A Baby for One, A Baby For All
By Sarah Olson
Some teams have a mascot, look at ourselves, the Alaska Nanooks, travel south a bit and you’ll find the Seawolves of Anchorage, a bit further south the overbearing green and blue of the Seattle Seahawks will be scorched into your eyes. I am a proud member of the UAF Nordic ski team, while I am honored to call myself a mighty Nanook, I have a little different perspective of what a team mascot is, and I think my teammates will fall in line with this view as well.
The mascot I’m referring to is a little blonde-haired cutie that goes by the name of Viggo. In the great covid season of 2020-2021, the head coach of my team, Eliska Albrightson gave birth to little Viggo. He’s an absolute gem to have around the team, and honestly, I’d say hes a member of it as well, sure he can’t ski quite yet, but he brings an aspect to the team that nobody else can- literally… latest I checked, there isn’t a time machine to turn one of us back to being two years old. That’s ok though, I don’t think any of us could quite fill the shoes of Viggo. On the outside, it might seem like he’s just a little kid that hangs around at some of our practices and gets pulled behind Eliska on her skis. I don’t mean to romanticize the boy before he can even speak, but he really means so much more than that to all of us. Sure, he’s the baby of Eliska, however he is now also the team baby.
Last year, Viggo started to travel on our team racing trips. He’s ranking up the Alaska Airlines miles on his travels with us to Utah, Montana, Colorado, Michigan… just to name a few. On these trips, Viggo gets extremely well immersed with each of the teammates as we pass him around to try to make him smile, laugh or dance. On the rare occasion, passing him around to hand off a dirty diaper to whoever is sitting next to us. He plays a strong role in the team, as he brings us together to act and work as a family, he has helped us grasp the concept of looking out for each other not just on the ski trail but also in day-to-day life. He teaches us compassion, as we show it to him, we also begin to share that feeling with those that we train day in and out with.
An average day for our coaches on these racing trips are as follows: Up before dawn to slam a coffee and chow down a bowl of oatmeal before leaving for the ski venue. Over the next 12 hours, they will be waxing and testing a fleet of skis time after time to find the fastest and most durable set of fine tuned waxes to slide onto our feet. They come home exhausted to a meal that the team had cooked (only burnt half the time) before falling asleep and doing the same routine again the next day. As you can imagine, having a child along for the process makes it that much more taxing. I believe this is where we come in. I don’t want to speak for Eliska, however the old phrase “it takes a village” really comes to life as teammates start taking different roles and responsibilities to ensure that Viggo stays happy and comfortable. Sometimes that means sneaking him a few frozen blueberries, sometimes stacking Lego’s, on occasion putting him to sleep and always being there to give him a high five or knucks.
As a joke, we all refer to ourselves as Viggo’s brothers and sisters. When we spend weeks on the road together, it does feel like we all start to bond as siblings would. In fact, the team even has a group chat called “Viggo’s Siblings”. He also makes us the stars at any race we show up to. Fun fact: if you have a 2-year-old stuffed into a snowsuit on your shoulders, everybody within a 200-meter vicinity instantly wants to befriend you. Thanks for easy socialization, Viggo. By now, the greater portion of skiers in the western half of the United States have probably seen or hung out with him at a race or two. It makes me wonder if he’ll remember that random guy from Montana State University throwing him ten feet into the air, or the girls from Michigan Tech passing him around like a teddy bear.
Whether he remembers all these moments or not, one thing is for sure and it’s that he’s made an impact on the team and in the ski community that he might not ever be able to recognize. I’m looking forward to seeing where the crazy life of a two-year-old might go and won’t be forgetting the memories that we have all made with him and will forever appreciate what he has brought to the team.
