Interview: Pat Lanin

(photo: Denny Nelson)

As this interview shows, Pat Lanin is the senior high school nordic coach in Minnesota and perhaps in the country. A former Coach of the Year, member of the Ski Coaches' Hall of Fame, coach of state championships teams and a national masters' champion in his own right, Pat's credentials are a testament to his love of kids, skiing and competition. In this e-interview, Pat summarized his career. If, as he says, this season was his last as a coach (volunteering with the Brainerd program), our sport will lose a steadfast and tireless advocate.

• Skinnyski: Pat, we were freezing at a high school race years ago, and you looked at me and said, "Dennis, we need a hobby." I said that I'd heard ice fishing was a lark. But you've kept coaching right into retirement. What keeps you going with high school racing?

  Lanin: It's simple, I enjoy competition and I enjoy kids.

• Skinnyski: How long did you coach at Hopkins, and how did you get started there?

  Lanin: I coached a total of 30 years at Hopkins, 27 of those in cross country skiing.
  I continued to run after graduating from (Virginia, MN) high school in 1957. I competed in track at Virginia Junior College, and took up road running (and Founded the MDRA) when I moved to the Twin Cities in 1960. After graduating from the U of M in 1966, I began teaching at Hopkins.
  I started coaching cross country running and track at the Jr. High level in 1967 at Hopkins. In 1970, I became the boy's cross country running coach at Hopkins Eisenhower HS. In 1972 it was decided that both Hopkins High Schools (there were 2 high schools for about 10 years) needed two cross country ski coaches, so my AD George Reynolds called me into his office at the end of my second season, and made me an offer I couldn't turn down. George made it simple, saying that cross country skiing was just cross country running with skis......yeah.
  Up to that point, my cross country skiing was limited to strapping some $15 (mail ordered from Montgomery Wards) 4" wide birch slabs on my hunting boots with a single leather strap for a binding, and slogging through the drifts on my trapline back in the 1950's. We had real winters in those days...6 foot snow banks, and I remember one January day in 1958 when the high was 27 below, after a morning low of minus 51! It actually did get 24 degrees warmer.
  There were several things in my favor that first year. One, most of the kids I had coached in cross country running (3 mile times between 15:10 and 16:10 for the top 7), were also cross country skiers and damned good ones at that. Two, we were able to ski right out of the back door of the school at Eisenhower, which opened onto Oak Ridge Golf Course, where we skied in tracks on some pretty decent terrain. Three, the top runner from my first year of cc running coaching was Tim Heisel, two-time cross country skiing State Champion in 1970 and 1971. (Tim also had a personal best of 14:54 for 3 miles in cross country running.) Tim decided to take a year off before going to college and was kind enough to coach the coach, and direct the ski team to a state championship. Another strong influence in those early years was Norm Oakvik in the Minneapolis Ski Club. (From the "What Goes Around, Comes Around" Department: Tim coached my grandsons and granddaughter at Buffalo HS in both running and skiing).
  From that point on I was hooked on skiing and applied the same principles I had used in training for running (based on the principles of the famed New Zealand running coach Arthur Lydiard)....we skied a lot! In the days when most teams were skiing maybe 10km a day we were doing 15 to 25km per day and 30 to 35km on Saturdays...on wood skis, with bamboo poles, low cut leather boots, 3 pin bindings, and skis kick waxed from tip to tail. The "base wax" was plain old pine tar. All of this was on skied-in tracks. We would ski in 4 tracks, 2 for the skis and 2 for the poles. No grooming in those days, not even for section meets. I can remember the entire team side stepping in a 4.5 km loop on the golf course and two kids skiing in a track behind the side steppers. It took us two days working until dark each night. When we got done we had the best tracks in the state, bar none. It was great! Kids today would probably look down their noses at our pride and joy....but we did have snow....tons of it!

• Skinnyski: Your last season brought a team title, didn't it?

  Lanin: Yes, it was a great way to end my teaching and coaching career at Hopkins. The boy's team went undefeated and Matt Schadow won the individual freestyle title. For the icing on the cake the Nordic Ski Coaches Assn. voted me Coach of the Year...talk about going out on a roll! We had a great run starting in 1993 when our boy's team who had finished 3rd in our conference, and squeaked out a 1 point win in the section meet, ended up 2nd (just 2 pts back) at the State Meet behind St. Paul Central, who were on a tear winning their 3rd straight Championship.
  We got all but one of those kids back in 1994, and I feel that that was probably the best boy's team we had ever had at Hopkins. We took 6 of the top five places at the section meet: 1,2,3,4, and a tie for 5. We ended up seeded way up front in the running order at the State Meet. That was the year it was 46 degrees, and the course was just dirty slush. The 7th and 8th seeded teams started at the end of the field, and when they were racing the temps began to drop like a rock, so they had much faster conditions to ski on. By the time half the field had finished, it was clear we had won, but when the last two teams began to finish, the scoreboard looked like a water fall, and we ended up 3rd behind the 7th and 8th seeded teams.
  The following year (1995) we won the boy's title, with a good, but not an outstanding team. The 95 team was only "3 deep" so I figured a state title was out of the question, but our #4 skier (Jon Otto) skied 3 or 4 minutes faster than his best ever and pulled us through.

