Carey On
FIS CROSS COUNTRY CHAIR EILEEN
CAREY WEARS MORE THAN ONE WINTER
HAT By Tim Reynolds
Eileen Carey is a busy woman. When I caught up with
her in late February she was, like most event organiz-
ers this winter, recovering from a weekend of scrambling
to pull off a race in scant snow. Carey had collaborated
with the Holderness School since last summer to orga-
nize an adaptive nordic race in tandem with the perennial
Cheri Walsh Eastern Cup. With no snow in southern New
Hampshire, the races, along with the club’s core volun-
teers, were moved north to Craftsbury.
“With a different course at a different venue, but with the
same volunteers, it makes for a pretty hectic weekend,”
she said, seemingly unfazed by a poor New England
winter. “All things considered, it was a pretty successful
event.”
And all things considered, Carey has a pretty hectic win-
ter. When the U.S. Department of Defense allocated funds
to the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) and charged
them with building adaptive sports programs for veterans
across the country, the New England Nordic Ski Associa-
tion (NENSA) saw an opportunity to add a crucial element
to their already expansive ski programs. NENSA received
a grant from the USOC to launch the program two years
ago.
And Carey seemed a perfect fit to head it up.
A Dartmouth ski team alum and Maine native, Carey spent
a couple of years at the Colorado Rocky Mountain School
teaching and coaching before returning to her home state
to coach for the Maine Winter Sports Center, the nonprofit
“We need to work to have more voices
from women,” says Eileen Carey (left).
