 After 17 years of coaching the Nordic team at the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club, Todd Wilson still feels like he doesn’t have a grip on the job. “It’s challenging to no end,” he says. “If you would have told me 18 years ago that I’d be here this long I would have laughed in your face.”
Still just a teenager, Todd narrowly missed qualifying for the 1984 Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, by two spots. “I didn’t expect to be that close, so after that I was determined,” Todd says. “It was a great motivator.” He spent nine seasons with the U.S. Ski Team, going on to compete in the 1988 Olympics in Calgary and the 1992 Olympics in Albertville, France.
Todd retired in 1992 after Albertville and took the next year to relax, though not yet closing the door on the thought of making a comeback for the 1994 Olympics. “My original plan was to take a year off and come back for ’94,” he explains. “I got to the point that I wanted to be a normal human being for awhile.” The break turned into a permanent leave from the national team. His backup plan involved fulfilling his promise to his mother to attend college.
Then came the call from the SSWSC’s Nordic director and Todd’s previous national team coach. He told Todd the sport relies on people giving back and that it was now Todd’s turn.
By the fall of 1993 Todd found himself in Steamboat taking classes at Colorado Mountain College and coaching his inaugural season with SWSC. Through a rapid ascent up the Nordic-program ladder, Todd became the Nordic combined head coach in 1994, adding the ski jumping coach title in 1995. Todd still wanted to do more.
“It’s crazy,” he recalls. “It probably took me 10 years before I thought, ‘You know, Todd, maybe this is your career.’ That freaked me out for awhile. I thought that there was no way that I could be known as just a ski coach…I kept looking into the future and wondering what’s out there for me? I didn’t realize it was staring me in the face.”
Todd realized that he was focused on the future and not soaking in the present. He was living in Steamboat while doing something he thoroughly enjoyed. “Now I think I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” he says.
His cohorts are happy to have him on board as well. "Todd is extremely valuable to our organization, not only for his Olympic background but also for his passion for the sport and the kids involved in it,” says SSWSC executive director Rick DeVos. “It's great to have him around."
Last summer Todd saw a former athlete he coached as a youngster. He made a point to tell Todd that the life skills he learned with the SSWSC got him through medical school, and how thankful he was for being part of the club as a kid.
“It’s so rewarding to see an uncoordinated kid with un-matched body parts and zits grow up and mature into a young adult,” Todd says. “Some kids go on to make the national team, the Olympics and win medals at the World Championships. But I feel equally as proud when I see a kid go on to be successful as a doctor or businessman.”
Todd has watched the intricacies of the sport progress drastically -- the change from classic skiing to skate skiing, jumping with your skis straight in front of you to the current V-style technique, and watching performance-enhancing drugs affect the sport. He focuses on passing his stories on to inspire today’s kids to strive for the same opportunities he had. “I tell them that you may not reach your goal, like wanting to go to the Olympics, but that in the fight, you learn so much about yourself,” he says. “The real reward is what you will take forward, and what you’ve learned about yourself.
“That’s the magic,” he adds. “Teach a kid to fish and he eats for a lifetime. We’re teaching kids to fish in the game of life. That’s the beauty of investing in our children. And that’s really what it’s all about to me.”
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