Posted on the 46th anniversary of Spider’s death

In a long life (83 years) immersed in several aspects of the world of skiing there are, naturally, many fellow skiers I remember (some are forgotten) along that path. Though he died in 1976 at the age of 31 Spider Sabich often comes to mind, and despite the tragic circumstances and flagrant miscarriage of justice surrounding his death, his memory continues to warm, inform and bring a smile of gratitude. His friendship and example of living a successful life continues to inspire both those who knew him and many who were not yet born when he died.

His birth name was Vladimir (as was his father’s) but when he was born Vladimir Sr. noted his son’s long, thin arms and legs and nicknamed him ‘Spider.’ I knew Spider from childhood as we were both young (he was seven years younger than me) ski racers near Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada in the 1950s. His extraordinary talent as a racer was evident from the beginning as a member of Nebelhorn (later Echo Summit and then Edelweiss) Ski Team coached by German immigrant Lutz Aynedeter. Spider was a superstar from childhood to the end of his life, and in my opinion he enjoyed and played that role with grace, passion and humility. And he had a great deal of fun along the way. The seven year age difference and the 90 miles between Spider’s home in Kyburz, California and mine in Reno, Nevada meant that the few times I raced against him were at the end of my racing career and we were never ‘on the circuit’ together. However, in the late 60s and into the 70s, when Spider was doing his best ski racing and I was teaching, coaching and writing about skiing, we were together on a similar ‘circuit’ loosely described as the ‘counter-culture.’

 Skiing is a microcosm of the larger society and the tensions between the establishment(s) of American skiing and the skiing counter-culture, including that of ski racing, were as tense, uncomfortable and contentious as everywhere else in America. Spider embodied the best of ski racing’s counter-culture, and because of his four World Cup slalom podiums including one first place and 5^th in both Olympic and World Championship slaloms he was a favorite with the press and fans. It didn’t hurt that he was also handsome, graceful both on and off skis, charming and accessible. His lifelong friend Dede Brinkman described him for the Sacramento Bee: “He was so charming and very sexy. It was the same type of charisma you see in movie stars.” His brother Steve who was called ‘Pinky’ because he was bright pink at birth, also a fine ski racer not quite at Spider’s level, said, “Spider was a babe magnet. Just catching his overflow was fine with me.” Pinky also said, “Spider smoke, drank and did whatever all of us did. Let’s not forget, those were the ‘60s and ‘70s.” That gives you an idea.

 Though many (not all) of the best American ski racers‘…smoke, drank and did whatever all of us did’, it was a time when whatever all of us did was out of synch and accord with those in the administrative ranks of ski racing who embraced the status quo with all its quid pro quo perks for some and averted their eyes from such problems as the Viet Nam War in the organic, real world of all of us. As a consequence, many American ski racers tended to seek out fellow racers rather than official advisors for moral/mental/emotional support, friendship and guidance. And it is safe to posit that no one was more sought out, appreciated and loved than Spider Sabich. For the writing of this I solicited comments from old friends and fellow racers. The first to answer was well known ski racer and fellow writer Dan Mooney: “Hello Dick: So nice to hear from you and thinking of me for Spider’s memorial. It was my third year on the tour and I was no longer skiing for Rossignol. I was struggling a bit and no longer enjoying the benefits that Rossignol had provided in the past. Spider recognized this and came up to me one day and said, ‘Moondog, when we are in Aspen this year I want you to stay at my house so you can save some money on hotels.’ A gesture of friendship I’ve never forgotten, I feel blessed I got to stay there. It was a blast, such a good time. It was short lived however because shortly thereafter he was taken from us. Love you Spider and will never forget. The Moondog.”

 Paul Ryan, one of the great ski photographers, replied: “I wasn’t around Spider that much. What I recall is his seemingly casual approach to racing on a World Cup level. But I often wondered if that belied an underlying intensity. As you probably know, we ( Fat City Films; Myself, McKinnon, Clasen) made a film about him when he had transitioned to Pro Racing. circa 1972. His narration included words like:

“I don’t think about it much, I just ski it from gate to gate, as fast as I can…”

“I really don’t like training, but I do it anyway …”

