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New coach leads ski team back to Sunlight

Phil SandovalAssistant Sports Editor

After getting the job as head coach Cain Mahan’s first priority was to make Sunlight Mountain important to the Sunlight Ski team again.”I wanted to make the team members feel like Sunlight is our mountain,” Mahan said. “I trained here when I was a kid, and I did fine with it.”Mahan used his training with the Sunlight Ski team as a springboard toward earning an athletic scholarship with the University of Denver’s ski team.In the three years Mahan competed for DU, he earned two individual alpine ski titles and was a member of the Pioneers 2001-02, Division I Men’s skiing team championship squad.Earning that first taste of skiing success on Sunlight Mountain was something Mahan wants to return to the program.”There’s been a sense of displacement,” he said. “That’s why I wanted to bring the team’s training back to Sunlight.”Mahan hopes the change in training site to Glenwood from Snowmass will increase interest and bring more competitive skiers in for the 2005-06 season.”I don’t want to put people off because of travel,” he said.Mahan, who skied off and on for the Sunlight team for 10 years, was hired as the team’s head coach after the club’s longtime coach Harry Maybee retired last season.He discovered the position was open in conversations with family and friends after the death of former team member and personal friend Matt Jankovsky.”That’s when I found out Harry wasn’t coming back,” Mahan said. “I told Matt’s sister Eva I was interested in coaching, and she told the board, and it started rolling from there. I like to look at this as a new beginning out of a tragic end.”Part of that new beginning, Mahan said, is increased emphasis on fund-raising, reducing costs and forming an intermediate squad to develop younger skiers for the ski club.The team’s current roster consists of “eight solid members,” Mahan said. His goal for this year is to increase that to 14 or 15 skiers.Mahan’s also had conversations with the Colorado High School Activities Association to allow Colorado Rocky Mountain School’s ski team to train and compete for Sunlight.So far as locating talent, Mahan explained there’s an abundance of former competitive skiers in the area.”There’s a lot of good racers around the community. I’d like to see them get back into it,” he said. Outdoor, dryland team training is slated to begin later this month.Interested skiers and their parents can reach Mahan at (303) 349-3268 or by e-mail at camahan@du.edu.


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