Skiing

Alyeska-trained skier returns home to race for UAA

Goals and motives change, and because they do, next season's UAA ski team will have something it hasn't had for nearly a decade:

An Alaskan on the alpine squad.

Sky Kelsey, who grew up skiing for the Alyeska Ski Club in Girdwood, will join the Seawolves after spending the last few years pursuing his sport in the Lower 48.

Kelsey, 21, graduated from Alaska Frontier Charter School in 2016, spending winters skiing in Colorado and the rest of the year doing classwork in Alaska. He was a member of the U.S. Ski Team's national training group from 2013-16, and since then he's skied with the Aspen Valley Ski Club.

"Most racers take as many post-graduate years as they can to at least give ourselves a shot to make the national team," Kelsey said last week. "That's what I've been doing these past three years. I've busted my butt working really hard to see can happen with it, and although I didn't make the national team, I did get significantly better as a skier."

When last season ended, Kelsey's focus turned from making the national team to finding a college to ski for.

As one of the top junior-level skiers in the nation — he placed sixth in the slalom and seventh in the giant slalom at last winter's Junior National Championships at Sun Valley — he had more than one option.

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"Do I go to Alaska, do I go to New Mexico, do I go back east?" he said. "At the end of the day, my personality is definitely Alaskan. I told Sparky I'd love to come home if you have a spot for me."

Sparky Anderson is UAA's head coach, and he's known Kelsey for years. He coached young skier more than 10 years ago at camps at Alyeska, when Kelsey was a mighty-mite skier.

"That was over ten years ago now, and it's been really fun to watch his career," Anderson said by email. "I think the familiarity with our backgrounds certainly helped in the recruiting process. You know you're getting straight answers to sometimes difficult questions. He's a great kid and there is a comfort level there."

Anderson called Kelsey "a real Alaskan character." Besides his accomplishments on the ski slopes, Kelsey is a musician who has won the Alaska State Fair's fiddle contest on multiple occasions and was part of Denver's Irish music scene during his Colorado days.

At UAA, he'll be a rarity. He'll be the first Alaskan on the alpine since Lacy Saugstad, who skied for the Seawolves for three season until an injury ended her career in 2010, which would have been her senior year.

While a number of UAA's nordic skiers come from Alaska, its alpine skiers tend to come from the Lower 48, Canada or Europe. Not many alpine skiers from here go on to college — most who decide to race seriously after their days as junior racers follow a route similar to Kelsey's and try to make the national team.

Luring Kelsey home "is a big win for ski racing in Alaska," Anderson said.

"Persuading very talented locals to stay or return to Anchorage is extremely challenging," he said. "He's made a great decision and I'm looking forward to Sky's role as a hometown hero to the younger Alpine athletes in our community. It certainly serves as an example of hard work paying off.

"He'll be competitive at the NCAA level against some of the best ski racers in the world. It's a chance to go head to head with guys who have FIS World Cup experience. Our younger athletes see that and it resonates."

Kelsey will be part of a promising class of freshman gate-runners at UAA. Anderson last week announced the signing of three other skiers with impressive resumes:

— Kristina Natalenko of Vancouver, British Columbia, who won Canada's U19 super-G title last season.

— Liam Wallace, a Calgary skier who won Canada's U18 slalom title last season and was just named to the Canadian national team. He'll race for UAA and Alpine Canada, Anderson said: "we have a good management plan for him."

— Didrik Nilsen of Oslo, who placed 16th in the giant slalom in Norway's senior national championships last season and brings Europa Cup experience to UAA.

"I think we actually have a shot at doing something great at the NCAAs," Kelsey said. "I think with (Anderson's) guidance we can really make a difference."

Kelsey said he can't wait to make Alyeska his training base again. He said that opportunity was a driving force behind his decision to ski at UAA.

"When I first moved to Colorado to race I was kind of shocked at how amazing Alyeska was (by comparison)," he said. "Everything I skied, including Aspen, seemed a little flat and less intense. There were less cliffs and it wasn't big-mountain skiing.

"… I'm so stoked to give back what I've learned to the community that brought me up. I think it's about time."

Beth Bragg

Beth Bragg wrote about sports and other topics for the ADN for more than 35 years, much of it as sports editor. She retired in October 2021. She's contributing coverage of Alaskans involved in the 2022 Winter Olympics.

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