The U.S. Ski Team earned eight medals at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver–the highest total for a U.S. team at any Olympics and twice as many as any other country’s total. Behind several of those spectacular victories were two coaches, Sasha Rearick’92 and Chris Brigham ’81, who started their ski careers on the gentle slope of Indian Mountain. 

 

Sasha Rearick ’92, who has been a coach on the U.S. Ski Team for eight years and the head men’s ski coach for the last two years just returned from the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, where his team did an outstanding job and came home with gold, silver, and bronze medals.

 

It was Rearick’s established coaching technique that lured skiers like Bode Miller into the fold and to compete in the 2010 Olympics. “During our training, we all worked on challenging each other. I am focused on the process and the effort. Everyone needed to give 100 percent,” said Rearick.

 

Rearick grew up in Lakeville, CT and attended Indian Mountain School for five years. He vividly remembers skiing at IMS and has fond memories of the old rope tow. He also attributes his initial “love of sports and competition” to his time at the school.

 

After IMS, Rearick went to Maine’s Gould Academy and then to Western State in Colorado, where he coached at the Monarch Mountain ski area. He was also a ski instructor at the renowned French Ski School in Tignes, France and the Green Mountain Valley School in Vermont.

 

When he joined the U.S. Ski Team in 2002, he met Chris Brigham, the head of the men’s speed program. Ironically, they discovered they both went to Indian Mountain School. Brigham ‘81, has been a member of the U.S. Ski Team for 16 years. A native of Sheffield, MA, Brigham raced all through college (UMass-Amherst ’89) and turned to coaching after graduation. He worked at Waterville Valley Academy (NH) for three seasons and spent the next two winters with the acclaimed New York Ski Education Foundation program; during those five years at WVA and NYSEF, he went on several trips with the men’s DH/SG group under the Ski Team’s Associate Coaches Program, which brought club coaches into the World Cup world, and joined the national staff with the 1995 season. He lives in Park City.

 

If the excitement of the Olympics was not enough, Rearick’s second child was born during the Olympics.  Fortunately, he was able to briefly sneak back home for the birth. Rearick, his wife Katrin, two-year-old Tasman, and newborn Vali reside in Kamas, Utah.  When asked if he has some “down time” now that the Olympics are over, he said, “I am home for a short while, and then the team is off for another competition.”