(Left) Russell White at Winterplace, West Virginia and (Right) Sugar Mountain, North Carolina.
Russell White was 40 years old when he stood atop a slope at Sugar Mountain Ski Resort in blue jeans and skis that were too long for a beginner.
He didn’t have the appropriate pants for snow, so he wore blue jeans; the rental shop didn’t have any skis left in stock, so he wore a pair that didn’t fit. It was a particularly icy day, and he had taken a one-hour lesson—barely an introduction to the winter sport.
“It was pretty rough going, and my goal for the day was to make it down the run at least once without falling,” Mr. White, an Upper School science teacher at Providence Day, says.
“I came close but didn't quite reach that goal. The next year, I thought I would chaperone one more time just to see if I could improve on my first experience, which I did. I made it down the first dozen times without falling and then decided to try the intermediate slopes. I had some falls then, but I was already hooked.”
Mr. White was in his second year of a now 26-year stint teaching science at Providence Day when he first volunteered to chaperone the Ski Club trip to North Carolina’s largest ski resort and learned how to ski. He became Providence Day’s Ski Club Advisor after only skiing twice. He just recently took dozens of club members to Copper Mountain in Colorado.
With all the club opportunities the school offers its students, this one had the educator falling hard.
“I love the beautiful winter scenery, the challenge and feeling of accomplishment when I ski well, and the exhilaration of moving fast and choosing where to go on the slopes,” he says. “It's one of the closest sensations to being able to fly.”
Sharing a passion
Mr. White was born in Charlotte, and although his father had family who lived in the western part of the state, no one snow skied.
“My dad had a boat while I was growing up, and we water-skied,” he says, “but I hadn't done much of that for over two decades before snow skiing the first time.”
Since he learned to ski by helping to chaperone Ski Club trips and becoming the advisor, he’s taken students to Austria, Utah, Colorado, and the Lake Tahoe area to ski.
Russell White in Austria.
“I love the beautiful winter scenery...and the exhilaration of moving fast and choosing where to go on the slopes. It's one of the closest sensations to being able to fly.”
- Russell White
He increased the number of trips he took during his first year as an advisor, and at the beginning of his second year, a parent approached him about a trip to Austria. At the time, taking that trip was less expensive than taking students to the western part of the United States.
“I took several days of lessons there to improve my skills,” Mr. White says, “and the beauty of the Austrian Alps and massive expanse of the ski resort wowed me and deepened my love of the sport.”
And his zeal for skiing has impacted students.
More than 200 students have signed up to receive Ski Club emails, but a smaller number actually participate in the trips. The number of kids participating in trips has grown steadily over the years.
The largest trip was to Breckenridge, Colorado, two years ago, where 112 kids and more than a dozen chaperones participated that year. Forty-three students participated in the Copper Mountain trip.
Russell White at Copper Mountain in Breckenridge, Colorado.
“I love sharing my passion for skiing with the kids and taking them to resorts they might not have skied before,” he says. “I especially love to take kids who have not skied out West to let them see how massive and incredible the resorts are, but it's also a new experience even for most of the kids from skiing families that travel out west and to Europe to ski. This is often the first time they ski extensively with their friends.”
Mr. White takes a personal trip out West each season, and on rare occasions, he takes two trips. He also plans two- to three-day trips to Sugar Mountain and sometimes Winterplace Ski Resort in West Virginia.
“I literally think about skiing every day of the year,” he says. “One particularly hot summer, I would walk my dogs around midnight to avoid the worst heat and it was still over 90 degrees, and I would think about skiing in a cold environment to make the heat more bearable.”