Recent reporting by The Equinox took a look at why Keene State College is the only school under the University System of New Hampshire (USNH)’s umbrella that doesn’t offer competitive skiing to student-athletes.
The KSC Outing Club offers recreational skiing excursions to members who are interested in the sport, but a competitive team has not existed at the college since sometime between the late ‘80s to early ‘90s, when a longstanding athletic tradition that traces its roots to KSC’s early days as the Keene Teacher’s College came to an end.
Alum ‘64 and former co-captain of the team Richard Cate was a student-athlete when the school was operating as Keene Teacher’s College, where public school teachers trained for careers in K-12 education.
Cate, who volunteered as an assistant coach with the team after graduation for nearly a decade, said he saw the team transition into an official intercollegiate racing team. Previously, the team had been a mixture of recreational and competitive events, which changed during Cate’s sophomore year.
“After my sophomore year, there was a group of us that was more interested in pursuing racing. During my junior year, we joined the intercollegiate ski conference and started racing with some of the Boston schools, western Massachusetts schools, New England College, stuff like that,” said Cate.
Originally, the newly minted competitive team competed in the lower division until Cate’s senior year, when Keene was moved to a higher division. After moving to a higher division, the team joined a larger league that was expanding, which included schools such as Dartmouth College and the University of New Hampshire (UNH), joining the lower section of the league.
“It was four-event skiing, which included cross country and jumping. We had to make the transition to add two more events, attract cross country and jumping and change our training regiment,” said Cate.
Cate said he was saddened when he heard the team had become defunct.
“If you’re going to live in New England and suffer through our winters, you ought to stay active and do things. It was a very enriching life experience, and I was very disappointed when it ceased to exist,” said Cate.
Cate met his wife, KSC alum ‘66 Joyce Devine during their time on the team.
Former Coach Charles Beach, who was hired by KSC in 1978, saved the ski team from being cut due to staffing issues.
“One of the first athletics meetings I had was when they were talking about dropping the ski team. I said it was stupid to be dropping an athletic team in an area like this, and they asked if I wanted to coach it since they didn’t have a coach at the time,” said Beach.
Beach agreed on the condition that KSC would look for someone to replace him and said he had no experience with coaching a ski team.
“I had taken the job on the verbal agreement with the athletic director that I would do the job until they could find someone more qualified than I was. I had never raced or put on cross country skis, but because of my degrees in exercise physiology and kinesiology, I figured that with analysis of motion and design of physical programs, that I could make it work,” said Beach.
Beach went on to lead the ski team into athletic success, despite a lack of background with the sport and attended skiing clinics to build his knowledge of the sport.
Beach’s dedication to nurturing the team included buying a van with his personal funds to facilitate transportation needs that KSC was unable to fulfill and finding creative solutions to downhill training during seasons with subpar snow.
Ultimately, the ski team faced its fate sometime between the late 1980s and early 1990s, when concerns related to funding sealed the team’s fate.
Beach said he is proud of the student-athletes he coached with the ski team, and believes the team taught valuable life lessons.
Ryan Pacheco can be contacted at
rpacheco@kscequinox.com
