Athlete Profile: Brian Smith

Age: 36 Residence: Fort Edward, NY Occupation: Professional Snow Sports Teacher and PSIA-E Alpine Examiner Primary Sport: Alpine skiing Secondary Sports: Telemark skiing, cross-country skiing, hiking, boating and fishing

Skiing Toward the Summit

by Barry Henck

Brian Smith grew up as an alpine ski racer, and by the time he reached 15 he was training in Lake Placid with some of the best young skiers in the country. Brian raced and was a three-time competitor in alpine events at the Junior Olympics. The next step might have been to race professionally as he got older, instead he decided to hold onto his amateur status and entertain hopes of going to the winter Olympics as a member of the U.S. Ski Team.

But a set of events in his senior year of high school introduced him to a career that turned out to be more rewarding in the long run than Olympic competition. He sustained a serious knee injury and would decide to attend Herkimer County Community College in Herkimer instead of keeping pace with the national racing circuit. That was also the winter he taught his first lesson at Gore Mountain in North Creek as a paid ski instructor.

“I learned skiing from the racing side of the industry,” Brian said. “My parents kept me in racing, which is where I learned the discipline and focus needed to become a good alpine racer. However, it wasn’t until I started learning how to teach skiing while experiencing different kinds of terrain and under different conditions – ice, bumps, powder, slush, that my own skiing really started to blossom.”

Brian stuck with his decision to teach skiing and eventually became the training supervisor for the Snow Sports School at Gore Mountain. He began by teaching hundreds of skiers at Gore. Presently, after years of teaching and personal certification Brian now trains instructors throughout the northeast as part of the Professional Ski Instructors of America – Eastern Division’s (PSIA) educational staff. When he is not training instructors at Gore, he is traveling throughout the eastern United States with other eastern alpine examiners. Brian facilitates multiple PSIA-E events at numerous ski areas and the national certification exam standards for teaching and skiing to qualified members of the eastern organization.

“Throughout the years of teaching, training and becoming a ski educator, I have developed a passion for teaching skiing,” Brian said. “It’s the one thing in my life where I can create the most change in the people that I come into contact with. I feel I connect with people not only to share our abilities to ski but connect with people and help them teach and communicate to others. I want to help people be their best.”

It’s natural that Brian, who started skiing at age 3 at Oak Mountain in Speculator, would end up in the skiing industry. Both of his brothers and his parents are ski instructors; his father is currently celebrating 38 years of teaching skiing and his mother another 30.

“It’s rewarding knowing that my parents have stayed committed to the sport and to the industry of ski instruction, and that is really why I have done it for so long! My parents represent that passionate commitment to skiing that many skiing families have. Every weekend when I was growing up, rain or shine, we piled into our Volkswagen and went skiing. I was totally immersed in skiing. My birthday parties and many other family functions were celebrated on the mountain.”

Even though Brian’s career has taken him to the biggest ski areas across the United States, he prefers the small-town feel of Gore Mountain.

“It’s a big mountain with a lot of terrain but it’s a community where everybody knows everyone,” Brian said. “There’s a small-town feel with people who work there – from the lift operators to the instructors to the bartenders. It’s a great family!”

Brian said that one of his most memorable ski seasons ever was the winter of 1994, when his entire family still taught skiing together at Gore and the family’s first grandson started skiing. Even after skiing the steep and deep trails of the Grand Tetons, he admits that he always enjoys coming home to New York.

You’ll find Brian at Gore weekends, but during the week he is traveling part-time to ski areas from Maine to Virginia meeting and skiing with many fellow ski instructors. Three years ago he was selected out of 30 candidates, to be a member of the PSIA-E Examiner Training Squad for the eastern division of PSIA. Following a number of successful understudies over a two-year period he was elevated to full examiner as of July 2003.

You might think that training instructors is all about memorizing the criteria for various levels of skiing and checking them off on a clipboard, but Brian said the most important qualities have to do with people skills.

“I look for people who are sincere about helping other people, committed to training and developing their own skiing more, and accepting of other people and their abilities, as well as give one-hundred percent of their energy to the lesson. He added that he is also impressed when instructors show that they can tailor their teaching in the lesson to compliment the diversity of people in their lessons.

This spring Brian will seek another milestone in his skiing career. He will travel to Snowbird, Utah, to tryout for the PSIA National Alpine Demonstration Team, which represents the highest level of professionalism in his field. The demonstration team works on a national and international level to educate the PSIA membership and recruit new members while representing the American skiing and teaching standards at promotional and educational events. If he makes the team, Brian will be one of 17 skiers across America to share this distinction. The National Demonstration Team also includes snowboard, Nordic, and disabled members. Like the Olympics, tryouts for this elite team only happen every four years. Brian earned this opportunity to tryout in Snowbird as a result of being selected to the PSIA-Eastern Demonstration Team this past season at Stowe, Vermont. Members of the Eastern Team will represent the eastern division at the tryouts.

Brian says his dedication to his profession comes from his parents. “Everything I’ve accomplished in my life, every day I ski, and the reason I go to the mountain day after day is because of my parents. I owe every bit of my success and all my accomplishments to them. They have given me the guidance and the commitment and the passion.”

The cold weather snap that hit New York in January did not affect Brian, a seasoned resident of the North Country who grew up in Lake Pleasant. “Generally the cold means less time to talk and more time to ski,” he said. “During weather like this I like to show instructors how to change their lessons to accommodate the cold,” he said. “Skiing, telemarking, and riding – every version of skiing – can be some of the best cardiovascular exercise you can get. Plus you’re outside with the natural environment and fresh air seeing beautiful, priceless views.”

Barry Henck (catskillian@hotmail.com) lives in Catskill where he works as publicist for the Thomas Cole National Historic Site. He is a runner and exercise enthusiast who is currently helping to promote the Kingston Classic 10K race