By Ross Feitlinger, Ski Team Coach
Ski Team is Family A day in a ski team practice is like going on a family trip. Imagine yourself as a kid, riding along in the family car. You probably laughed, fought, and bonded with your family members during that car ride. You probably sang songs and played games. You did anything you could to deal with the monotony of being trapped in the car, and probably the anticipation of getting to wherever you were going was present, too. Now do that every day from January to March to participate in your sport. We, the members of the ski team, are not like any other sport at Bement. We travel in a van 30 minutes from Deerfield to our home ski mountain of Berkshire East, formerly known as Thunder Mountain in Charlemont, MA (one of the many hill towns on Route 2). During that travel time, we get to know each other very well. The skiers eat their lunch while I drive the bus. They laugh, they talk, and they mentally prepare for the practice or the race ahead. When we get to the mountain, the course is laid out for us by my co-coach, Dan Bensen ’01, who was also a member of the ski team when he was a student from 1997–2001. He remembers those van rides well and loves to retell some of the more “dramatic” stories about riding in the van with Mrs. Filler. The ski team is a family, and I learned that very well from Colleen Filler my first year. We work together as a team, teaching each other and helping to fix mistakes in our form. It takes less than a minute to go through a ski course, but only a fraction of a second to make a mistake. As a skier, you need to learn constantly from your mistakes, and you need to make adjustments. You are by yourself as you race down the hill, and you have only your thoughts to guide you. There is an area at the top of the course where skiers come together and talk about where they made mistakes, where the ice is, where the soft snow is. They do this because they want their teammates to succeed. They do this because it helps everyone. They do this because of their bonds; they care deeply about one another (even if they are in direct competition with their teammates). I have watched many members of the ski team graduate from Bement and move on to other schools whom we compete against. The racers still talk to each other, they still give advice, and still help one another out. Ski racing is not just a sport, it is a bonding experience from which you learn so much. Every member of the team will tell you it is a lot of work to be a ski racer, but the fun is well worth it.
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The ski tradition is just one example of how we honor the importance of relationships at Bement.