• Skinnyski: What are the ingredients for a successful high school program?

  Lanin: One, is good athletes...seems too obvious. Coaching is like playing poker, you've got to have the cards to win, you can only bluff your way so far....and I was really dealt some great "hands" over the years.
  Two, is continuity of staff, philosophy, and work ethic. I was lucky enough to start out in a program that had all of those elements, and even though I didn't know squat at the beginning, I was smart enough to not mess with a good thing. One of the biggest problems I see with the HS program today is the large percentage of young coaches all full of "P & V" who are out to change the cross country ski world, but who only stick with a program for 2 or 3 years.
  Third, it's great to have a supportive school administration, and community, but you can develop a successful program without either. Brad Nuorala and I were living examples of that. We were limited to one practice bus a week, and we had to pay for transportation to most of the meets not on our conference schedule. So we ended up skiing on the "back yard" at Hopkins HS, on the soccer and baseball fields, and a 30 foot high hill covered with scrubby trees, on which we cut 6 runs, 3 up and 3 down. Hopkins had again consolidated to one high school, choosing the 'Lindbergh' site. When the school expanded, our hill became a parking lot, and we negotiated with the city and school district to get a trail set up in a ravine across the street from the school, which had been used for a defacto dump for years. We finished up with a hilly twisting 1.2 km loop, on which we skied 40 to 50 kids, 15 to 20 km a day. During this time our boys and girls teams made no less than 7 trips to the state meet, never placing worse than 4th, with 3 state championships, and two runnersup. So when I hear some of these young coaches whining about their lack of facilities, I have to just laugh to myself. One advantage of practicing on a small circuit like that is that you get to see all the kids all the time. They don't get a lot of opportunity for 'statue' skiing.

• Skinnyski: What major changes have you seen in your coaching career?

  Lanin: The previous mention of the wood ski days gives one a pretty good perspective of how things have changed. One thing, I've never been one to jump on the band wagon of the latest fad, until it's been proven to my satisfaction. The first "fiber glass" skis back in the mid 70's were a real nightmare...stiff beyond belief..like the leaf springs off a Mack truck. Then the short skis of the late 80's/early 90's, were going to be the end all for cross country skiing.....where are they now? The $30 a can super fluoro kick waxes were going to revolutionze classical skiing....gone the way of the passenger pigeon.
  Probably more important than the changes are the constants: conditioning, skills, knowledge of waxing, and the enthusiasm and persistence of the coaching staff.

• Skinnyski: Are there any changes at the high school level you'd like to see?

  Lanin: Oh, yeah; a two day meet with the pursuit spread over two days, and throw in a relay and/or sprint for the final event with a format similar to what is used in track and field or swimming. The boys should be doing longer distances, at least in the freestyle, 7.5 to 10 km. The High School League concept of team would get tossed out the window, and qualification would be soley by individual performance. Teams would consist of whatever number of skiers a school qualifies for the state meet...one or ten. Each school would get a score regardless of the number of participants. That's pie in the sky for sure, since it would necessitate two day sectional meets....it ain't going to happen.

• Skinnyski: Your relations with the MSHSL in the past were perhaps best described as "difficult." Have you mellowed a little since?

  Lanin: The difficulties I had with the league stemmed from a lawsuit they got hit with by two high school girls back in 1973 to allow girls to compete on boys teams or to have their own programs. I had nothing to do with filing the lawsuit; it came as a suprise to me. One of the girls, Toni St. Pierre from Hopkins, I had encouraged along with several others to take up running and cc skiing. Toni was a talented and serious athlete; she competed with the JV boys in both cross country running and skiing. I testified in district court presided over by Miles Lord. The League's attorney was Hap Levander, the brother of the then governor of Minnesota, Harold Levander. Hap should have been named hapless; he did a sloppy job and lost the case for the league (they would have lost anyway) and cost them nearly $100,000. After the loss, the league was forced to institute girl's sports. To their credit they put Dorothy McIntire in charge of the girls' programs. Dorothy is a genuinely good person. She survived the "legislative purge" and is largely responsible for the success in girl's HS sports.
  I remember going to the league offices up in Anoka for a cc skiing advisory board meeting, and being met at the door by the League's director and being called a SOB, and asked if I was going to hit them with another GD lawsuit. They should have reserved their comments for their less-than-competent lawyer who made them look like fools.
  Yes, I've mellowed, but so has the High School League. After the, "house cleaning" about 15 years ago when the "old guard" got tossed out by the legislature after some arrogant and extravagant use of funds, the League's new management gave the organization a new direction. The new staff at the League is much more responsive to the Coaches organizations and much more willing to listen to new concepts.

