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Nunnikhoven takes over as MARA coach By GREG STILES Tony Nunnikhoven was a ski coach looking for a challenge. The Mount Ashland Racing Association board was in need of a coach. When their paths crossed it proved the perfect fit as MARA re-enters Pacific Northwest Ski Association competition this winter. "When (MARA board member) Steve Chamberlain described the Ashland area to us, we just about flipped out," Nunnikhoven says. "Children are an integral part of this community, and that's exactly what appealed to us from the beginning." Nunnikhoven, 40, succeeds popular Tim Ferguson as MARA's head coach and program director. "Tim Ferguson had made this a very successful program," says Chamberlain. "At first I thought it was terrible that he left. But we took a lemon and made lemonade. "What would it take to get a quality guy? Economically, I thought it would be quite difficult. But we fought through it." MARA's charge to Nunnikhoven is to expand the program so that it can again produce regional- and national-caliber skiers as it did from 1968 -- when Ellen Dawkins represented the Pacific Northwest Ski Association at the Junior National Championships at Mount Aleyaska, Alaska -- to the early 1980s, when Matt Davidson competed in the Europa and World cups for the U.S. Ski Team. Drawing on his experience, the new coach sees snow-capped vistas in the organization's future. "MARA will compete against Lakeview, Shasta and Willamette teams and from close proximity to throughout the PNSA in Idaho, Washington and Oregon," Nunnikhoven says. "Eventually, they'll qualify outside the region." In the recent past, skiers interested in pursuing far-flung dreams have had to leave the area for ski academies at a cost of roughly $25,000 annually. "MARA is hoping to avert the need to move by starting a PNSA team," he says. Realistically, only a handful of skiers will excel beyond local or regional competition, and that's no problem to Nunnikhoven. "Over the years MARA has made a name for itself because it had a program for everybody," he says. "Am I worried whether I turn out Olympic athletes? No. "Ultimately, if they wind up loving the sport they chose, we all win. The worst-case scenario is that they are going to be a skier for the rest of their life." Nunnikhoven didn't spend his earliest days on mountainsides. He started life in the Midwest and calls himself a "geographic mutt." He fled his native Iowa for higher ground. In the process he's cut through snow from coast to coast with extensive time in the Rockies, New England, Sierra Nevada and Northwest. Nunnikhoven's early jobs at ski resorts weren't on the slopes. His culinary skills landed him in the kitchen. It was while he was the chef at Vermont's Colonial House, which supplied him with passes to nearby Magic Mountain, Stratton and Bromley ski resorts, that his cooking was placed on the back burner. "I was skiing at Magic one day and asked the program director (Joe Austin) if I could set up a slalom course," Nunnikhoven recalls. "He came out and watched me and then asked if I had any free time. "He asked `How would you like to ski with the kids?' He artfully didn't use the `coach' word. I cannot say my initial reaction was real positive." It grew on him enough that he's in his second decade working with juniors. He coached part-time the first season (1987) and then full-time two winters, working with 6- through 19-year-olds. Then his wife, the former Heidi Bowes, retired from the U.S. Ski Team and took over as coach at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. They set up house in Cedar Crest on the back side of Sandia Peak for four years. Next, Nunnikhoven drifted north on Interstate-25 to Santa Fe, to a small, but well-financed, program with two dozen skiers. "I'm like a beaver, I like building stuff," Nunnikhoven says. "They had a lot of room to grow." "When I left last spring, there were 50 juniors and 25 masters (21 and older)." Nunnikhoven gained international experience in 1989 when he was invited to Portillo, Chile, on the Argentine border and spent four months training clinicians. Nunnikhoven says he's had the urge to leave coaching behind, but can't. "You have to love it to do this," he says. "You can never make enough money to survive doing this so, you got to love it." He bridges the financial gap doing construction during the warm months. "When you've nailed two boards together, you know you've done something." With the Nunnikhovens' children -- Sandy, 5, and Marieke, 2 -- approaching school age, they decided it was time to leave New Mexico. He didn't have a destination in mind, but he had the kind of resume to interest a group such as MARA. He's also impressed by the mountain Southern Oregon takes for granted. "It's pretty typical of the long-term populace not to see what they have," Nunnikhoven says. "There are a lot of towns in the country that don't have a ski area like this one." The new coach also likes the idea of training during regular hours at Mount Ashland. "In New Mexico we trained at 7 a.m. and had to be off at 8:55, because they wouldn't let us set up our course during business hours," Nunnikhoven says. "Here, the kids can get a decent night's sleep and start skiing at 9 or 9:30 like the rest of the world." Today's Sports Index Mail Tribune Copyright� The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford,