U.S. Olympic Ski Coach

One of Dartmouth's former skiing greats, Bill Beck '53, will be the downhillslalom coach for the i960 U. S. Olympic ski team. Twice an Olympian himself, Beck is well conversant with all phases of international ski racing in the Alpine events. Last year, while living in Hanover and working for a paper company, he was given time off to coach the downhillslalom squad on Dartmouth's NCAA championship team, under Al Merrill.

Beck started his winning ways at eleven, when he was already a Class A racer, and he was still in his teens in 1946 when he tied for tenth in the national downhill championships. He won the New England interscholastic title in 1947 and made a strong but unsuccessful bid for an Olympic berth in 1948. However four years later he was on the team as an alternate and confounded the selection committee by finishing fifth in the downhill, only a couple of seconds behind one of the world's all-time great skiers, Zeno Colo. It was the best Olympic skiing performance by an American up to that time.

In 1954 he was back in Europe with the U. S. downhill-slalom team in the world championships, but bad luck hit and he suffered a broken leg in training. So he learned to ski on one leg, and when the broken leg mended he jumped right back into competition. In 1956 he was again on the Olympic team as an alternate, and his teammates thought enough of him to elect him captain of the downhill-slalom contingent. In another wave of bad luck, he fell in the only event in which he competed and didn't finish.

Beck will take time off from his work during the coming winter months in order to devote his attention to the many details of an Olympic coaching job. By all indications, 1960 promise to be a big year for U. S. Olympic hopes, and America's competitors in the Alpine events at Squaw Mountain, California, will be as ready as any coach can make them.

Bill Beck '53