(UPDATE 2015: The UM Ski Team lives again! They’ve revived it! They’re racing and doing great and I’ve heard have a wide-ranging program they’re offering. Wonderful!)
I have to tell a little of the story of the UM XC Ski Club…
(There is a lot that could be added. Maybe some former members could chime in!)
That little club was rockin’ so hard we grew its UM-provided budget to about $3k with just 30 members (10 active). …But we were pro. We did all the paperwork perfectly. We got front page sports coverage — and always sent our press-clips back to the club office. They said we were basically the best Sports Club.
We built it up until we got a gas card, up north condo rental, free lodging at the Pellston Research Facility, waxes, suits, rollerskis, entry fees, the works!
We weren’t just about skiing. We promoted it for autumn fresh air fun (daily hikes and workouts around campus and the Arb) and all upnorth winter fun. We’d even shuttle students north just to visit home for the weekend.
We recruited at the autumn clubs “rush.” We had a table and posters and fliers. Finally, our core student officers started aging out, even from grad-school. Actually, we could’ve stayed on, since residents were allowed as members. We just needed a faculty advisor and maybe students had to be officers. So we needed a few students. For our last recruiting attempt we put up posters saying “Outdoor Club — fully funded! Free for the taking! All the resources you could want for playing outside!” In the end we put up posters announcing “Free money!”
We tried hard to perpetuate the club for year-round outdoor sports fun. This was in 1991 — before the UM Bike Club had gotten rolling. The UM Outing Club was a residential thing, without activities. The Downhill Ski Club was strong, but it was focused on flying to resorts out west.
…It was the end of the generation of “young person interest in local-style outdoor fun.” We couldn’t give it away, so it died.
I recall 3 doozy stories from my time: *Stan the Russian mathematician who would ski in sweatpants and a tab-collar disco jacket and totally destroyed gear — he drove us up north occasionally in a loud, rusted-out Nova sort of muscle-car. *Bruce the British rower who wanted to learn to ski race — he finished the Vasa 50k his first try, at the tail end, wobbling along on nowax skis covered in frozen orange-slice slobber — also had a rusted bomber-car that we drove to the Birkie, where we slept in the bushes outside the Lodge. *Eric (?) was a climber and worker at Bivouac who trained with us one fall then went to the White Pine Stampede and slept in a snowbank in the parking lot the night before the race: got about 3 hrs his first 50k-skate. (Tim F. has stories of the years before I arrived. Often involving Stan and disaster.)
Maybe the time is right for such things to make a comeback. And maybe they are! The “Michigan Adventurers Club” at ” rel=”nofollow”>www.meetup.com/MI-adventurers is very active. So never say never!
Not sure the resources are there anymore for a funded club for poor students, but that’s no real loss: outdoor fun is free, so don’t feel bad!
