enrollment,” says Hudson, noting that when the school is at full
capacity in winter, roughly half its 55 students are winter-term
only. “Last year we were at 21 full-time students, and in just her
second year as head, Tracy has helped us bump up to 29 full-time students.”
Such an increase in full-time student matriculation is nothing
to sneeze at when you’re dealing with small — and sometimes
fragile — ski-academy numbers. Hudson cites Keller’s unrelenting motivation and adept communication skills as the reasons
for the growth, adding that she inspires tremendous confidence
on the part of current and prospective parents.
“Just as importantly, though,” Hudson says, “Tracy has proven
a rejuvenating figure for the faculty. They’ve already learned that
she’s both listening and will act upon suggestions, and that’s
just [not the case with many people in leadership roles].”
Road to the top
Keller grew up in Vermont, where she graduated from Rutland
High School in 1998 after pursuing ski racing at both Pico Mountain and Okemo Mountain School.
“I always thought I’d go to law school,” Keller says. “After going through the application process when I was finishing up at
Dartmouth [in 2002], I was a little disappointed when I didn’t get
into exactly the schools I was hoping to attend.”
Thinking she’d reapply while working for a year, Keller felt she
had the skill set to make a difference at a ski academy and
wanted to head West, where she hoped to see the sun a bit
more often than in her native New England.
She landed in the Lake Tahoe region at Sugar Bowl Academy,
of course, and it wasn’t long before she realized that she’d serendipitously found a calling in coaching and teaching. Skipping
another round of law school applications, Keller instead enrolled
in a program for a masters in secondary education at nearby University of Nevada, Reno, which allowed her to continue working
at SBA as she chipped away at her advanced degree.
Now at the top of the ski racing food chain, if you will, Keller
says she remains grounded and focused because of her past
experiences in the sport.
“I always find myself reflecting on my days as an athlete,” Keller
says, “because I’m obviously working with ski racers every day.
To some degree I think I’m able to connect with our students
and parents very well because I was in their shoes not that long
ago.”
Keller even gets on the hill and trains from time to time, too,
especially leading into the Silver Belt race, a major fundraiser
for the Sugar Bowl Ski Team Foundation each year. Displayed
in her SBA office is a photo of a racer putting her face through
a GS panel at the 2010 Silver Belt. If not for the decade-old
Dartmouth speed suit that betrays Keller, it could be any of the
school’s young athletes (one way to garner a little street cred,
for sure).
“I think in all sports there are some common lessons,” Keller
says. “Learning how to work hard, learning how to multitask,
dealing with frustration and adversity. But the thing that separates skiing from others is that it’s all about you at the end of
the day. How hard you’re working. How you’re executing. The
lessons become that much more [profound because performing
is on you alone].”
Keller adds that — in a sport which can require years of preparation for a race that ends after two gates — humility is another
key take away. “Any ski racer knows that being [well prepared
and confident] doesn’t always get you to the finish line with the
fastest time,” she says. “Knowing that on any day you could be
atop the podium, at the bottom of the result sheet, or sitting out
the second run makes skiers humble.”
Coincidentally, Hudson maintains that this is Keller’s No. 1
leadership quality — so she’s employing the very things she
champions as valued lessons of the sport.
“Tracy’s best trait is humility,” Hudson says. “You’d be hard-pressed to find another head who can shoulder the burden of
making important leadership decisions while getting her hands
dirty in the ways a small community requires. No matter how big
or small the task, Tracy gets things done and done well. She
simply leads by example.”
DEVEN HICKINGBOTHAM
Nice suit: Sugar Bowl’s head
blasts through a panel at the
