruction, and authored the most influential association US snowsports have ever known.

But I was wrong, because Rhinehart, who passed away in 2008, is also missing from the Hall. To me, that’s like watching that classic Western ‘The Magnificent Seven’ and saying that while Yul Brynner and Charles Bronson did their part, James Coburn and Steve McQueen really didn’t have much of a role.

As someone who has campaigned in the past for a wider Hall of Fame representation of ski and snowboard pioneers than just ski area founders and former US Ski Team members, however, I know that the onus for who gets nominated falls on skiing professionals and the skiing public itself. And as expected, when I called Ski Hall President Tom West he said that Curt and Don have not been nominated.

“The key thing is just to get people to nominate them,” West said. “It’s basically in the hands of the skiers and snowboarders themselves.”

A PDF nomination form is easily available on the website at http://skihall.org/index.php?act=viewDoc&docId=8, and West said he is working with a new web provider to make filling out the form “even more user friendly.”

West said he is always open to discussing Ski Hall of Fame nominees, especially with regard to what kind of national impact they may have had on skiing and snowboarding. As far as PSIA-AASI is concerned, he added that Horst Abraham—already scheduled to enter the Colorado Ski Hall of Fame during a ceremony in Westminster, Colorado, on November 6th—is on the present ballot for 2011 US Ski Hall of Fame nominees.

“I have a feeling that Horst Abraham looks pretty strong this year,” said West.

And I have a feeling that there are going to be a lot more nomination forms filled out in the coming months, for folks like Curt Chase, Don Rhinehart, and probably even Jerry Warren and Max Lundberg as far as that “second generation” is concerned.