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COLORADO SKI HALL of FAMER FRANK PENNEY had a storied career as an
athlete and went on to be a beloved coach in Winter Park.
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FRANK PENNEY, Chief of Story
1925- 2010
Winter Park, CO
1925- 2010
Winter Park, CO
Introduction from Dennis McGrane who skied out of Winter Park in the 70’s. To see Dennis’s 2013 story click here
Frank coached ski-jumping at Winter Park, Co. from 1965 until it was abolished in 2004 by Interwest Corp. to make room for more beginner terrain. The following excerpt is from his bio prior to being inducted into the Colorado Ski Hall of Fame. Frank was always full of passionate stories. In his later years, Jamie Scholl a Winter Park coaching icon, would joke with Frank when assigning jobs at the hill. He would assign Frank the job of “Chief of Story” which always raised a chuckle.
Frank coached ski-jumping at Winter Park, Co. from 1965 until it was abolished in 2004 by Interwest Corp. to make room for more beginner terrain. The following excerpt is from his bio prior to being inducted into the Colorado Ski Hall of Fame. Frank was always full of passionate stories. In his later years, Jamie Scholl a Winter Park coaching icon, would joke with Frank when assigning jobs at the hill. He would assign Frank the job of “Chief of Story” which always raised a chuckle.
Frank Penney Autobiography
My first memory of using skis was in 1930 when I was five years old. Someone had left a pair of 7 foot pine boards by the house. It was quite a new sensation to slide 30 or 40 feet on them. Things went fine until I crossed a ditch and one ski broke at the mortised hole where the toe strap went through. From this point on things improved. My dad got me a pair of 5 foot maple skis from Montgomery Ward. Those were much more modern with leather heel straps with buckle and tow irons belted through a mortised hole. The toe irons played havoc on the rubber overshoes I wore though. All this was about 1930, taking place on our homesteaded land between Grand Lake and Granby, Colorado.
This equipment lasted until about 1934 when I recall winning a Grand Lake school long distance ski jump. The two long jumpers went over 50 feet and both fell, but I went 42 feet and rode it. I didn’t get much opportunity to ski frequently with others since we lived on a ranch seven miles from Grand Lake, so my early training was mostly all experimental on my own. My ski jump designs were copied from the ones my cousins in town used and made by the older ski jumpers. Those were always a 2 foot donkey jump with a flat landing. Nevertheless, I built and rebuilt jumps in the middle of a small hill so I could land on the steep part. This never worked very well because I never had a hill with a natural knoll.
Following the death of my father in 1937 my mom, sister and I moved to Grand Lake in the wintertime. There during my 7th, 8th, and 9th grades I got enough ski jumping on gradually larger hills to learn that I was “hooked” on the sport and that occasional winning was sure fun. During these years we skied in county school ski meets and Southern Rocky Mountain meets at Steamboat Springs and Hot Sulphur Springs
EVENT: Year, 1934 at a Grand Lake Winter Sports Club meet: The big guys had finished their competition (jumping 150 to 165 feet) so I went across the outrun from the parked cars so I could listen to the big guys get ready for the long standing jump. One fellow was particularly loud and brash. His concern over and over was that the long standing event was a mens’ event and we don’t want any kids. (I later found out that he was John Steele, a ’32 Olympian). Then more noise. The “kid” he was concerned about was Gordon Wren from Steamboat Springs!
EVENT: In 1939 the Hot Sulphur Springs Ski Club had the jumps on Mt. Bross across the river from town. It seemed like a big hill at the time. I asked my cousin “What do we do on this hill?” He said “Jus wait a minute” and then “there, do what that guy just did.” That guy was Alf Engen. After one day of practice I was hitting that take off good. I was in Class D and beat all in that class plus the Class C and Class B beginners with jumps of 44 meters. Boy oh boy! Was I ever happy! I had visions of what a great prize I would be awarded at the Legion Hall that night, maybe a 1/2 ton of coal or a bushel of assorted groceries. The big shot handed me an envelope. Inside it stated “Winner will receive one week at Camp Chief Ouray, the YMCA.”! I survived four days, even after being thoroughly chewed out for putting the bridle and saddle on my assigned numbered horse.
In the fall of 1940 we moved to Fort Collins to attend high school. To go to an accredited high school in Grand county in those days required living in Kremmling or going outside the county. During the high school years getting to ski meets was a problem. However, I did get to the Steamboat Springs Winter Carnival in ’41, ’42 and ’43. Bus fare from Ft. Collins to Denver was about $1.00 and train fare to Granby was about $1.25. That was home country where I could get a ride.
The Estes Park Ski Club occasionally put on a summer ski jump meet about the first weekend in June after Trail Ridge road was opened. The snow was trucked in and put on the hill with an old mine car on some track. The hill was probably good for 150 feet. I recall the 1940 meet. After the hill was well packed and the snow cement offered a suitable surface, the meter chain was strung out. An old timer looked at the situation and advised with authority and a Norwegian accent, “Vell boys, Ve got many tourists here today, Give me about 30 feet of that chain and ve stuff it under ze jump.” That was Alf Engan talking.
EVENT: The meets at Homewood Park (near Tiny Town) were always fun. They sometimes had as much or more snow than we had at Grand Lake in early January. In about 1940 we had finished our competition on the hill that was good for distances of 65 to 75 feet. It was lunch time and three of us went to examine the big-big jump. It had a real high, shaky scaffold and looked like a hill good for over 200 feet. (1). If one didn’t turn in the air the takeoff would head you for the trees and (2) it looked to be at least 90 to 95 feet to get you over the knoll into the steep landing. We decided it was not a good risk. To help us move off the scaffold we got thunderous instructions from the flat, like “get the h— off there, you idiots”! We went down to the men’s 50 meter hill and managed on not an extra wide in-run scaffold to make a nice three abreast jump.
