A name that has long been familiar to KPCW listeners, and a former extreme skier now living in Salt Lake, were inducted last weekend into the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame.
The Hall of Fame is based in Ishpeming, Michigan. Its director Justin Koski said they got 72 nominations this year. Some 300 voters across the country narrowed that down to eight inductees.
Among those were Tom Kelly, a long-time spokesman for U.S. Ski & Snowboard and Kristen Ulmer a former big-mountain extreme skier.
Kelly said it was a long time ago, but he can remember clearly how the connection to skiing happened for him.
“I was seven-years-old in Madison, Wisconsin 1960,” Kelly continued. “Mom had to go to the store I was home from school with the measles and she put me on the couch, turned the TV on and the Olympics were on. She said don't move. I watched the Olympics, I watch skiing for the first time and I was just mesmerized as a seven-year-old. I made it a point that this is something I wanted to do and I just found my way to find the stepping stones and make my way up to ultimately working for the US ski team moving here to Park City. I’m really proud of having over the last three decades/four decades telling the story of these great American athletes.”
He said what’s important are not any accomplishments of his, but the stories he was able to tell about the athletes.
“What’s been most gratifying is to be able to help athletes and help others to tell their story,” Kelly explained. “Not just their story about winning, but their stories about life and what sport does to contribute to their life and to the lives of others. Sport is a very powerful thing. For me as I look back the most gratifying thing is that I've been able to be involved in something as amazing as sport and seen the impact that it has on life.”
We asked Kristen Ulmer what she considered to be her greatest accomplishment.
“Besides living? Surviving, because a lot of my friends didn't,” Ulmer said. “You know big mountain extreme skiing it sounds romantic but what does the word extreme mean? Well it means that the consequences of failure are death. That's when you're really doing extreme skiing. My greatest accomplishment is I would say being recognized as being the best in the world at what I was doing as a woman for twelve years. I mean it's hard to be the best in the world at anything, but to do it for that long. Having that staying power and having that passion that kept going that long, that is what I’m probably most famous for and also proud of.”
After her retirement from skiing, she went on to become a scholar and teacher on the topic of fear.
“I almost feel like my ski career as an athlete was just a grooming by the universe to help me figure out some things about fear and anxiety,” Ulmer continued. “That is maybe not something that somebody studying about fear and anxiety in college would figure out. I was definitely able to put some pieces of the puzzle together for people about why they have anxiety disorders, why they have irrational fear, just through real world experience. It was an education that is just priceless.”
The Hall of Fame has inducted 431 athletes over 62 years.
