Junior Nordics grooms youth for social, competitive skiing

MAT-SU — As winter approaches, Mat-Su Ski Club supporters young and old are itching to get their boots on the snowy ground and show the community what the future generations of skiers look like.

“Some kids do it because they just wanna ski, and then some kids are driven for competition, and we accommodate both,” Mat-Su Junior Nordics coach and Coordinator Dave Musgrave said of the program.

Registration is now open for Junior Nordics through Nov. 10 for youth age 4 to 14 who want to learn how to cross-country ski or improve their current skills. So far, close to 250 have signed up for the 2015 season, which begins Jan. 5.

“I think (skiing has) really taken off, especially with Junior Nordics now in the Valley,” Musgrave said. “It’s really sort of driving the whole cross-country skiing community.”

Until this program came along, “there wasn’t any program for cross-country skiing for kids,” he said, like the clubs sponsored by Alaska Nordic Racing in Anchorage or the Nordic Ski Club of Fairbanks. It was only a matter of time, however, until the Mat-Su Ski Club grew to facilitate ski lessons for pre-high school youth.

Junior Nordics has grown a lot since it started six years ago on the Shaw Elementary School playground with just 20 kids, "Coach Dave," and Ski Club president and coach Ed Strabel, Musgrave said.

According to Mat-Su Ski Club Membership Director and Junior Nordics coach Mark Stigar, a number of things made the difference.

“Conditions just weren’t consistent,” for one thing, Stigar said.

After the first year or two, he said, the club was able to send coaches to Mat River Park and the Alcantra trail system by Larson Elementary, in addition to Shaw, but none of these locations were ideal for quality cross-country skiing. By this time, Junior Nordics had grown to about 40 young people, but the big jump came when Government Peak Recreation Area opened to the public. From their first season at GPRA to their second, the junior club’s population increased from about 80 to more than 200.

“Even with last year at 220, we had twice as many kids as the three high school ski teams combined,” Stigar said, and with Junior Nordics, he thinks, “those programs are gonna increase.”

But the club could not have become what it is today without the thousands of dollars donated by the Mat-Su Borough, Mat-Su Health Foundation and Capstone Family Medicine for groomer maintenance, stadium lighting, ski equipment and two-way radios for coaches to keep track of kids in the dark, Stigar said. In just a few years, Mat-Su Ski Club went from being a “purely membership-funded organization,” he said, to a more sustainable, efficient and borough- and corporate-supported community effort.

Now, Junior Nordics members have the benefit of MASCOT and school bus transportation from several Mat-Su schools to Government Peak for practice, and the school district has made it possible for homeschool students to count the program toward their physical education credits.

But there’s one immediate need that can be met by the people.

“We’re always looking for coaches,” Musgrave said.

Coaches need not have prior experience or official qualifications, he said, but “just be interested in kids and that’s basically it. We’ll teach you to coach skiing and basically teach you to ski.”

The parents need not fear their child will not receive quality coaching, however, as the ski club pays for coaches to receive training through Cross Country Alaska and arranges background checks for each coach through the Alaska State Troopers.

How do the coaches feel?

“After they’ve been in it for a season, they are just glowing, they love it,” Musgrave said. “It is so much fun to coach these kids because the kids progress so quickly.”

“You get a kid at the beginning of the season, and at the end of the season they’re a completely different skier,” he said.

For the kids, it could be just a change in perspective about the outdoors.

As a mother of three and a Junior Nordics coach, Peggy Kristich says her skiers “spend lots of time outside with friends, getting great exercise, developing a lifelong skill and exploring the outdoors on skis.”

Anjanette Steer, another Junior Nordics mom and coach, set her sights a little higher.

“We’re on track for an Olympian coming out of this program,” she said. “(We have) that level of coaches.”

One coach in particular, Steer said, was Tracy Houser, who grew up skiing, has coached “all ages,” and is now a “recreational racer,” she said.

“If you’re gonna live in Alaska, (skiing) is a great way to stay mentally and physically healthy in winter,” Houser said.

To register, contact Coach Dave Musgrave at 982-7553 or juniornordics@gmail.com.

For more information, visit matsuski.org or visit the Junior Nordics Facebook page at facebook.com/matsujuniornordics.

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.