Last February, a tight-knit group of some of my freestyle skiing family got together for a reunion at Schweitzer. These were the guys I spent years with, competing against and performing side by side of them in aerial acrobatic freestyle skiing shows. Our hair may be a little... OK, a lot grayer, and our bodies ache and our ski skills may have slowed down a bit, but our bond is inseparable.
"As we get older, it's the times with longtime friends is what I cherish," said Chuck Heidenreich, a former member of the U.S. Freestyle Ski Team, who came out from Pittsburgh to join the reunion. "Every time we get together, it's like we were never apart. They're family."
This was a solid crew of talent from the freestyle skiing world, starting with Bob Howard, Lane and Yale Spina, all from Reno, then Chuck, and Dan Herby and myself from Coeur d'Alene.
"This is a pretty stacked crew," said Heidenrich. "You have world champions, national champions and a two-time medaling Olympian."
In our younger years, our mentor was Bob Howard who's five years older than most of us. Howard started his freestyle career in the mid-1970s, the early days of what was once called hot dog skiing. Howard progressed the sport of ballet skiing to have a more gymnastic type of flair, with flips and double and triple spins. His stunt and grunt attitude earned him three consecutive world championship titles in 1980, '81 and '82. He walked away and retired from World Cup competition in 1982.
"The mantra in the early '70s was, he who has the most fun wins," says Howard. "I understood that concept, but I resisted. Then I discovered freestyle ski shows, and it was fun again."
Howard coached all of us on snow and on a revolving ski deck, and then he started weaving us into the fold of indoor ski shows in 1983. If you could do ballet on the revolving ski deck, jump on a trampoline or go off the artificial ski jump into an airbag, the ski show life was good, especially since it paid decently for a ski bum.
By 1984, several of us spent about eight months traveling, competing and performing freestyle skiing at shows. Our season would typically start off in September, where we'd perform ramp and tramp shows most every weekend at consumer trade ski shows, fairs and even a few NFL halftimes. That schedule kept us busy all the way to early December when we'd return home for just a few weeks to get our affairs in order. And then we were off to Europe right after Christmas for the World Cup competition.
By the mid-'80s, most of us retired from competition and started traveling with Howard, performing in the Volvo Ski Shows. Howard was instrumental in producing these shows, which consisted of freestyle jumps and ballet at ski resorts across Europe, North America and Japan. We'd typically return home in mid-April to enjoy a few months of summer. By midsummer, we'd hit the road again for a few weeks here and there, doing shows in South America, Australia and New Zealand. We were traveling, working and living together almost year-round.
Lane Spina was the only one who opted out of the ski show route and continued competing on the World Cup level all the way into the early '90s. His perseverance and drive earned him two Olympic medals, one in 1988 at the Calgary Winter Olympics, and the other in the 1992 Olympics in Albertville, France. Finally, after 10 years on the U.S. Freestyle Ski Team, Lane retired and focused on his future, earning his engineering degree.
Freestyle skiing consumed our lives throughout the '80s, and by the mid-'90s we had all moved on, focusing on the next chapters of our lives. Over the next 20 years, we'd stay in touch though we only got together a few times.
When I turned the big Six-O, I realized that we have more road behind us than in front of us. This made me take a hard look at the things that are important in my life: my family and my friends. These guys are my brothers, and we've been through a lot together. With time being the enemy, we needed to get the band back together again. After a few emails and some phone calls, airline tickets were booked for a Freestyle Reunion Weekend at Schweitzer.
The stoke was intensifying as we got closer to the weekend. I told the boys: We're going to do a skiing photo shoot when you're here, just like the old days, so bring some bright-colored clothing.
The first day we were blessed with bluebird skies. I made the executive decision to shoot photos that day, because when you get blue skies, you take full advantage. It was pretty funny listening to the chatter as these 60-year-old guys were suiting up for the photo shoot, like they were in the minor leagues and they just got called up to the Bigs. Lane even busted out his Olympic Team outfit from the '88 Olympics.
When I pointed the camera at this group of has-beens, they were right back and on track, focused on getting the shot just like the old glory days. Their skiing skills and ski stamina were still spot on. You can thank modern technology for some of that, as a few of the guys had some after-market parts installed a few years back.
For the next three days we skied hard from bell to bell, wrapping up the day at Taps with a few cold ones. Après was filled with lots of laughs, the same old stories, and a bond that grew even tighter.
Bob Howard summed up the weekend the best: "Back in the '80s, we were all sporting the mullet, business in the front and party in rear. I saw that same mullet attitude this weekend, when we're all together. Ski your best for the camera, but once we leave the hill, it's time to let the good times roll and relive those glory days."
The tight-knit friendship with this group, I hope it will never change. The only change I foresee will be in the stories, because... The older I get, the better I was. ♦
Bob Legasa has been a Snowlander contributor to the Inlander since 1994. He's also a Hayden-based independent videographer, TV producer and snowsports event promoter with his Freeride Media company.
