Colorado University Athletics
Annual Ski Ball To Honor Buffs Coaching Legends
September 15, 2017 | Skiing, Alumni C Club, Neill Woelk
BOULDER — It was almost 50 years ago that a recent Colorado grad and employee of the CU Athletic Department helped come up with the idea of an annual banquet and ball to raise money for the CU ski team.
Since then, Steve Hatchell has served — among other things — as an associate commissioner of the Big Eight, executive director of the Orange Bowl, commissioner of the Southwest Conference, the first-ever commissioner of the Big 12 and, currently, as president and CEO of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame.
But Hatchell's roots are still firmly entrenched at CU. Next Friday, he will return to Boulder to serve as master of ceremonies for the 47th annual CU Ski Ball, an event that has grown into a gala affair that now celebrates 20 NCAA championships, dozens of Olympians and literally hundreds of All-America performances.
This year's theme, "Leaders, Legends, Champions" will honor the coaching legends who produced those numbers.
"The best of the best is still important to me, and CU is the best of the best," Hatchell said recently. "Think about this: with 20 national championships, CU skiing represents four percent of all the national championships the entire Pac-12 has — and the conference has more national championships than any other conference in the nation. That's significant."
Indeed — and Hatchell had the privilege of watching as some of that history was being written.
Hatchell, who grew up in Golden, came to Boulder as a football player and journalism student. He quickly became entrenched in Eddie Crowder's football program, serving not only as the scout team quarterback, but also as what basically amounted to the team's director of operations.
"At age 19, when we went on football trips, Eddie Crowder just said, 'Here, this is yours. You take care of everything. Go do this. Run all this stuff,'" Hatchell said. "I took it seriously. I did everything from making sure all the buses ran on time to setting up meal schedules. I loved it."
But along with his football duties in the late 1960s, Hatchell also served as editor of the CU yearbook — and that's how he met former CU All-American and Olympic skier Bill Marolt, who was named the program's head coach in 1968.
It was the beginning of a lifelong relationship.
"I got to know him and got to know the guys on the team and began to really appreciate what they did and what they were accomplishing," Hatchell said. "At that time, if you were the best at CU, you had a chance of being among the best in the country at whatever it was you were doing. You had (Olympic decathlon champion) Bill Toomey, you had (NCAA golf champion) Hale Irwin, you had (All-American football player) Bobby Anderson and you had the U.S. Ski team that was, in many ways, the CU ski team."
Indeed, the names from that era are a Who's Who of American skiing. Along with former coach Bob Beattie, there was Marolt, Billy Kidd, Jimmy Heuga, James "Moose" Barrows, Vladimir "Spider" Sabich, "Rebel" Ryan, Clark Mattis and Mike Lafferty.
"It was a great group of guys and they were just unbelievably competitive," Hatchell remembers. "Winning the NCAA title meant a lot. Back then, there were a lot of schools that were skiing and our guys took it on."
Hatchell, who will be inducted this year into the CU Athletic Hall of Fame, still chuckles when he remembers Marolt's coaching style.
"His philosophy was pretty simple: 'Don't give me this business about being the best you can be. The whole idea is to be the best. Period,'" Hatchell said. "He was out to prove to the world that you could go to college and still ski in the World Cup — and he did that. They trained hard. They ran the stadium steps with guys on their backs. Bill recruited the best and he was unrelenting in pushing them. He reminded me of a linebackers coach. You have to be a little bit nuts and you have to be right on the edge all the time. That's what linebackers are and that's how he coached."
Hatchell served as CU's Co-Sports Information Director from 1972 to 1976, an era that saw Marolt and CU begin a stretch of eight consecutive NCAA titles. Marolt left CU for the U.S. Ski team, but later returned to serve as the school's athletic director during one of its most successful eras in history.
"CU skiing always been a special part of my life," Hatchell said. "It's a great identity for the University of Colorado. Nebraska can't have a ski team, Notre Dame can't have a ski team. It has always had its niche and I've always believed in it."
CU's 47th annual Ski Ball will be held next Friday (Sept. 22) at the Omni Hotel in Broomfield, with tickets and registration still available here.
Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu
