Ski Racing - February 13, 2012

LETTERS

The Great White Way at Mission Ridge

The ROCs of The (Other) Great White Way

As a playwright who happens to be a USSA National 4 technical delegate and Level 300 Coach, I am convinced that a ROC (race organizing committee) is the Gibraltar, the solid foundation, of the Broadway-quality dramatic stage play of a USSA alpine race. Here’s an example of the 2012 Hampton Cup GS at Mission Ridge with a cast of 160 athletes and 80 backstage ROC-and-rollers ( volunteers, or “vollies”).

Before the curtain went up, the cast of athletes rehearsed its roles in training sessions of technical and tactical skills, focus and self-talk by coaches. The ROC was staffed in key positions with men and women who were USSA certified in particular skills to assure that the race would qualify as a scored event. And the vollies had been trained in everything from gate judging to coffee and hot chocolate barista-ing. The staging and pre-production was seamless. Ergo, so was the show.

Of course, the athletes are the stars of the show who, rightfully, get their names in neon and take bows on the podium — such as two-day winners Anna Mounsey and Alec Jones. But without a foundation of a solid ROC such as there was at Mission Ridge, a race could have the architecture of a house of cards with, perhaps, too many jokers wild.