 Ski Jasper Alberta News
Watkins Leads Alpine Ski Team
FRIDAY, 1 SEPTEMBER 2006
PARK CITY, Utah (Aug. 30) - Ray Watkins, a former club head coach who started in 1990 as a guide for blind Paralympic champion Brian Santos, and has filled just about every alpine coaching position since then, is the new alpine head coach of the U.S. Disabled Ski Team, Program Director Sandy Metzger said.
Watkins, 43, replaces Kevin Jardine, who resigned after three years as U.S. head coach after four seasons as World Cup coach, to work for Challenge Aspen's adaptive sports program.
"This was such an obvious call," Metzger said. "Ray's been part of the Ski Team in various ways for more than a decade and a half. He was more than a guide when he did that for Brian and then for a year with [ex-U.S. champion] Bobby McMullen, and he was more simply strength and conditioning coach when he joined the staff. He knows the athletes, they know and respect him, and it's a comfortable transition into the post-Paralympics season."
Watkins, who grew up in Eureka, Calif., and learned the ski at the old Shasta Ski Bowl, graduated from Chico State (CA) with a degree in resort management and planning & design, and earned his master's in exercise science at Idaho's Boise State. In the spring of 1990, he was director of the race program at Mount Shasta Ski Area when he became guide for Brian Santos, who had won two gold medals at the recent 1990 World Disabled Alpine Championships in Winter Park, Colo.; Santos won two more golds at the 1992 Paralympics, swept all four gold medals in '94 and retired after two silvers at the '96 Worlds.
He guided for Bobby McMullen for a year and joined the Ski Team coaching staff in 1997, hired by Head Coach Mike Brown.
"It doesn't matter what you do for this team because it's a great group of people to be around and a privilege to work with. We want to go forward and not look back," Watkins said, "creating an environment for every one of these people, the athletes and the staff as well. I hope four years from now we have the same staff still working together because that will have meant good continuity, good consistency, a stable environment where the athletes can do their best."
Watkins was married in June - wife Gwen headed the disabled program under Paul DiBello at Winter Park, Colo.; they live in Mount Shasta, Calif.
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