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| Dale, Earl & Ray Miller |
Not only did Earl Miller operate the Snow Basin Ski School for 44 years; he coordinated the Standard-Examiner/Ogden City Recreation ski school program for almost that same length of time. This program, a veritable low-cost ski instruction factory, offered affordable basic ski lessons to thousands of northern Utahns who otherwise would not have been able to afford the more expensive traditional variety of ski teaching.
Moreover, Earl was a renowned instructor and racing coach, and an innovator of American Ski Technique. And when it came to writing the book in American-style ski instruction, Earl Miller was just the man to do that. Earl Miller is a local legend, as the Standard-Examiner's Bryce Petersen explains, in this morning's Xplore section article. I'll incorporate a few of Mr. Peterson opening paragraphs here:
At least we've got M. Earl Miller.You'll find the full article here.
On Thursday, the longtime Snowbasin ski school director and Weber State College coach will be inducted into the Intermountain Ski Hall of Fame.
He will be one of only 21 in the Hall of Fame, which accepted its inaugural class in 2002. And he will be the only one there for his accomplishments in the Top of Utah.
In general, the Hall of Fame -- housed in the Alf Engen Ski Museum in the J. Willard Marriott Library on the campus of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City -- is an elite group of ski innovators, educators and resort founders from Idaho, Wyoming and Utah.
It's an extension of the Ski Archives, which documents and recognizes prominent skiers from the area. Among the files there are transcripts from a series of interviews that Ogden resident Joseph Arave recorded with Miller and his wife, Gladys, in 1990. At the time, Arave was the ski archivist for the fledgling museum.
"My charge was to do anything to document the history of skiing and I wanted to make sure Ogden didn't get left out, that it wasn't all Big and Little Cottonwood Canyon," Arave said.
Other Ogdenites have been recognized by the museum, but Earl Miller is the first to rise to the very top.
"There are a lot of people that the ski archive recognizes ... that probably won't rise to the level of Hall of Fame inductee but were very significant in the ski industry," said Arave, a member of the hall's selection committee.
But Miller, whose Ogden credentials are as impeccable as his ski credentials, made it.
This article runs along side a second companion piece, enumerating other notable local skier "celebrities" who might have a crack at Hall of Fame induction in the future. If any of our gentle readers would like to see whether they made the Hall of Fame short list, they can scour this second article here.
I "borrowed" both of the photos in this article from the University of Utah Marriott Library Utah Ski Archives here. There are plenty of other interesting historical photos on that site, for anyone who'd like to take a look. The photo at the top, by the way, shows Earl Miller running gates with his two younger boys. That's Dale on Earl's left, and my old pal Ray on the right. The old axiom that "the family that plays together, stays together" was never more true than with the Miller family.
Anybody want to talk skiing today? How about Earl Miller anecdotes? Is there anyone among our gentle readership who remembers the days before trams and gondolas? How about some nice "when I was a youngster" stories?
Comments, anyone?
5 comments:
I spent a few winters in Miller's ski school. Absolutely the best! Saturday mornings we'd be bused up to Snow Basin, have a morning of ski instruction, get a free afternoon pass, and ride the bus down at the end of the day. This meant that you always got at least one day a week in skiing, "for free," (at least, that's how it seemed.)
The only thing you had to pay for once you'd signed up for ski school was lunch, which was usually a bowl of Snow Basin Beef Stew, (could this have cost less than a dollar?) and this would keep you going all through the rest of the day.
One day I will never forget was during a morning class when I was just learning how to ski. I was quite young, and there were children even younger in class--I think there were about six, maybe eight of us. We were on a hill and from out of nowhere came a howling wind and white-out.
Some of the smaller children got really scared and literally could not move. They started crying and the tears froze on their cheeks. Our hair froze. Quite a few of us didn't wear hats, and as for goggles, I don't think we knew what they were. We had lace boots and wood skiis and none of the synthetic stuff that keeps you warm today.
Our instructor, who was forever our hero after that day, told us to all clump together and stay put. And then, one at a time, he took the smaller panicking ones down the hill, practically holding them up between his skiis, coming back up on the chairlift, (which I think they kept running just for him--I mean, this was a Storm,) getting another one, and going back down. I think there were three of them. After he'd done this, he led the rest of us down like a row of ducks, all doing big, wide, snowplow turns.
As a child, I felt very safe up there because of the ski patrol and our instructors, most of whom I think were also on the ski patrol. They watched out for us in the afternoon too, I think--I remember them as being highly visible throughout the day and not above taking lift privlieges away from kids who were acting up and putting themselves and others at risk.
When I moved away and started skiing other resorts, it was easy. And when I moved back to Ogden and skied Snow Basin, it suddenly occurred to me that some of these were, shall we say, sorta tough hills. Great place to learn, for sure, and always challenging.
Ski school is one of the reasons I look at my childhood in Ogden as being a very privileged one. There was, and still is, opportunity to learn a variety of things here if you want to. Never have understood the "Ogden inferiority complex," actually, because I certainly didn't have it, and was very well equipped for life in general because of growing up here.
Do kids here still go to ski school? It seems to me that it was extremely affordable, as you say, Rudi, while offering top-notch instruction. If they don't do this anymore, somebody should really figure out how to get it going again.
I like it the old way better, Amy. Who wouldn't??
Really, that is too bad.
Do you know if they've set up a fund or anything? We should all think about this. Do it in Earl Miller's name or something if this would be permissable. I wonder how much private donors would have to kick in to make it the way it used to be.
Ah, well--just a thought!
Having been introduced to skiing around 1953, Amy, shortly after learning to walk, I went through almost two decades of lace-ups. Lace-ups are something of the "ancient" experience about which modern skiers don't even know they're missing.
There was a ritual involved with the old leather ski boots, which is entirely lost in the "plastics" era. It's similar to what baseball players do when they buy a new glove. Like all leather artifacts, ski boots needed to be "broken in" in the halcyon days.
The serious owner of a new set of hand-made Swiss or Austrian boots in those days, (if really and truly serious about their skiing,) would immediately strap them on their feet upon delivery, and immerse them in a hot bathtub. After that, these serious skiers would leave them on their feet for about 8 hours, just to assure they "molded" (not "moulded") right. Exceptionally serious skiers in those days would pour in bags of rock salt or other alkaline chemicals to fit these boots to their feet, which would also "stiffen them up."
And to you Dian, I'll say this. When I was literally growing up every weekend on the Snowbasin slopes, I didn't realize how competent the average Snowbasin skier was in those early days.
It was only upon moving to Salt Lake City, (Where they didn't have a Std-Ex/Ogden Rec ski school,) that the average SLC skier was observed to ski like a nincompoop.
It was even worse when I moved to California. Std-Ex type ski schools are VERY rare there. The average California skier is definitely a compound fracture waiting to happen.
It wasn't until today that I realized why. Earl Miller (and the Std-Ex/Rec Dept "partnership" did more for the local ski industry at the time than anyone can imagine. The average Notrhern Utahn in the heyday of the Std-Ex/Ogden City ski school was fairly competent, all-in-all. A market was created by all this.
And I remember when $.50 would get me a bowl of chili, Dian, plus a soda and a candy bar at Snowbasin, back in the days when you and Amy were just "twinkles" in your young parents' eyes, by cracky ;-)
Just looking at that top picture, it appears that only Earl knew how to "hold an edge."
Little Ray is skidding around the gate; and Dale has at least part of his weight on his "uphill ski."
Only Earl is making a clean, carved turn in this photo.
Look at the snow flying up with the two siblings, and compare it to Earl's skis.
The photo shows one important thing.
Earl knew how to turn his skis efficiently. There's no snow flying up.
Dale has his weight inefficient;y distributed between his two skis; and Ray hasn't applied enough weight to his right ski, and is thus skidding.
Both of these siblings made major marks in ski history.
But look at how effortlessly and perfectly Earl skied in those days, with essentilly crappy gear.
No mention of Abe Glasmann, the owner and publisher of the "Ogden" Standard examiner, the guy who wrote the check for all of it. He was a great, and mostly silent, benafactor of many worthy causes in Ogden for over 60 years.
I have great memories of "skiing" at Miller's school that was held in the Mount Ogden Park. Before the golf course and lawns it was a great place to ride horses and later motorcycles. There was a big knobby hill in the middle and that is where we learned to ski with Miller himself over seeing about five instructors.
They rigged a rope tow by jacking up an old pick up truck and running a bare rim on the back axle with the tow rope wound around it and then up the hill.
The next year we got to go on to Snow Basin if we could pass the test with Earl Miller being the judge.
I'm also glad they included Bob Burns and Gary Nate in the articles. Bob was an incredible skier but more than that he was a great promoter of the sport with his over sized personality and flamboyant style.
When I was a young engineer in the aerospace industry in Southern California I joined the ski club. When people found out I was from Ogden the first and foremost thing they wanted to know was all about Bobby Burns! I even had a real pretty systems analyst like me because I was from Bobby's home town! Thanks Bob!
Gary Nate is also a legend in the ski film world. He is considered in the same league as Dedier Lafont in some of these circles. In addition he is a swell guy as is Dedier.
A couple not mentioned are Ron Nylander and the Salerno kid. Different ages and styles but both magnificent skiers. In fact each generation has had fabulous skiers because Snow Basin was our home town hill.
So a big and very belated thank you to Abe Glasmann, Earl Miller and all of the ski pioneers that made such a difference for us Ogden kids - rich and poor alike.
A great change of pace Rudi.
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