Graduation 2021 and What's Next

Graduation 2021 happened!  What a joy to see the Class of 2021 have a real graduation ceremony attended by friends and family - a wonderful step toward something resembling normal.  With many of our 2021 skiers taking the semester off, Gabby was our only current team member graduating.  Gabby has been such an amazing contributor to Bowdoin Nordic and a huge part of the success we've enjoyed over the past few years.  She graduates as one of the very best skiers in Bowdoin history, with two NCAA appearances, one All-East honor, an EISA podium finish, and a whole host of other outstanding performances in just three years of collegiate competition.  Her calm demeanor and quiet determination have set the tone for our team for the last four years, and she will be sorely missed.  We're also proud of former skier Mary Kretchmer.  Even after stepping away from ski racing, Mary continued to be an enthusiastic supporter of our team, and a fun and friendly presence around campus.  It's been a pleasure to be part of her college journey, and we can't wait to see what she does next.  Congratulations Gabby and Mary!

As we head into summer, we're feeling hopeful that we'll be able to have a normal or normal-ish school year and ski season in 2021-22.  The future is bright!  Although we coaches had only limited opportunities to work with our athletes this year, we know they were doing great work on their own.  I can confidently say that we've never had a year where our athletes trained so much or so productively.  By the time we see our skiers again next fall, they'll be totally different skiers than they were when we were last together in the winter of 2020.  I am so excited to see how they've developed - I'm positive that we'll see some major improvements.  I can't wait to see who emerges as the new stars and the new leaders on this team.  More importantly, I'm eager to see how each of our skiers shapes the culture of the team going forward - with two classes having graduated and two new classes having arrived, it's going to be such a different group.  We have a chance to put together an amazing season next year, and I can't wait to get started.  For now, though, we're all going to enjoy a fun summer with everyone scattered across the country doing their own exciting things.  If anything newsworthy comes up in the coming months I'll update the blog - otherwise, we'll be back in the fall!