MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
TIME FLIES Gerry FitzGerald is a legend in the Inland Northwest ski-racing community BY BOB LEGASA
“I
was in the Navy and we were on a destroyer, we were out at sea, so I was talking to these guys. This one guy — I’ll never forget his hometown: He was from Fitzgerald, Georgia. I gave them a ski lesson on the fantail of a destroyer,” Gerry “Fitz” FitzGerald says, laughing while we sit drinking coffee one cold morning at Lookout Pass. He demonstrated the lesson: “OK, hold your feet here. And now walk forward. OK. Keep your hands out here. It was hysterical, but they were into it.” A longtime Spokane resident, Fitz has been coaching ski racing for over 50 years and during that time he’s coached well over 500 kids. He’s greatly respected and admired throughout the Pacific Northwest ski racing community. Fitz was born and raised in the rough and tumble mining town of Wallace, Idaho, where his father was one of the town’s physicians. “My dad started practicing in Wallace in 1933. The mines were going strong. Lead and zinc and silver was the name of the game. Lots of things going on in Wallace — some things you wouldn’t want to talk about in mixed company.” Fitz’s father was instrumental in getting the Lookout Pass ski area open. “My dad had a group of guys that thought a local ski area would be nice to have,” he says. “That was probably in the mid-1930s that they put this together. There was one rope tow. “They thought a free ski school was necessary because there were so many kids in the valley that couldn’t afford to ski,” he continues. “So not only was it a free ski school, but these guys would supply the equipment for a lot of kids, and they even had a free
bus ride for the kids to get up the mountain. Over the years, it expanded as you can see from all the pictures on the wall of those kids lined up halfway up the hill.”
F
itz’s first days on skis date to 1946 at Lookout Pass. “I don’t think I liked it initially because it was cold,” he says. “My dad drug me up to the ski hill, kicking and screaming, and he would put me out on the hill and tell me to go ski. In those days it was a lot different. Of course, we were riding rope tows. You’d wrap your arms around the rope, and it literally dragged you up the hill. You let go, you fall off. So, I don’t think we really enjoyed skiing for the first couple of years until we ran into some friends that were also doing it, then you had fun when you’d come up with your buddies, and we learned skiing’s not so bad.” Fitz ski raced while he was in high school, and he says he was just OK. After high school, he went on to Gonzaga University and then Yakima Valley College, where he played basketball. He didn’t ski as much as he’d have liked in college, but by chance he met the Yakima Valley College ski coach. “I ended up skiing with the coach a few different times, and we got along real well. I thought to myself, ‘Ski coaching is something I’d really like to do,’” Fitz says. After college he went into the Navy and was on active duty for two years. He got out in the spring of 1964, and one of the first things he did when he returned to Spokane was go skiing at Mt. Spokane.
“When I got out of the Navy, skiing was still in the forefront of my mind,” Fitz says. “I ran into a fella that wanted me to help him with his ski racing program, that was in the fall of 64. Don Gasaway had a ski team on Mount Spokane called Snowflake. He had a ski school, and he had some racers. He asked me if I would handle the racers.” Fitz ran the Snowflakes Ski Racing program for two years. Then in 1966, “the Spokane Ski Racing Association (SSRA) came to me and asked if I would consolidate with them,” he says. “I thought it was an awesome idea because I had virtually no race equipment, and we had no real place to train. Because there were two teams on the mountain, we were relegated to a little spot off to the side. So, I put it up for a vote with my racers. I said, ‘What would you like to do?’ The greater percentage voted to join SSRA. I was tickled to death.” ...continued on page 20
CONTENTS
BETTER TOGETHER WINTER EVENTS SIGN OF THE TIMES LAST RUN 18 INLANDER FEBRUARY 11, 2021
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