By Roger Baty
Turnagain Times Correspondent
Alyeska Ski & Snowboard Club dedicated its newly remodeled, revamped and expanded race training center on Friday, Dec. 28 to donors of time and money, the contractors who donated time and equipment, and the parents who provide the reason they were all there.
“People that have been here for 25, 30, 40 years, understand the value of the community, of how ski racing basically has built skiing in Anchorage,” said Paul Crews, the Program Director of the Juniors. “Kids that I coached 35 years ago are coaching my kids.”
The ASSC is an all volunteer organization who’s purpose is to support the programs run within its midst.
“The ASSC is glacier valley ski education foundation,” said Martin Steward, President of the ASSC. “It supports what we call the Junior program… Alyeska Masters and the Mighty Mites program.”
“To enter a national/world class race program that we have here,” said Branch Haymans, Referee for ASSC. “The Mighty Mites pay $100 a year.”
It is the support that comes from the ASSC and the Tanaka foundation, both of which exist to subsidize the cost to racers, forever seeking the money which keeps things running and makes it possible for anyone to come out to Alyeska, and the ASSC to race.
The new race training center was made possible by many donations in many forms.
“We had 188 financial contributors,” said Steward. “We probably had double that many come in here and contribute their efforts to help this facility come to fruition.”
The race programs were once operated from a building that had racers literally bulging out its sides, with facilities that were lacking. With a new facility to house its ever growing number of racers, the ASSC wished to say thank you.
“If you’re in this room, you made it happen,” said Steward. “If you’re in this room, you contributed to this project financially, with your labors, with your sweat, with your tears, with your personal contributions. We’re here to say thank you, and we want you to enjoy this.”
The process to build a new facility started with the searching for money and figuring what everyone wanted their racers to have.
“We developed a master plan, trying to figure out what we were going to do…to provide the infrastructure that ski racers needed to prosper,” said Matt Tanaka, President of the Tanaka foundation and Vice President of the ASSC.
As far as ski clubs go, the ASSC has rated its facility as one of the top ones in the nation.
“In the skiing world, this building is a monument throughout the nation,” said Steward. “You won’t find another ski club in the country, I’ve traveled around a lot, that has a facility of it owns, that looks like this, and provides services to their community.”
An exemplary addition to the locker room is its ventilation system, which reveals the club’s consideration of its racer’s health, on and off the slopes.
“The gem of the place is the exhaust system and the wax benches,” said Haymans. “On race day, they’re melting the high fluorocarbon stuff in. To breathe the fumes on a regular basis isn’t good for you. So we put in state of the art exhaust over our wax tables, so on race days nobody’s breathing anything they shouldn’t.”
With its newly expanded facility, the ASSC is looking to the future of the program, and to the future of its racers. One of the major contributors to the new facility is Alyeska Resort, which not only provides lift access and grooming, but has granted the ASSC a 50 year lease on the land they now occupy for a nominal feel. In addition to extending the lease, the resort granted an extension of the existing foot print allowing the ASSC to expand its facility. The arrangement with the resort for a long-term lease and larger facility assures that the ASSC program will continue to retain its local roots, producing future generations of ski and snowboard racers in a world class training facility.
As stated in the ASSC mission statement, “Through positive, high quality programs, young Alaskans will have fun and attain the benefits of self-discipline, responsibility, effort, and accomplishment provided by alpine sport competition. This is to be gained through positive reinforcement of sportsmanship, education, training, racing skills and technique.”