2020 - 2021 Far West Skier's Guide - FWSA32

90th Anniversary Booklet/FINAL.qxp_90th Anniversary Booklet 12/6/20 2:07 PM Page 32

Stu Heller, Charlene Heller, Dave Olson, Bob Warzynski, Debbie Matson, Debbie Warzynski, Jorge
Vazquez, Teresa Moore, and Jim ?. We're not holding the Inland trophy up. It's sitting on the ground!

League Racing
by John Watson
Pacific Northwest
Area Clubs Recreational
Alpine Teams
Ski & Snowboard Racing
on Mt. Hood

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FWSA

www.pacrats.org

BEST IN THE WEST

2019
Roma McCoy
Trophy Winner

slracing.org
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History Chair, FWSA, President, FWSF
League racing started in the California gold
fields in 1867 with the founding of the Alturas Snowshoe Club in what is now La Porte, California. The
popularity of snowshoe (longboard) racing between
gold camps had made scheduling a matter to be addressed. The Alturas Snowshoe club became the first
racing league in North America if not the world.
The historic record contains ample team names and
as photography came into use, images from the late
1890s.
The early years of the California Ski Association were devoted to the scheduling and conduct of
racing to establish winners who would then go on to
more demanding championships. It was a single class
race program with exceptions made initially for a
Novice class to gain new racing participation, especially from women.
There were many club and multiclub races in
Washington from 1933-1941. One of those leagues
included the ROKKA Ski Club. Some members
were interned, a few went to the US Army, including
intelligence functions. The leagues were restored
after the war and the Rokka and Fuji clubs were racing again. Wailers, Hollywood and Edelweiss clubs
raced in a three club league starting in 1956.
In the early 1960s, FWSA established an Intramurals racing template in its portfolio of recreational
programs. This program ran concurrently with sanctioned racing requiring a license to race and using an
FIS point system metric to establish racer performance. The Intramurals races were within skill classes,
with skills determined by a handicapping system. It
was designed to attract the new skier or one who
wants to try his skills against other racers.
In 1970, FWSA had two leagues, both formed
in 1964 - ROKKA composed of six urban clubs in
the Los Angeles area, and Southeast which was centered in Orange County. The 1970 list of two leagues
was the situation faced by Bruce Bell, at that time the
Intramurals Chairman for Southern Council. He
was tasked to find racers who could organize leagues
in areas not served by them. The result of this was
the founding of Schusski by Dr. Gerry Resch in Orange County and Elske in South Bay Los Angeles.

FWSA 90th Anniversary Booklet / 1930 - 2020

Later, Chamonix and Elske leagues combined in
2002 to create ULLR League. Bay Area Council's
club racing started in late 1946 under the Bay Area
Ski Federation and by 1980 had developed two racing leagues - Open and then Singles. Central
Council had a racing club. San Diego had Alpine
league and Northwest had its PACRAT league well
before its merger with FWSA in 1993.
ROKKA conducted four races in JanuaryApril 1965 at Mammoth, Moonridge, June Mountain and Mammoth respectively. There were
dominations by first Wailers, then Westwood, resulting in a league innovation. Westwood Ski Club had
won eight races in a row in the 1971 and 1972 season. John James, as Beach Cities Race Chairman,
came up with the idea of " Learn to Ski and Race Camp "
at Mammoth in an effort to topple Westwood and
win ROKKA.
Race Camp was five days of six hour lessons
with technique and gates, broken into classes with
the same skiers and the same instructor. It paid off.
Beach Cities beat Westwood with a 1973 season
total of 427½ to 418½. Beach Cities went on to win
the 1973-1974 season by a greater margin. As
ROKKA League Chairman, John opened Race
Camp to all Rokka clubs in 1974. - Karen James
Race Camp was so successful that a second
race camp was set up on the ROKKA model. Led
by Karyn Tablada, it had 80 students in its first year.
The " standard " FWSA council deployed a
number of programs for members and to the public
for recruiting purposes. One of the programs offered was often racing for the club in a league. The
FWSA was unsuccessful in developing a standard
council in1972 in a broad area composed of San
Bernardino, Riverside, and eastern parts of Los Angeles counties. But, enthusiastic racers in that area
decided that they should conduct races among
themselves in a league but calling themselves a council if needed. They came to call it the Inland League
and it became the core program of an FWSA Inland
Council. The enthusiasm for racing and intense long
standing rivalries between Sitzmarkers and Tyroleans carried the Inland League well into the 1990s

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2020 - 2021 Far West Skier's Guide

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