America’s top alpine ski racing promoter

Beattie, born on Jan. 24, 1933, recently celebrated his 80th birthday. He was born and grew up in Manchester, N.H. Stowe’s Bill Kornrumpf correctly identified Beattie’s birthplace in response to last week’s trivia question.

My reason for selecting this particular trivia question was actually based on misinformation. The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame website indicated Beattie’s birthplace as Manchester, Vt. I thought the Vermont connection made for a good trivia question. However, my subsequent research showed the Hall of Fame website was incorrect.

Beattie majored in education at Middlebury, graduating in 1955. He lettered in three sports: football, skiing and tennis. Beattie was a so-so alpine ski racer, but did better at cross-country. He stayed on at Middlebury after graduation as an assistant coach. When legendary Middlebury ski coach Bobo Sheehan was named the 1956 U.S. Olympic Team coach, Beattie became the Middlebury coach in his absence.

That year, Beattie took the Middlebury ski team to the NCAAs in Winter Park, Colo. They placed a respectable third behind Denver and Dartmouth. The University of Colorado athletic director was impressed enough with Beattie’s work that he offered him the head ski-coaching job at Colorado.

While there, Beattie recruited American skiers, and was particularly successful recruiting Eastern racers by offering scholarships. At that time, Eastern colleges were not offering skiing scholarships. Beattie recruited such familiar names as Billy Kidd, Jimmy Heuga and Spider Sabich. Beattie’s approach was in contrast to Willie Schaeffler’s strategy at Denver, where the recruiting focused on Europeans and Scandinavians.

Beattie’s approach was successful enough to win the NCAAs in 1959 and 1960 over the powerful Denver team. This success caught the eye of the U.S. Ski Association, who named Beattie the U.S. Ski Team coach in 1961.

Beattie’s coaching style was more football than skiing. He drove his athletes hard. He emphasized conditioning to narrow the gap between American and European ski racers. He wanted his athletes to win, not just be satisfied with a good finish. Beattie used controlled tantrums to motivate his athletes, to get what he wanted from the USSA bureaucrats, and to get better seedings for his athletes from the FIS.

Beattie’s biggest success came at the 1964 Olympics with the first U.S. men’s alpine skiing medals — Billy Kidd’s silver and Jimmy Heuga’s bronze.

Beattie remained the head coach of the U.S. Ski Team until 1969. Other than the 1964 Olympics, the team’s results were not impressive, although the U.S. became the number one ranked team in slalom. But Beattie made other contributions. Through more aggressive fundraising, the team budget went from $30,000 in the early 1960s to more than $1 million. He showed his athletes that ski racing could be a full-time endeavor and lead to related careers in the skiing industry. He was influential in starting the FIS World Cup. From Beattie’s perspective, this guaranteed that the top European racers would have to come to North America for some races, neutralizing their home-field advantage.

After leaving the U.S. Ski Team, Beattie founded and promoted the World Pro Ski Tour. He also became a commentator for ABC and ESPN on alpine ski racing. His coverage included the 1976, 1980 and 1984 Olympics.

Throughout his career Beattie always had his critics, but his enthusiasm for alpine ski racing was undeniable. This enthusiasm helped motivate athletes to race and even non-skiers to watch them race.

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This week’s trivia question: Who invented the tapered aluminum ski pole?

Submit your answer by posting a comment on retro-skiing.com.

Greg Morrill is a retired computer programmer and college professor. Comment on this article on stowereporter.com, or email letters to news@stowereporter.com.