Ski team season in full swing

When somebody utters the phrase "Tufts athletics", a herd of Jumbos hurtling down the slopes is not the first image that usually comes to mind. Football, basketball, baseball and even sailing are sports synonymous with the Brown and Blue sporting scene. Yet when the snow starts falling on New England each year, a dedicated group of students strap on their skis and hit the mountains for a wild time.

The Tufts ski team is one of the nine club sports offered by the school. As a club sport, rather than a varsity level one, the team does not usually receive much attention on campus. Nevertheless, it is still one of the more competitive Jumbo sports ensembles, and it can get intense.

Imagine waking up at 4:30 every Tuesday morning to trek to the Blue Hills in Milton, Mass., for a 6:30-8:30 a.m. practice, then returning back to campus for a full day of classes. Then there's the 8:00-10:00 p.m. training session on Wednesdays. Throw in a two-day competition every weekend from Jan. 10 to Feb. 15 -- and that's just the regular season -- and you have some idea of the level of commitment the team makes. While practice is optional, the skiers love being on the slopes as much as possible, so the word "optional" isn't really in their vocabulary.

"I just enjoy being part of the team," junior co-captain Erin Johnson said. "Getting time on the hill, it just really helps your skiing."

The team is co-ed and consists of approximately 45 skiers, split slightly in favor of the men. Skill level ranges from those who have skied all their lives to those who have barely skied at all -- and this is one of the things that makes the team great, according to coach Rob McCune, a Tufts alum who skied for the team for four years before graduating in 1997 and returning as coach. Assisting McCune is fellow alum Brendan Mulcahy, a 1999 grad and former team member.

"We don't make cuts. We offer it as a student activity and anybody who even knows how to ski can come ski with us, they don't have to race to be on the team," McCune said. "There's certainly a benefit from being on the team. It's great bonding."

Despite that laidback attitude, the competition is still serious business. The Jumbos are part of the Thompson Division and compete in two events, the slalom and giant slalom, against nine other schools. These consist of Green Mountain College in Vermont, WPI, Holy Cross, Amherst, Trinity, Conn College, BU, UMass-Lowell and Northeastern. Green Mountain and BU consistently rank as the toughest women's opponents, while in men's events Green Mountain, WPI and Holy Cross are the teams to beat.

Each weekend, the team heads to one of several slopes around the New England area, including Bromley, Haystack and Killington in Vermont, Dartmouth in New Hampshire and Berkshire East, Mass. Ten men and ten women form the competitive group each week, with the top six or seven spots in both categories remaining relatively fixed throughout the season. Sophomores Eliza Appert, Chloe Snider, Lael Nelson and Megan Nelson, senior Courtney Benson, and Johnson make up the top women, while seniors Michael Krafft, Nathaniel Sager, Ryan Steeb, Mike Tonelli, sophomore co-captain Max Felker-Kantor, Tonelli's sophomore brother Andrew, and freshman Eric Johnson are the core men.

McCune likes to rotate the bottom three or four slots between the remaining members of the team, so that everyone, no matter what ability level, gets at least one week of racing during the season.

"The top six to seven spots are fairly set with racers that have performed well enough to earn those spots," McCune said. "Because every weekend we can not only choose who races male/female for each day, but for each event, those last three or four spots can be rotated amongst eight people during a weekend."

This season the Tufts women are ranked third behind GMC and BU and have secured a spot in the upcoming regionals, held at Waterville Valley, NH. The men are tightly perched in fifth place, just one point behind fourth place Amherst. GMC, WPI and Holy Cross hold the top three rungs in the standings. To reach regionals, the men must finish fourth overall in the standings, and with just one week of league competition remaining, they must gain two points by placing on both days of this weekend's competition at Haystack in order to pass Amherst.

"We've made a huge comeback this season," McCune said. "The men were in eighth two weeks ago and the women were in fifth. We've made regionals for the last 15 years. We've put in a bid for nationals two, three times, just barely missing a couple times."

So, with the all the early morning rises, long drives and busy weekends, why would anyone join the ski team?

"I raced all through high school, so I definitely wanted to ski," said Appert, the team's number one ranked female. "But you can pretty much take it as seriously as you want. It's pretty laid back, yet you can still put a lot into it. I race hard and put a lot of energy into it, but you don't have to. It's just a nice dynamic of different people."