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For the love of the sport

By Michel Beaudry They were all set to go. The flights were booked. The Eurail passes had arrived. They even had their event tickets reserved. All that remained were the school marks.

By Michel Beaudry

They were all set to go. The flights were booked. The Eurail passes had arrived. They even had their event tickets reserved. All that remained were the school marks. Unfortunately, Nigel Cooper’s travelling buddy — the guy with all the connections in Yugoslavia — didn’t get the report card he needed. Forget going to Sarajevo, his parent said. Forget attending the 1984 Olympics. You’re going to stay home and study.

This, undoubtedly, was one of the low points in Nigel Cooper’s life. “He and I had shared this dream for a long time,” he admits. “We’d invested a lot of money and energy in this project.” He sighs deeply, as if the story he’s recounting happened only yesterday. “I was barely 18 at the time. I wasn’t sure I could hack it alone. All of a sudden, Sarajevo seemed a heck of a long ways from Barrie, Ontario…”

Cooper’s mother would have none of his defeatist talk however. “She said — ‘you bought those tickets. Now get on that plane and go.’ There was no way she was letting me off the hook. No way she was going to let me stay home and miss out on this opportunity.”

So Nigel jumped on the plane alone. Travelled halfway around the world. And lived an Olympic experience that would change his life forever. “It’s on that trip,” says Cooper, “that I realized that this was the lifestyle that I wanted to lead.”

Indeed. For any ski racing fan — and Cooper was among the keenest — Sarajevo was quite a show. After all that was the Games where “nose-picker” Billy Johnson performed his nose-thumbing, seat-of-the-pants downhill ride to victory; the same Games where the Mahre boys both earned Olympic medals and girl-next-door Debbie Armstrong scored surprise gold. “I couldn’t believe it,” says Cooper. “The Americans were unbeatable there. It was totally inspiring…”

Cooper came back from that trip energized about ski racing like he’d never been before. He continued racing at his home hill of Horseshoe Valley (all majestic 300 vertical feet of it), but his dreams now encompassed much bigger horizons.

Fast-forward 23 years. Nigel Cooper is now program director at the Whistler Mountain Ski Club. Has been for the last five and a half years in fact. It’s a dream-come-true, says the 41 year old. “I really love this place. This is my home now…”

But it’s what he has to say about the community of young athletes and coaches at Whistler that really resonates. “You get quite a unique perspective from my position,” he explains. “And from what I can see there is a lot to be excited about around here. I’m amazed daily by the kids’ capacity to be outgoing and friendly and respectful and disciplined. These are really good kids!”

Like most ski racing professionals, Cooper has led something of a peripatetic lifestyle over the last two decades. A few years in Japan, a few in Ontario, a stint with the Japanese National team, a return to Ontario, a few seasons in Alberta. “It’s part of the job description,” he explains. “It’s how you pay your dues.” He smiles: “From the sublime to the ridiculous to working as program director at one of the most successful resorts in the world. It sure is a long way from Barrie…”

And therein may lie the secret to his success. For Cooper has never been afraid of hard work — or tough challenges. In fact, he suspects that his willingness to pitch in and get the job done is part of the reason he was hired as program director in the first place. “When I was working in Japan I would regularly bring young racers to the Whistler Cup,” he explains. “It was — and still is! — a great event to introduce young athletes to big-time competition. And I really grew to appreciate just how much work went into an event like this.”

One year at the end of the race, Nigel found himself side-by-side with John Benbow and Willy Raine throwing gear into a front-end loader. It was late in the evening and everyone else was long gone. Cooper laughs. “I never thought about that incident again. But three years later when I applied for the WMSC job, I found out John was the club’s alpine chairman… and the man responsible for hiring the new director. ”

Did that late-night work stint play in his favour? “John never did tell me…”

No matter. Cooper says he inherited a great program. “I had some very strong predecessors,” he explains. “And one of the best coaching staffs around.” He cites people like Jim Pollock and Leslie Clarke and Jordan Williams and Willy Raine and Craig Glenday and Bob Deeks as the kind of on-hill leaders that any other club would kill for. “And while we certainly don’t take credit for the international successes of Manny Paradis or Mike and Britt Janyk,” he adds, “it’s pretty cool for our kids to realize that the Whistler club this year has more World Cup points than many countries do. I mean, it’s inspiring for a 12-year-old to sit in the club room and think that Manny or Mike was sitting in the exact same spot when they were his age.”

But that also means keeping the performance bar high — at all times. “In my position,” he says, “I have to make sure I have great coaches working in the program. And that’s kind of scary. What if I hire someone who’s better than me? Will they push me out of my job?” He chuckles (just a little nervously). “Well, here at Whistler, I probably have half a dozen coaches who are better than me…”

He maintains one of his most important acts to date was hiring a coach whom he’d raced against at the Canadian Juvenile Championships at Fortress Mountain way back in 1981. “As far as ski racing careers go,” he says with another chuckle, “mine was less than stellar. My only claim to fame was making the Ontario juvenile team at 14 and racing future World Cup stars like Rob Boyd at the Juvenile Championships.”

Now here was an opportunity to bring Boyd back to the club. After a less-than-successful season working with the National Team (he was part of the coaching purge after the 2002 Olympic debacle in Salt Lake City), Boyd was back in Whistler looking for a new challenge. Nigel lost no time in hooking up the former champion with his young charges. “That was a really big turning point for us as a club — and for me as a professional,” he says. “Rob had an unbelievable impact on our program. He’s quite a guy. We only had him for two years (before Alpine Canada made him an offer he couldn’t refuse), but he really made his time count with us.”

What Boyd did, says Cooper, was show everyone that superstars are real people. More importantly, he adds, “Rob was a superstar at every level of his job. He’s an incredibly hard worker. And an incredibly positive guy. He not only connected with the athletes. But I know for a fact that the coaches he worked with were also impressed and inspired by his style. This is a guy who gives his heart and soul to everything he does.”

Although his current World Cup duties keep him more than busy, Boyd still manages to stay in touch with Cooper on a regular basis. “That’s another great thing about this club,” he says. “There’s a wonderful continuum here. Whether it’s Rob or Joze (Sparovec) or Jim (Pollock), good counsel is never far away when I need it.”

While he’s proud of the work that he and his team have done since he assumed his job in September 2001 — “we’ve gone from 100 junior racers to nearly 150” — Cooper is still not entirely satisfied. “If I could wave a magic wand around in Whistler, I would introduce every kid in this valley to ski racing! And I would do it while they were still relatively young — between 6 and 10 would be ideal.”

Why? “For whatever reason — cost, opportunity, perception — we just don’t have enough young locals in our program,” he says. “And that’s something I badly want to change.”

It’s definitely a sensitive point with him. And it’s a much more complicated issue than meets the eye. “We have this gentleman’s agreement with Whistler-Blackcomb,” he explains. “And that agreement stipulates that their Ski School take care of kids until they reach the age of 10, at which point they come to us.” It’s clear from his tone that he has mixed feelings about this arrangement. “I have to respect the agreement,” he concedes. “After all, the club is nothing without the mountain. But it goes against everything I believe in when it comes to developing young skiers…

“Don’t get me wrong,” he quickly interjects. “We have a great partnership with Whistler-Blackcomb. And we are working hard together to make sure our programs mesh well. It’s just that ski racing concepts need to be introduced at a younger age.”

He takes a deep breath. “I’d love to see that situation change in the future. I think it could make a big difference in the valley. In the meantime, we’ll just have to do the best we can…”