• Skinnyski: Going way back, what outstanding racers, your own or others, do you recall?

  Lanin: Tim Heisel, Hopkins 2-time state champ (1970 & 1971) and outstanding runner.
  Don Lee, Hopkins, also a great runner and two-time state champ (1973 & 1974) In 1974, Don won the state meet by the greatest margin ever-- 3 min and 10 sec. Second place went to Sten Fjeldheim, Mpls Roosevelt. Don was a true phenomenon. At the USSA Jr. Nationals Don finished a close second to 4 time Olympian Tim Caldwell of Vermont.
  Toni St. Pierre, Hopkins, a great skier (there wasn't a girl's cc ski Championship until after she graduated) and runner; she ran a 5:04 mile in 1974!
  Todd Kempainen, Hopkins. Todd never won a state championship....His senior year he lost only one meet...you guessed it. He totally dominated the HS/USSA scene during the 1975-76 season. He won the section meet by over 2 min. His team mate, Tom Waldo, was 2nd. At the state meet Todd skied on a new pair of Fischer skis on which I neglected to use binder and he lost his kick wax and had to struggle over the last 3 km of the 11 km circuit at Cloquet. Consequently Waldo won by 7 seconds...the only race he won all year. Todd was a member of the US Ski Team for 3 years and missed qualifying for the 1980 Olympics by 2 sec. In 1981 he dominated the collegiate ski circuit, and was the top rated collegiate cc skier in the nation. At the NCAA Nationals held in Jackson Hole, WY, he was seeded toward the back of the field. A Chinook wind hit the area and the temp rose 25 degrees in minutes. The slower skiers were finishing as Todd was out on the track watching the tracks turn to mush. He finished 7th. Todd is still one of the most gifted classical skiers ever to come from Minnesota, and probably the one with the worst luck.
  Torry Kraftson of Hastings in the late 80's and early 90, is probably the most dominant endurance athlete in Minnesota history. He won both the state cross country running and cross country skiiing 3 years in a row! I doubt if this will ever be duplicated again.
  Other really great skiers I've had the good fortune to work with are Matt Schadow, state champ 1997, and Peter Tollefson, probably as good a classic skier as Todd Kempainen. Peter won the first high school pursuit championship in 1999. Both are now skiing varsity at Univ. of New Hampshire.

• Skinnyski: What made them good?

  Lanin: Natural talent (genetics), ability to focus on both long term (training) and immediate (races) goals, and a distant third: coaching. The coach's focus should be to provide direction, and allow them to become self-reliant individuals, not soley dependent on the coach for every decision regardless of how minute.

• (photo: Jay Richards)

  Skinnyski: How do you rate the high school racers of today as compared to, say, twenty years ago? How about their classical skills?

  Lanin: The good skiers then would be able to compete with today's best...especially with the new technologies. What those kids could do on wood skis and those ankle cut leather boots was astounding...they could really ski. I remember Tim Heisel, in 1971, skiing the super technical and only 4 to 6 foot wide Theodore Wirth Flower Gardens course on glare ice and averaging under 3 minutes per km.

• Skinnyski: What does the future hold for high school racing?

  Lanin: I think the present system, although far from perfect, does allow for a very high ratio of very good quality skiers to participate in the state meet. Watching this year's state meet we were still seeing very good skiers out to 50th place and beyond.
  There are more good coaches, with access to good technical information. The level of cooperation and comaraderie among cross country ski coaches is one of the things that really made my 3+ decades in the sport truly enjoyable.

• Skinnyski: How about your own plans? You just won your class at Mora, so racing seems to figure in your future.

  Lanin: I really like to complete and I'll continue to do so as long as it's still fun, even though I'm getting S-L-O-W-E-R. I don't think I'll actively coach after this year, however. The kids need a younger person they can relate to.

• Skinnyski: What has motivated you as a competitor? You've won from neighborhood races through the Master's Nationals.

  Lanin: I've always been goal oriented and I'm happiest when I'm outside doing something physical like logging with my tractor, doing carpentry, gardening, maple syruping, hunting, fishing, building trails, etc, etc. So competing in cc skiing, running, and mt. biking are just natural extensions of my other hobbies. Also I hate losing, 2nd place is not an option if I have the means to do something about it.

Dennis (Denny) Nelson coached at Coon Rapids High School for 18 seasons before retiring. He's still very active in the ski community, volunteering at Champlin Park and area races, and can usually be found in the Fall working out with the WAM-XC group. Denny has graciously offered to do a series of interviews for us with some of the legends in high school nordic coaching.