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Active or retired jumper, parent, fan…. now is the time to SHARE YOUR STORY! Memorialize (forever!) your favorite ski jumping memory. Take a minute and jot it down, find a photo and send it in! You’ll be so glad you did. Email to jhastings@procutusa.com.
Legendary XC ski coach (and US and Canadian Ski Hall of Fame inductee) Marty Hall first found a passion for skiing on a jump he built off the back porch.
MARTY HALL
Durham, NH
MisterXC@aol.com
My Back Yard!(short and sweet)
Dinner at my house was always at 6 pm sharp and my dad did not like to have to go out on the back patio to have to whistle for me and my two sisters. When we had snow I was always there or early for the meal. My parents never had to tell me to eat all my food, as I was done ASAP! Because every night after dinner I was on my jump that was lit with the kitchen light. It was round after round!
The patio was raised about 3 feet from the back yard level and I had to build an in-run with built up snow to create the take-off—in-run length was about 15 ft. so not much length to build up speed, but that didn’t matter as,Torger Tokle used the same in-run.
I still have not or cannot remember losing a tournament to him to this day.
Many a night I sent him home crying as I was adept at having a great last jump or my telemark was perfect and that was the difference.
Oh, I almost forgot—a long jump was 12 feet and was a very flat landing.
PS My parents could not believe the night after night routine, as I was to hear about it many times when I grew older.
Hey, it was the late 60’s, who knew it wouldn’t last.
Marty giving a clinic… do as I do AND as I say.
Curator’s note-
As passionate as Marty was about ski jumping it was in cross country were he would leave his mark as both an athlete and a coach in the US and Canada (he coached national and Olympic teams in both countries). In 2017 he was inducted into the US Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame… and then this year, to the Canadian Ski Hall of Fame, an incredible accomplishment (first ever? must be). The US Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame wrote:
Legendary U.S. Cross Country Ski Team Coach, Marty Hall, brought the American team to the world’s stage in the 1970s playing a key role in coaching Bill Koch to America’s first cross country Olympic medal in 1976. He also helped lead the debut of women at the Nordic World Championships in 1970. In 1981 he published “One Stride Ahead: An Expert Guide to Cross Country Skiing.”
