By Tyler Maheu, Staff Sportswriter
Woodstock Union High School’s Alpine Skiing head coach Steve Foley enters the 2025-2026 season worried about his program.
“We have really been injured by lack of participation,” he told the Standard Sunday night. “We used to have 20 to 30 kids on the team; last year we had nine.” According to Foley, a third of those athletes from last year’s team have graduated.
Foley has coached skiing at Woodstock for more than 20 years, during which he has seen the program’s popularity ebb and flow. Now, with numbers dwindling, he sees two main culprits: the COVID-19 pandemic and the rising cost of participation. “Since COVID, our team has been really decimated,” he said. “When COVID was happening, the kids didn’t get into training programs, and now at the high school level, those kids aren’t involved in the sport.” He continued, “I’m not so much worried about the results as I am the participation. Every sport has their farm team, and our farm team was decimated during COVID.”
He stated that what was once a sport with minimal cost to the skiers has become expensive just to race. “Most races have had to add entry fees for all the racers,” he said. “Between 15 to 25 dollars per person.” Foley continued, “The increased cost to a teenage kid, unless parents can afford to cover it, has been a consideration.”
To combat these costs, Foley has gotten to work trying to provide gear for prospective student-athletes. “I have amassed a lot of race equipment for use to get skiers started,” he said. These have been made available to the athletics department.
“We are just trying to get the word out,” he said. “What I did this year was advertise, saying ‘come join us, we take all people, not just those with race experience.” According to Foley, a couple of last year’s returning skiers have been campaigning in the school, attempting to drum up interest in the sport. The long-tenured coach emphasized that the team will take anyone with prior skiing experience, and that they will be coached into excellent racers. “When we are coaching at Saskadena Six, we don’t just coach the best athletes, we coach everybody so that everybody has a chance,” he said. “We want you to have a good time. If you’re not having a good time, we failed.”
Last season, the team had only three female skiers, meaning they couldn’t field a team for states. On the boys side, Foley said the team experienced no injuries and competed well at states. “With the talent we had, we were close to the top five in the state,” he said. “And when you are in the top five, that really means something.”
Despite concerns, Foley remains optimistic for this upcoming season. “I understand that we are getting a good freshman this year,” he said. “The kids coming up weren’t as affected by COVID, so I’m hoping numbers bounce back.”
This year, Woodstock will have only one home meet at Saskadena Six, on Jan. 8, 2026. Their other meets will take place predominantly in southern Vermont, Foley said, as they compete in the Southern Vermont League (SVL).