EVENT: The last ski meet that I went to during the war was in February, 1943 at Steamboat Springs. It was a fun meet with few competitors because most were in the service. We had a downhill race off Howelson Hill, with start gate and finish gate. I took a straight line short-cut. Never before had I ever gone so fast on alpine skis. My short-cut didn’t work too well. The winner, Barney McLean beat Walter Prager with a time of 18 seconds. I was fast at 28 seconds. The jumping was great fun. The hill was good for around 80 meters distance then. I made a couple of rides and then went up the boat tow with some Army guy. He said, “I was watching you, let’s watch each other.” Fine with me. He offered, “After each jump let’s take two big steps down and then land in the same spot.” (He had a marker at about 250 feet). On the fourth jump he asked to jump last and would I go back up the jump and report back to him what his tracks looked like. I did as asked. To my astonishment I could see his “trademark” two 3 grooved tracks that indented the hard packed snow about 3/8 inch by my guess. Like he said, it’s easier to properly “hit the takeoff” at a slower in run speed. That was my most fun day of ski jumping. It was Torger Tokle. Later I read that in the four years he was with us he jumped in 44 meets, won 39 of them, and established 22 new hill records.
Some six weeks following my high school graduation I was asked by my friends and neighbors to help out with the defeat of Hitler and Tojo. My skiing efforts were put on hold. I had about six months of Army training, half of infantry and half as an artillery mechanic. I ended up as a truck driver and squad leader in France, Germany, etc. After the war in September, 1945, I was injured in a truck accident in Germany. The repair and healing of the broken femur put me in bed for 13 months. After my discharge in February, 1947, I gradually got my leg to bend. Then I was off to the University of Colorado in Boulder to pursue a degree in Engineering. This turned out to be a Geology degree, a field that occupied me for 33 years. During my college years I did a little alpine skiing and ski jumped some. In 1949 I jumped both at Steamboat Springs and at Estes Park, where I entered the Southern Rocky Mountain Classic Combined held at Estes Park in 1949. (The title of the meet was shortly after changed to “Nordic Combined”). My training consisted of about 7 or 8 one hour afternoons trotting around the track at the C.U. stadium. I borrowed some cross country skis from Ross Chivers and of all things won the cross country event! A second place in the ski jumping gave me the Class B combined medal. A close friend said to me , “look at the meet this way: Gordon Wren won Class A but he’s a professional (teaching skiing at Steamboat Springs) and Marvin Crawford was second but he’s still a junior, so you are the champ!
Although my injured leg was getting back in shape, in August, 1949, when working at a summer job as a lineman, a rotten pole went over with me near Granby. This brought 5 weeks of bed duty with a fracture tibia and. cracked pelvis. Following healing I was ready to ski again in February, 1951. My training was what one would describe as extremely limited. I borrowed some standard 8 foot Northland jumping skis from a friend, Ross Chivers, and was able to crowd in four practice rides at Winter Park. Then off to Steamboat Springs. I was having great fun on the 60 meter hill, going about 170 to 180 feet while preparing for the Class B competition. An older jumper approached me and began a big sales pitch about how well I was Jumping, etc., and “why don’t you come with me and try the 90 meter hill?” I agreed. I had jumped it before but not since it had been remodeled to go 90 meters. The first ride was entirely a new experience. My only “concern” while studying the take off of other jumpers was “I’ve got to hit this take off right at the end with all the spring and force I can muster.” My concern was almost excluded from my mind on the inrun about half way to the jump. The inrun had yet to be designed to allow a gradual increase of speed. It felt like 90% of your acceleration happened within about 70 to 80 feet. Later, I heard another jumper simply refer to my 70 to 80 feed section as, “Oh, you mean that part where you don’t make any tracks”. In any event, I can still recall that welcome feeling of having some weight again at the beginning of the table of the jump. The acquaintance who encouraged me to jump on the 90 meter hill had one last bit of advice: in a mixed American-Austrian accent that I well remember Hans said “You have not trouble, just don’t get rattled.” The next morning I thought I’d get a few more jumps completed but the P.A. system announced “all Class A and B jumpers to the top of the 90 meter hill, it looks like a storm coming in” What’s going on here….No Class B on the 60 meter hill? Oh well! It was fun. A fellow named Aunsten Samuelson had the long jumps. He went 316 feet, a record that lasted about 12 years. I had the short jumps. But just think, if there had been a Winners’ Platform, I would have been there. There were three jumpers in Class B and I got third place!
In 1965, I started coaching ski jumping on weekends at Winter Park, where I coached for 37 years. There I made my last ski jump on the 50 meter hill at age 50. My best memories of ski jumping are always of the joy of progress shown by changes evident as the young jumpers grow from competitors to outstanding citizens.
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ALL STAR COACHING STAFF AT WINTER PARK 1972. A who’s who of big names
from left to right- Dale Thompson, Frank Penney, Bob Scholl, Pete Wither, Pop
Sorensen, Crosby Smith, Thos Groswold, and Glen Clayton.
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Editor’s Note-
To see Frank’s page in the Colorado Ski & Snowboard Museum Hall of Fame, click here
