EDITOR’S NOTE
W
Our story celebrates Irish Mist Capt. Chelsea Schmitt and other women in the Homer fishing industry. The American Olympian women from the recently concluded Beijing Games should also be celebrated. (DAVID ZOBY)
e hope you’ll enjoy Dave Zoby’s profile of some of the women kicking ass in Homer’s sportfishing charter fleet (page 16). Kudos to the ladies like Chelsea Schmitt, Emily Leggitt, Delta Savich, Shannon Zanone and so many others holding their own with the men in Alaska’s fishing industry. The story had an impact on me coinciding with what recently happened in China. The Beijing Winter Olympics was probably – and sadly – more noteworthy about what happened away from the ice, the slopes and tracks the games were contested on. From political grandstanding to the Covid pandemic restrictions to the absurdity and outrage over the women’s figure skating doping scandal involving a 15-year-old Russian skater, it was easy to forget the athletes’ accomplishments. Like Zoby’s interviews with the Homer fishing women, I was so inspired by many of the female American athletes who represented us in China (and please check out the February story on Alaskan curler Vicky Persinger on our website, aksportingjournal.com). There was snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis, her sport’s most decorated performer, but in four previous Olympics she had come up short of a gold medal. She won two in Beijing at 36 years old. There was bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor, who grew up in that winter sports hotbed of Douglasville, Georgia and played Division I softball before giving bobsledding a try. She just earned her fourth and fifth medals in the sport spanning four different Olympics. There was speed skater Erin Jackson, 500-meter Olympic champion. Jackson, ranked No. 1 in the world, had come up short in Olympic Trials qualifying with an untimely fall, but teammate Brittany Bowe gave her spot in that event to allow her friend the chance to compete and win gold (Bowe also won a bronze medal this year in the 1,000 meters). And there was cross-country skier Jessie Diggins, who teamed with Alaskan Kikkan Randall to win Team USA’s first gold medal in the team sprint race in the 2018 Winter Games, and won silver in one of the final events in Beijing, the 30-kilometer individual sprint (her second medal of the 2022 Olympics). I was watching the closing ceremonies when Diggins got her medal, and she looked so thrilled and joyful with silver I thought to myself, “I couldn’t complain if I ever finished second in anything ever again.” There were so many additional great performances, and as Zoby’s story celebrated women in Alaska fishing and we all celebrated our Olympians, it’s refreshing to feel good about each other during these conflicted, contentious and troubled times. -Chris Cocoles
aksportingjournal.com | MARCH 2022
ALASKA SPORTING JOURNAL
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