Mount Peter race director named 2013 USSA Alpine Coach of the Year

WARWICK — The United States Ski and Snowboard Association has announced that Mount Peter Race Director Rob Dowd has been chosen as the 2013 USSA Alpine Coach of the Year.

“This is a tremendous accomplishment and it is gratifying to see all the work that Rob has done in building our program be acknowledged by ski racing’s governing body,” Mount Peter officials said in their press release announcing the award.

Nominated by the Mount Peter Race Club, Dowd was selected by a USSA committee over many qualified applicants from across the country. His selection is best summed up in these paragraphs from the nomination:

“Dowd’s influence on the sport of ski racing at a little bump of a mountain in southern New York is not measured solely by the countless medals won by racers in his program, nor is it measured by the more than 1,000 children who have passed through the race program since he arrived.

“Dowd embodies the grass roots USSA coach who is the lifeblood of the organization - as a race director who recruits coaches to the program and conducts USSA Level One clinics for them, as a race association board member who cajoles parents into becoming certified officials and technical delegates, and most of all, as an ubiquitous presence at Mount Peter, where he leaves his day job as an insurance broker around noon to work 75 days and nights in ski boots on the hill from mid-December to mid-March.

“On winter weekends, Mount Peter’s dirt parking lot is often packed and two of its trails are usually full of young ski racers – hundreds of young ski racers. You can find Rob Dowd making his way from group to group, giving advice and offering encouragement, working top-to-bottom in a matter of minutes.”

Dowd will receive his award at the USSA chairman’s dinner in Park City, Utah, on May 17.