October 06, 2018 (Ishpeming, MI) – The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame Class of 2017 were honoured Sept. 13-15 at the official enshrinement ceremonies that included many activities highlighted by a golf outing at Marquette Golf Club’s Heritage Course, the official plaque hanging in the Hall of Fame museum, and a banquet at the River Rock Conference Center.

This year’s inductees included Marty Hall, “Airborne” Eddie Ferguson, Herman Goellner, twin brothers Mike and Steve Marolt, Shaun Palmer, Thom Weisel and the late Steve McKinnney. Each member got to hang their plaque in the museum and officially join the 422 members inducted into the Hall before them.

The enshrinement was the final phase of the inductions that began on April 14 at Squaw Valley, site of the 1960 Olympic Winter Games, where legendary Hall’s career began. For him and his wife Kathy it’s been a remarkable and memorable journey.

“To be honoured and recognized like this is very special,” said Hall. “At my age, I know who I am, I know what I’ve done and I know what I’ve accomplished. I had great people and athletes around me and was successful at both jobs – heading up the U.S. and Canadian programs. We won an Olympic medal down here [USA], and a bunch of World Cups up there, things they’d never done. It’s fulfilling and caps a great career to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. With a name like mine I deserved it (he laughs).”

For Hall it all started with a certain 800-foot rope tow up a snowy hill at the Gilford Outing Club in New Hampshire, which his father helped to found. He spent his youth skiing and attended the University of New Hampshire and eventually went on to coaching.

It was 1969, when Hall had just returned home after six weeks from his first European trip on behalf of the Eastern Ski Association and partly for the U.S. National Team.

“I sat my wife down, in our living room, and said look I want you to know first of all I love you that’s the biggest thing on the table here,” he says, over the phone from his home in Durham, New Hampshire. “But what I did just now with this trip is what I want to do with my career, and I think it’s going to happen.”

Somehow they made it work. And, anyone with an interest in cross-country skiing, especially at the highest levels of competition, should be thankful. They knew there would be sacrifices and lots of travelling to the tune of some 170 days of every year for the next few decades. But Hall also knew that he could contribute to the sport he loved.

Hall has had a hand in many innovations and successes over the years that literally transformed the sport in North America and internationally. When he first attended competitions in Norway, it was before mechanized grooming was even used, and they still employed the military to stamp out the tracks by hand. So, let’s just say he’s been around.

Hall has always been confident and at times outspoken. He was quick to embrace new schools of thought whether it was involving sport psychologists, bio-mechanics, or even computers and other unheard of aspects of sport at the time or developing new styles of wax more than 40 years ago that are still the standard in the sport today.

And his tendency to break new ground wasn’t always oriented towards improving the lot of his athletes, sometimes it was more political. Hall was one of the first in a professional capacity of note to speak out about what he saw as rampant doping by countries behind the Iron Curtain, and more specifically Russia and East Germany. Sound familiar?

To this day, it is the one thing about the sport that continues to haunt him, and he is still more than happy to tell it like it is.

“I have a list of 40 some odd things I initiated or was part of moving forward over those years. it was exciting just exciting to be in the sport,” he says. “The only thing real deterrent was what was going on with drugs.”

At the Squaw Valley festivities and fund-raiser it was a special walk down memory lane as Hall had 55 friends and family members on the guest list, a source of great pride for the long-serving coach – read more here.

“They were not there because of what I did but how I did it and who I was and where they fit into the scheme of that chemistry,” he says. “There were athletes, officials, all kinds of people. A representation of my world.”

And although he said the ceremony was wonderful, there was also a private three-hour breakfast buffet for his own guests that carried a lot of emotional weight.

“It was near the end of breakfast when somebody stood up and said I’d like to say a few words about Marty and that got it started,” he says. “And there were many great comments, funny comments, comments that would make you cry. So that breakfast became a situation for them to get to know everybody. Relationships were developed and it was the one thing that was really cool.”

The more recent gathering this past September took place at the Hall of Fame itself in Michigan. Although he is confident about his place in the hall, and the legacy he has built, Hall is truly appreciative of the Hall of Fame process, the gathering of his peers, the reflecting on what it all meant and most importantly, Hall had an opportunity to really get to know the others who were inducted.

“I know a lot about these guys now, and they are big friends,” Hall says. “I had a great time, that’s all there is to it. You always ask, who wants to go to this sort of thing, but it really was a great time.”

And when it came time for another speech, Hall had the opportunity to circle back to that conversation almost 50 years ago between him and his wife about this whole cross-country ski coaching thing.

“It’s been 51 years she’s put up with me,” he says. “Until you do this job, you just can’t envision it, the amount of travel, the sacrifices.”

But, when I ask the 81-year-old about when he finally stopped coaching, he was quick to point out he’s still actively involved in the sport, whether it is advising the University of New Hampshire coach on a roller skiing facility or privately coaching a young Canadian skier.

“I’m involved,” he says, matter-of-factly. “I’m still visible. And if I say something, people still listen.”

SkiTrax joins the Nordic ski community around the globe in congratulating Marty and Kathy Hall for their passion, dedication, and contributions to the sport and wish them the very best… on the golf course as well.