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Show JANUARY 1996 is Business at The U.S. Ski Team 4D Spy yop A Back on Course? By Christopher Smart Like this downhill racer the U.S. Ski Team administration skid out of control in 1995. ast fall, they were selling off furniture in the parking lot outside the They could have been remodeling, casting out the old stuff to make room for new decor. But they weren't. They were clearing out some of the office space the US Ski Team would no longer need to lease at the complex at 1500 Kearns Boulevard. But rearranging the office furniture was the least of the problems at the US Ski Team. Last spring a $2.5 million deficit caught up to the organization, The boom dropped, budgets were cut by up to 40 percent seemingly overnight, and staff and coaching positions were chopped right along with them. It was enough to make Richard Nixon’s fabled Saturday night massacre look tame. The US Ski Team administration was, apparently, in ruins — all this themselves after the athletes had performed marvelously during the ski season. Ski Team athletes took home more medals last ski season than the rest of World Cup competitors combined. But there was no celebrating back home. Park City stood in shock as the news came across KPCW, the local radio station. Ski Team spokesman, Tom Kelly, who had sounded victorious all winter announcing unprecedented wins for individual members of the alpine, freestyle and nordic teams, fell silent, apparently in shock himself. What had gone wrong? asked Blair Fuelner, the radio station’s intrepid news man? Kelly didn’t seem to know. At any rate, he wasn’t going to talk about it, not on the air, anyway. One year as CEO for the US Ski Team had come to an end for Mike Jacki, the man who had made a name for himself on the business and marketing end of world-class gymnastics. He was out, along with everyone but the oldest of the inner core of the Ski Team organization. “I wasn’t there long enough to make a difference,” Jacki says, now having put enough distance between himself and the tremor that rumbled through the organization last spring, to reflect upon it. But Jacki is just the latest CEO to hit the skids at the US Ski Team, which has seen half a dozen CEO’s since the organization moved to Park City from Colorado in the mid-80s. And to a large extent, Jacki is right. Now, having put perspective on Jacki’s departure himself, even Nick Badami, the chairman of the board of the US Ski Team, admits that trouble had already been brewing for sometime when Jacki arrived. Administratively, the US Ski was Team not organized properly, Badami surmises But the big question remains: Has the organization been fundamentally changed to ensure it’s success, or simply downsized to meet a budget crunch? A very bad year The years following the Winter Olympics have traditionally been difficult ones for the US Ski Team. The excitement of the Olympics is gone and so are many of the sponsors. But as Jacki arrived following the ‘92 Games in Continued on page 11 Me ae Bee He 2* The Suntan Company Professional Sun Tanning Wolf and RUVA Beds Park City Plaza 1890 Bonanza Dr #103 (801) 655-0777 Salt Lake City 2120 S. 700 East (801) 467-1777 Se SE HEE > HERE US Ski Team offices in Park City. We Offer Professional Lines of Suntanning and Bedy Lotions |