University of Denver Winter 2024

DU’s international draw

Basin, where he worked as a ski instructor before joining DU and kicking off 22 years of success. Peder Pytte would coach the Pioneers to one more team title in 1971, after which DU fell into a 29-year title drought, which included the program being shuttered between 1983 and 1993 for financial reasons. The title drought didn’t keep DU skiers away from the national stage, however. One of the most well-known was Suzanne Chaffee, who attended DU alongside her brother Rick Chaffee, a three-time individual champion from ’65-’68. Better known as “Suzy Chapstick” thanks to her long running ad campaign for the lip balm manufacturer, Chaffee was a three time world freestyle champion and competed at the 1968 Olympics, while also serving as captain of the women’s team. In an interview with Powder Magazine, Chaffee recalled having to hitchhike from the DU campus to Evergreen for practice because female NCAA athletes at the time were not insured. After DU, she became a prominent part of ski culture, with high-profile sponsorships and as the founder of ski ballet, which became popular in the 70s and 80s and an official FIS and Olympic sport in 2000.

it’s fun to see the flair from Norway, Germany, Sweden, Australia. Bringing that hodge-podge together is great, seeing what we all bring to the table. At the end of the day, we’re here at the University, and we’re all in it together as Pioneers.” A storied history DU’s success dates to the birth of modern, post-WWII skiing in Colo rado, when Coach Schaeffler led the Pioneers to victory at the first-ever NCAA Skiing Championship in 1954. DU would go on to win the next four national championships, finish second in the next three, then secure all but one team title between 1961 and 1970, when Schaeffler stepped down. Schaeffler’s background as a veteran seeped into his coaching and legacy. Tschudi recalls military inspired conditioning drills—but perhaps more memorable, he says, was Schaeffler’s advocacy for disabled skiers, including helping establish what is now the state’s largest adaptive ski program at Winter Park Resort. Schaeffler had been injured during his World War II service. Growing up in Germany, he was drafted into the army and sent to the Soviet front, where he was injured, captured and tortured. He eventually escaped to Austria and joined an anti-Nazi resistance that formed in the Alps. By the end of the war, Schaeffler was noted for teaching General George Patton and other U.S. military officials how to ski and rock climb. In 1948, he made his way to the U.S. and Colorado ski resort Arapahoe

Tschudi’s journey is only one of many global voyages that have led to the DU ski program. Throughout its history, the program has sought out the most skilled and ambitious skiers from across the U.S. and the world. The current alpine and Nordic men’s and women’s ski teams include nine student-athletes from Colorado, Utah and Wyoming and 15 student-athletes from Australia, Canada, Czechia, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The reasons for coming to DU are as varied as the skiers’ hometowns and countries. German alpine skier Nora Brand, Colorado Snowsports Museum Hall of Fame’s 2023 Collegiate Athlete of the Year, came to America because it was an opportunity to combine her academic and athletic ambitions. “There’s no other place where you have this system of college sports,” she says. “We simply don’t have that in other parts of the world, and that’s a big reason a lot of us come over.” The international draw extends to the current coaching staff. Alpine head coach Joonas Rasanen, who skied collegiately at the University of New Mexico—and was crowned slalom national champion in 2013—hails from Kauniainen, Finland, where he competed professionally on the FIS World Cup and Europa Cup circuits from 2015 to 2019. He says part of leading a diverse group of athletes is understanding the challenges of their academic and athletic goals. “I did what they’re doing as a stu dent-athlete back in the day,” Rasanen says, “But from a coaching perspective,

Top to bottom row; left to right

CUTTING CORNERS. Senior Nora Brand from Munich, Germany, whips around a gate. Brand was DU’s 2022–23 Scholar-Athlete of the Year Award winner. AIRTIME. Skier jumps off a ramp, 1998. SKI BALLET. Freestyle skier wearing #111 at the National Amateur Freestyle Championships, 1978. TELLING TIME. Ski coach Peder Pytte (1970–1975) looks down at his stopwatch. LIVE TO SKI. DU student’s car, 1974. YOUNGER THAN THE MOUN TAINS. Pioneers ski team on the DU campus, 1984. BUMPY RIDE. Ski team member rounds a gate in a slalom event, 1965–1975.

2023–2024 DU SKI TEAM’S GLOBAL REACH

Colorado (6) Utah (1) Wyoming (1) Norway (8)

Germany (2) Australia (1) Canada (2) Czechia (1)

Finland (1) Sweden (1)

20 | UNIVERSITY of DENVER MAGAZINE • WINTER 2024