With the Rocky Mountains as his team’s practice venue, skiing head coach Andy LeRoy has revitalized the Pioneer ski program and masterminded a back-to-back-to-back championship run for DU, increasing the school’s national titles from 18 to 21 over the 2008-10 seasons.
Although Andy LeRoy skied for the University of Colorado-Boulder ski team, LeRoy has pledged his allegiance towards being a Pioneer faithful.
“Pretty much everybody in my family was outfitted with Boulder gear. I was seen as a traitor to my ski community and family by going to DU,” said LeRoy. “I spent all of 10 years there.
Previous to accepting the job as head ski coach for DU, LeRoy had a very successful career as the alpine coach for the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports club from 2003-06.
“My last year at Steamboat I had 25 skiers under me,” said LeRoy. “Having so many [skiers] and being with them 24/7 of an entire year, during the summer, during the winter, over in Europe, all across the US and Canada gave me a lot of coaching experience.”
In 2005 LeRoy was named the Rocky Mountain Regional Coach of the Year and Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Coach of the Year in 2006. LeRoy also gained valuable experience serving as an assistant from 2001-02 under his idol, coach Richard Rokos, at CU.
As a student at CU, LeRoy was busy representing CU as well as the United States on the 1998 Winter Olympic team that skied in Nagano, Japan.
“It’s an experience of a lifetime. You, as an athlete, get an opportunity to compete at all different levels but the Olympics is something you can share with your entire family,” said LeRoy. “It’s a once in a lifetime. I really thought I would go again in 2002 in Salt Lake and that would be my window for medals but I was out of the sport by 2001”.
LeRoy’s coaching style focuses on taking each practice one day at a time. The most important thing, according to LeRoy, is that the team knows what they want to accomplish that day before hitting the slopes.
“If you have a specific goal for the day and then set-up drills that will bring that out the best for the athletes and show them what they need to work on,” said LeRoy. “It’s tough when we need to consider so many more variables than other sports like weather, snow conditions and getting to the hill sometimes can be a challenge in itself.”
LeRoy is not only famous in the ski world, but he had his go on reality TV as a contestant on ABC’s season three of The Bachelorette. Although LeRoy was eliminated in the first round of the show, LeRoy says the experience was very humorous and worthwhile.
“You know what? It was a lot of fun,” said LeRoy with a chuckle, “My mother signed me up because she thought the world of me. I recommend the experience to anyone looking for a little humor in their life.”
