Dudas have successful season on the slopes
The melting of the season’s last snow is typically a welcome sight for a vegetable farmer like Mark Duda. But the crop of young talent he is raising on the ski slopes is enough for the Duda family to pine for fresh powder instead of fresh produce, so much so that Duda makes his own snow on the hillside of his farm near Brownsville.
“I think my daughter was skiing before she was walking,” Duda said. “Granted, she was with us between our legs.”
Now, his kids are doing aerial tricks and bumping moguls.
Duda’s children, daughter Jessica, 8, and son Tyler, 9, are competitive skiers who can outperform some of the boarding-school prodigies from the ski academies in places like Killington, Vt. With their father as their coach, the Dudas are members of the Pennsylvania Freestyle Ski Association (PA Freestyle) team, an outfit of more than 65 skiers and snowboarders ages 8-18 based out of Seven Springs Mountain Resort in Champion.
The Dudas completed a successful competition season in 2013-14 that culminated with the East Coast Young Guns and Junior Championships held March 14-16 at Holiday Valley Resort in Ellicottville, N.Y. The event was the largest competition of the United States Ski and Snowboard Association’s (USSA) Eastern Qualifier Series (EQS).
Because of his kids’ successes, this season was especially gratifying for Duda, who is one of five moguls instructors on the 15-member PA Freestyle coaching staff.
“It was more just for fun, then once we realized that they are getting some successes, we were like, ‘Wow,'” said Duda. “They are at that age when it’s fun to win and you get recognized. We are going to have to do a few more of these.”
Jessica Duda won the Young Guns title at the East Coast Championships, as she placed first in her 7-8 age group in all three events: slopestyle, aerials and moguls. Jessica placed third overall in both slopestyle and aerials, and she took fifth in moguls.
Skiers get two runs on moguls, using their best run for their score. Jessica’s first run was 5.52, and no other skier in the top eight scored lower than 11.23 on either of their two runs. Jessica’s second run was 12.95. Her teammate, Emily Szabo, in an older age group, placed first overall at 18.18.
“I was overwhelmingly proud as a father,” Duda said, “I was shocked. As a coach, I was happy to see her excel; she had one of the highest scores she’s ever had.”
Tyler Duda, competing in his first year in the 9-10 age group, placed seventh in slopestyle, 10th in aerials and 25th in moguls.
“I look for Tyler to have a really good year next year, just because of the training he’s had at the end of this year,” Duda said. “He should definitely see some more success on the podium next year.”
Competing with some of the top young skiers in the region is a badge of honor for the PA Freestyle team. While some of their competitors’ parents pay $40,000 a year to send them to ski academies, the PA Freestyle team trains just twice a week, four hours each Saturday and Sunday during the winter. That’s not to say they don’t put in their time.
“There’s so much involved, and it’s such a commitment that it’s almost unbelievable,” Duda said. “But it’s not always about training, because you don’t want to burn them out on training. You want them to have fun and free ski and have some fun laps as well.”
In addition to eight hours on the weekends, PA Freestyle trains every day from Dec. 26-31, the coaches collaborate with Seven Springs after hours to help shape the jumps and moguls, and, of course, there’s the competitions, mostly in upstate New York.
PA Freestyle will have athletes represented at about six events each season to qualify for events like the East Coast Championships.
Since many of the PA Freestyle team members are from the Pittsburgh area, the Dudas are close enough to Seven Springs to sneak out on a weekday.
That, or they can use the 200-foot slope on their farm that Duda had packed with up to 20 feet of man-made snow this year.
Duda, who is a certified USSA Level 100 mogul and aerial coach, is considering sending his kids to summer camps in locations where there is snow year-round or at Olympic training sites where a water ramp is used. For now, they’ll be playing soccer, working out on a trampoline and building core muscles for the next competition season.
Such as life on the farm: you’re always preparing so the next season will be better than the last.