Volunteer Community Comes Together to Host U.S. Nationals

HOUGHTON, Mich. — Michigan Tech would like to thank all the volunteers, the City of Houghton, Houghton County Memorial Airport and the community for their help in hosting the 2016 U.S. Cross Country Ski Championships at the Nordic Training Center earlier this month.

More than 400 athletes plus coaches and support staff descended upon Tech's campus for the week-long event Jan. 3-9. An army of volunteers and staff made the event come off smoothly.

With low snow totals prior to the event, more than 60 volunteers met at the Nordic Training Center on Dec. 26 to shovel snow onto the trails and prepare the venue. Trucks from the City of Houghton brought clean snow from the airport to the trails to be used covering thin spots.

Mother Nature added more snow to make the conditions nearly ideal for the athletes.

During the event, more than 100 volunteers worked tirelessly—many behind the scenes—to allow the athletes and coaches to solely focus on skiing. Some of the jobs volunteers tackled: stuffing race packets, working crowd control on the course, assisting in the start/finish area, providing shuttle service to the venue and cleaning up after race days.

Michigan Tech coach Joe Haggenmiller details some of the individuals involved:

"We have wrapped up a great championships that was well received by the attendees from around the country and the world. Everybody was very complimentary of the trails and the entire race crew. The compliments speak well of all the hard work the local community, our volunteers and the trails staff has put in to make Houghton a first class place to come and cross country ski race. Jim Meese, Dave Nordstrom and their crews worked hard to prepare the Michigan Tech Nordic Training Center venue. Craig Hughes and his crew made sure the stadium area was looking great and functioning well. Mark Sherman and his crew made sure that spectators and athletes were properly moving around the trails. Dean Woodbeck and his crew oversaw that the races were timed correctly. Amy Hughes and her crew verified all the race data was spot on and the race bibs were passed out correctly. Doug Oppliger and his crew supervised the courses being marked and groomed. Susan Hooker and her crew put on well-done awards ceremonies. Jim Tervo, Mike Abbott and Emily Fiala kept everyone organized and on task. The efforts of all these people working at the training center were backed up by our local tourism and hospitality providers welcoming everybody to town. It takes a lot of hard work from our community to put on a week long event of this level and everybody came through with great efforts. All this hard work is very appreciated."

Here's what others had to say about the U.S. Nationals in Houghton.

The Michigan Tech Organizing Committee and volunteers should be used as a model for other OC's throughout the US to follow. Your planning, craftsmanship and passion is evident. Many point to coaches and clubs for the growth and success of our sport in the US, but having high quality events. like US Nationals in Houghton, are the "places in time" that athletes remember and help equally as much as coaches and clubs to retain and grow our sport.
—Bryan Fish, US Ski Team Development Coach

On behalf of the Competition Jury, I would like to congratulate all of you for work very well done, and thank you for your efforts which produced an outstanding event. As I said at the final Team Captains' Meeting, of the many, many national championship events I have attended over the past 40 years as an athlete, coach or technical delegate, I can't think of one that has been as well run, from top to bottom, as the 2016 US Nationals. From your Organizing Committee chairs, Joel Isaacson and Joe Haggenmiller, and Chief and Co-Chief of competition Jim Tervo and Mike Abbott, through all the volunteers who were out there every day, the positive, can-do (and do it right) attitude of all of you made the event enjoyable for all the athletes and coaches, and that's what it's all about.
—John Estle, Technical Delegate, USSA

Thanks to everyone involved. Joe (Haggenmiller) should get a big thank you as well for his communication with the other coaches at the event. That was a big part of allowing the event to run smoothly.
—Jim Tervo, Chief of Competition

Additional feature on behind the scenes work at U.S. Nationals from National Nordic Foundation: Grooming the Next Generation of Ski Racing