Raymond de Vré A COACHING LEGEND

BY MIKE A.K. AKAY

Raymond de Vré moved to Tahoe and began working as a T-bar operator at Tahoe Ski Bowl (now Homewood Mountain Resort) and worked his way up to ski instructor all the while enamored by mogul skiing. His fascination with skiing began when seeing Jean Claude Killy win three alpine medals at the 1968 Winter Olympics on television and that motivated him to move to Lake Tahoe and learn to ski.

One day a friend took him to Palisades Tahoe. “It was a perfect day with packed powder on West Face. After skiing it, I said to myself, ‘This is my home.’ I bought a pass the next day.”

He was then asked to teach moguls at Palisades Tahoe and success in that endeavor led him to being asked to coach the freestyle team, which back then was basically a parent-run operation. He told the parents to be competitive he needed five things: banners, fencing, timing, a sound system and funding.

Raymond began a program with the fundamentals of discipline, respect and believing in yourself, all learned from growing up in a family of 13 kids. (Read about his brother, renowned photographer Hank de Vré, at TheTahoeWeekly.com.) His regimented program had the team showing up on time to do daily push-ups, sit-ups and stretching before hitting the slopes.

He arranged with the local schools to let the kids out early for midweek training, unknowingly creating a competition between the weekenders and the locals who trained all week. One of those weekend kids was Jonny Moseley, who along with brother Rick, made the national team with Jonny becoming the most famous mogul skier of all time.

Raymond knew Jonny was Olympic material the first time he saw him ski and not much later Jonny was the youngest skier at the national championships at Lake Placid and won all three events.

Raymond shared a story about 12-year-old Jonny. A bump contest was held on Chute 75 at Palisades, one of the only events to be ever held on that slope. Jonny, in his yellow, one-piece jumpsuit, begged the coach to let him compete. He was competing against skiers 18 to 26 years of age and he skied all the way to the semi-finals. In his last run, he stopped just before the second jump and sat down. Raymond was deeply concerned that something was wrong and skied down to aid him. Jonny told him, “I’m sorry, Coach. I can’t ski anymore; my legs are too tired.”

Raymond told Jonny not to worry, he great.

Jonny went on to win a gold medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Japan and other teammates followed, such as Shannon Bahrke’s amazing accomplishment of a medal in two Olympic games. Raymond is grateful to the support of Palisades Tahoe, especially when he asked Hans Burkhart to rename a portion of West Face Moseley’s Run, the spot where Jonny trained with his team all those years before the Olympics.

He also coached J.T. Holmes, Shelly Robertson-Barbero, Laurel Shanley, C.R. Johnson, Curtis Tischler, the Basile brothers and many others. His gratitude is forever indebted to coaches who were former team members that knew his program and how to instill it in others.

Greg Harrington, Jim Morrison and Duke Peterson were instrumental in continuing the program and Raymond named his son Duke as a tribute to his friend. Those coaches helped Raymond build a program that stymied other coaches across the country who were amazed that Palisades Tahoe could bring 15 kids to nationals and qualify 10 of them.

Raymond says it was because of West Face and how that difficult slope turned those kids into world-class competitors. Raymond was awarded two Coach of the Year trophies from U.S. Ski & Snowboard during his tenure. Today, the team is directed by Jimeel Ferris.

Raymond enjoys occasionally skiing with the team and says, “Palisades will always be in my heart as long as I live.”