Shortly after learning how to walk, Tommy Ford began skiing at the mere age of two. It was “on the backs of my parents going up the chair” at Mt. Bachelor where he first discovered his life’s passion and vocation that later led him to three Olympic Games, several World Cups and World Championships, and crowned him as a 10-time National Champion. His parents, Mark and Mary Ellen Ford, are both former ski racers and coaches, and both sets of grandparents taught themselves how to ski. Yet, despite his family’s storied legacy on the slopes, Ford’s ambitions extended beyond skiing. Between active ski seasons and recovery during a two-decade career as a professional skier, Ford studied art at Dartmouth College, a prestigious private Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire.
Below are excerpts from the podcast with Tommy Ford (quotes are abridged for print version):
Adriana Mariño: When did you discover that not only did you love skiing, but that it could also become the focus of your work life? How did that evolve?
Tommy Ford: That’s an interesting question. I guess I was doing what I loved for a long time and played soccer, too. And at some point, my parents took me to Colorado to watch a World Cup in Beaver Creek. And I was able to be a part of the Talon Crew, which is the crew that maintains the course during the race. And I was able to get out on the hill, and inspect and actually see the terrain and the racers preparing themselves and see their speed and power during the race, and [witness] the whole thing go down. And these are people I grew up watching on TV, and it was really exciting for me to see. When I was in person, I was like, oh, this is real, this is doable, this is a thing that people do. And I said, I’m going to head towards that.
AM: How old were you in in that moment?
TF: I was probably 12.
AM: What was it about that moment that really pulled you in?
TF: One thing that sticks out is watching Lasse Kjus or it might have been Kjetil Andre Aamodt, two Norwegians who were dominant back in the day. And I just remember him standing in the sun at the start, and it was nice and sunny, but a cold day. He didn’t have his suit top on, he’s just in his long underwear, just sitting there enjoying the sun with his eyes closed, and he had this little bit of a gut, like a power gut. And it was just cool to see that peacefulness before this intense race run. And I think that kind of just stuck with me from there.
AM: So at age 12, you already had this idea, “I want to take this seriously.”
TF: Yes, I just knew it was a possibility, and it never became too serious until later on. At some point, I went from soccer to focusing purely on skiing in high school; we had such a great group, it was all fun. And a shout-out to Pat Robson who just passed, and he was our coach back then, one of our coaches, and he was all about making sure we had fun, and he’d have fun. And that was a big part of our upbringing. And as a group, we just loved going fast, too. And that was part of playing around and skiing powder. We also loved being in the gates and pushing each other. And from there on, that mentality went all the way up into the World Cup when I started qualifying for races, and then I started to get a lot more attention, and exposure to these faster, bigger races like the Olympics and whatnot. And it started to become a little more serious in that scenario. And when it became more serious, I had a little harder time performing.
I got taken into my head a little more. I was 21 when I went to the Vancouver Olympics in 2010. And it was just a lot. I was pretty young compared to a lot of the other racers, and a lot of friends came up from Oregon to watch, and that was very special. Family was there, and I hadn’t had anyone really come to races before because I’ve been racing all along. It’s just so much focus on me and the whole world, and just the ski racing. It was pretty special, but I was so nervous throughout that whole thing. Cameras everywhere, and that took me a while to get used to. It took me years and injuries to get through, but eventually I figured out ways of learning how to play in such scenarios.
AM: How did that mindset evolve with time and experience?
TF: Probably through brutal injuries, and I think injury was a big part of it. I’ve had a fair amount of injuries over my career, and while it’s not what completely defines me, I’ve learned a lot of things from injury and how to accept some really tough scenarios, and learning how to shed my identity as a ski racer and just discover other parts of myself and what’s out there in the world. There’s more to it than just racing and performing. And I broke up my femur in 2013, and that took me two years to realize I wanted to ski race and then get the strength back and recover to actually get back into it. In the meantime, I went to school at Dartmouth and studied art, and that was my outlet at the time because all I knew before that was skiing and movement.
Listen to the complete podcast with Tommy Ford:
—Adriana Mariño is the producer and host of Bend into Balance. She is a board-certified functional medicine health & wellness coach and a graduate of the 200-hour yoga teacher training at Namaspa and loves to swim, ski, hike, bike, and travel. Adriana can be reached at adrimarino@hotmail.com.
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