Page 57 - WCM 2021 Winter

John Lecky
was in competition with myself. He’d tell me to take five, but I didn’t know what that meant, so I’d do five more loops. He was so confused!
“And then my mom died when I was 13. Who knows where I’d have ended up without that encouragement and focus from the ski community. Chummy saw my passion. Being truly seen, and having him invested in me made me feel cared for, and that I belonged. It was a safe and nurturing place. My dad would drop me off in the morning, and I’d hang out all day. Chummy would sometimes take just me to meets. There was a race in Salisbury, Connecticut, but I came in last. So
I started training in the summer on roller skis, and in high school, Scotty Broomhall and Jeff Knight had a huge girls’ ski team. By the time I graduated I knew I wanted to ski and travel. I got into Middlebury Col- lege - we had a competitive college circuit. We won the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women. In 1980, I tried out for the Olympics, but didn’t make it. My last big competition was the 1983 World Cup in Anchorage. I’m still skiing, and I help out with races here in Anchorage.
“Black Mountain taught me that if I worked hard and remained positive, I’d get results. That community held me, and that little hill is in my blood.”
And then came Greg Poirier, another great, who volunteered, “I was two. I got started on my street - Piscataquis. The Stanley Furniture folks had a slope in their back yard. In my neighborhood, the Ham-
Greg Poirier, mid-flight, off the Aurele Leger jump at Black Mountain of Maine, 1977.
mane twins, the Fishers, and my cousins, the Mickeriz boys, all skied. They built a jump in my back yard.
It was about 20 feet. A little big for me, so my dad buried a Christmas tree and built mine. Eventually,
I made it to the Aurele Leger jump. First, when I was maybe seven, my dad drove me to Blanchard Street to Chummy Broomhall’s. He opened his garage and there was everything you needed. He outfitted me, and I was now a member of the Chisolm Ski Club!
I began downhill, the start of my livelihood; it’s all wrapped around the roots of Blanchard Street and the ski team. I was a four-way skier: jumping, cross- country, slalom and giant slalom. But cross-country and jumping were my real focus. From there, it was off to New England College in Henniker, New Hamp- shire on a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) scholarship, but two years later the NCAA stopped jumping, so I stayed with cross-country and nordic combined on the USEASA circuit and Junior National Championships.
“I was the second alternate on the 1980 Olympic Team, and got invited to coach in Winter Park, Colorado. I planned to try for the ’84 Olympics in Sarajevo, but decided to take the coaching job, and my 35-year career began. I sometimes regret it, but even though I wasn’t an Olympian, I was a five-time Olym- pic coach: four in the U.S., and one in the Canada. I traveled throughout the world. I also coached for the
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