Jumping Journal: August 10, 2009

Who the heck is that?  Have we hit critical mass yet..if not I think we may be getting very close to it.

 

Well another evening of ski jumping.  This evening wouldn't be quite as expected to say the least.  The driest week in over two years has continued.  I haven't seen any rain in over a week now.  Better alert the news media a drought has begun, HA!!  Yesterday was cloudy and most of today was cloudy until around jump time when the sky cleared out nicely and the warm humid air made for some rather sweety jumping conditions.

 

As I pulled into the parking lot at Storrs Hill I saw quite a few cars in the parking lot.  I remembered that tonight was the club board meeting.  I didn't think much about it and parked my car.  I did notice two vehicles with Vermont license plates on them.  The one looked familiar but the other one I didn't recognize.

 

I walked up to the lodge and saw Bill Ryan and Kim Farnham sitting on the picnic table talking with another guy I didn't recoginize.

 

Quickly I got the jist of the conversation was about the July 4th ski jump meet up in Lake Placid, New York.  Something seemed very strange as the guy who was doing most of the talking was the same individual I didn't know.  He appeared to be quite knowledgeable about the sport so I was very intrigued to find out who this guy was.  I start hearing him talk about coaching the Holderness Prep School ski jumping team and everything tells me he's a former ski jumper but I don't have the slightest clue who it is.

 

Finally he goes to give Bill his email address and I quick realize who it is Walter Malmquist a former jumper from the area that jumped back in the 1970's and 80's.  Turns out he had one of his kids up to Lake Placid earlier this summer and stumbled into Cannonball and said I got to do that again.  He wasn't out at the hill just to visit...he came out to jump, for the first time since 1986.

 

I suited up as he was grabbing his equipment from his car.  We headed up the hill and he rode the landing hill several times before taking three or four jumps.  Mike, Walter, myself, one high school jumper and one junior jumper made up the crowd tonight.  Yes, it's the summer doldrums.  I know of one jumper that is at a three week camp that ends this weekend.  This time of the year is always hard to get guys to come out and jump.

 

Turned out someone had gotten up on the jump and managed to throw the soap over the side over the past week.  No soap...great:)  I got the signal from Cannonball and headed down the inrun and jump, Cannonball said I jumped late and thinking back I would say I probably did jump late.  I did have one of the nicest non soap jump of the season.  I was a bit shocked when I landed down around 17-17.5 meters.  I'm use to normally landing at or above 15 meters without soap.  I'm not sure what was different about that jump.

 

I walked back up and took another jump with a bit better timing and landing about the same location.  Afterwards some more soap was found and I skipped the soaping procedure since one of the kids was soaping up.  I knew I could just use his residue and benefit from it.

 

Granted on the remainder of the jumps for the evening I was still getting about the same distance.

 

I did manage a real nice save on jump four.  I landed with the skis quite a bit further apart than what I would typically like.  As I went to sit back the ski tips went into a snowplow and I dug in my hands and managed to keep myself upright until I came to a stop.  I'm not sure how I managed the sweet save but I won't complain about it.

 

I ended the night with the usual five jumps.  The evening did make me question 'Have we hit critical mass in Lebanon'.  I have said for years now you will know as a ski jump facility that you have hit critical mass when you get a female adult beginner out jumping regularly.  Otherwise you will have to have a big number of male adults, both beginner adults and old times out jumping.  Critical mass is simply the point where the program will feed itself and continue to grow rapidly as a result of what you already have as a base layer.  They base layer will continue to draw in more people all the time.

 

What I have seen so far this summer makes me question if we have now managed to pull off critical mass in Lebanon or not.  I have seen three 'new' adults come out and ski jump this summer.  One, a former Olympian, still hasn't jumped the K25 but he has ridden the landing hill.  The other two, Walter and Colin, have both jumped the K25.  We picked up one new/former prep school jumper last winter.  I haven't seen him this summer and I don't know if he even knows we jump during the summer months.

 

The key secret to growth is having an adult base.  If the parents won't let their kids jump because they think the sport is too dangerous than you have no future.  If the parents jumped as a kid than you have it made.  Many of the former jumpers don't live around a ski jump anymore so you have lost the easy future jumpers.  You have to replace that and the only way you can do that is to bring in new adults to the program.  You have to get them jumping so they realize the sport is safe.  You bring them into the program by showing them a big group of people their own age they can jump with.  When you have a big enough base to feed off of it will grow on its own at quite a fast pace whether you want it grow or not.  I call this effect 'critical mass'.  I think we are getting real close to critical mass in Lebanon.  I know of one female who jumped a few years back before hurting herself telemark skiing in northern Norway that wants to come back out and jump this winter.  The next 12 months could be very interesting around the Upper Valley.

 

Crash