In the late 60s there were many fine turns on skis and some long nights of spirited conversation over dinners and drinks shared with Spider in Aspen, Bear Valley and Squaw Valley. In 1969 Squaw Valley hosted a World Cup slalom and giant slalom. I was Chief of Course for those races, responsible for the courses being safe and inviting for the racers, and it was one of the most complicated and difficult tasks of my professional skiing life for two reasons: a plethora of chicanery from the Squaw Valley management and USSA and FWSA administrators who seemed to me to be more concerned with the prestige and PR benefits of a World Cup than putting on a good ski race, and the fact that a classic Sierra storm was dumping two to three feet of snow each night. It was a long, stressful, hard week in which, with the help of Spider and a couple of other U.S. Ski Team racers and a few coaches from other nations we cajoled Squaw management into giving over 100 volunteers a free lift pass for each hour they worked boot packing and ski packing the courses, and they did a marvelous job. Snow conditions and weather were less than perfect and inflicted undue suffering on gatekeepers, timekeepers, officials, coaches, racers and spectators alike, but the races were successful. Squaw and American skiing prestige and PR image were enhanced. Spider placed 5^th in slalom and 10^th in giant slalom and Bill Kidd won the slalom. The post race celebration was hosted by the French Consulate and featured an unlimited supply of Chartreuse which I remember (sort of), among whatever else we all did, being one of many to toast Spider with Chartreuse for his help and good results.

                                                                                                                                A couple of years later I was working as a men’s coach for the U.S. Ski Team. The other coaches included a German, a Swiss German, an Austrian and an American who had been schooled in elite Swiss private schools and who spoke German as well as he spoke English. They all had impressive skiing resumes and I liked and respected them all (well, except for one), but none of them were by any means in synch or accord with the culture of American ski racers of the 60s and 70s. In one coaches meeting they began speaking in German as a means of keeping me out of the conversation, but, fortunately, I knew enough German words to interject as if I understood what they were talking about (I didn’t). They quickly resumed speaking English and their responsibilities as U.S. Ski Team coaches. That gives the reader an idea of the dynamics surrounding the last U.S. Ski Team training camp Spider attended in December 1970 in Aspen a few weeks before he left to join his old friend and coach Bob Beattie’s newly formed World Pro Ski Tour. One of the training camp tasks I took on without being asked was to rise each morning an hour before everyone else and make a tour through the men’s ski team rooms and make sure any girls who had spent the night with ski team members were gone before the other coaches were up and wandering. As there were usually a couple of females in the rooms, it was one way of averting unnecessary contention between the reality of whatever we all did and the establishment’s transparent pretense that ‘we’ did not include ‘them.’

Spider’s move to the pro circuit changed the world of skiing. He was the just right person at the just right time and place. Beattie, of course, changed skiing several times, but having Sabich on board for the World Pro Tour was just the next step along the path of U.S. ski racing leaving behind the hypocritical ‘amateur’ policies exemplified by Avery Brundage and other white sepulcher elitists in favor of the more egalitarian policies European ski racing had embraced many years before. It was a move that benefited Spider, Beattie, World Pro Tour and, eventually, the U.S. Ski Team where today’s best racers can become millionaires from their skiing efforts and skills, as they should. Terence McHale in a 2005 California Conversations article wrote: “Spider was just eighteen when he left Kyburz to take a skiing scholarship offered to him by Coach Bob Beattie, the brilliant enfant terrible at the University of Colorado and considered by experts to be the godfather of competitive American skiing. The rough, ebullient Beattie would net his own level of fame as the voice of Winter Sports for ABC. He was still young when Spider was young, and they would become best friends, one of several best friends who would take pride in being close to Spider. They were kings of the hill. They were noticeable. They belonged in the icy solitude where their sport is its most challenging. In retrospect, the Coach marveled four decades after recruiting him to Colorado how Spider balanced his life. In public and private he lived scandal free. It was not a life of innocence. Instead, his was a life at ease with himself, a guilt-free life that, like his folks, was based on making his own way. Spider subscribed to the notion of expected conclusions: hard work meant being rewarded. Consistent with his upbringing when folks thought a person’s character should be evident, his good manners were ingrained. His humor was inherent. His mistakes were manageable. There was the flirtation with the University of Colorado lineman’s girlfriend that ended up with the 300-pound football player finally sharing with Spider the ludicrousness of the situation and playfully pushing him away. He ran Jimmy Ellsworth’s car into some garbage cans. He shook the lift on the way up a hill and ended up falling thirty feet and breaking his leg. He fit in easily when partying temptations were enjoyed. It is true he would not be freed if charged with vanity and hubris. He had a wandering eye for fun. A New Year’s Eve celebration in France was capped off with a spirited dispute over the tab. It landed Spider and his favorite teammate, Billy Kidd, in jail– not the best way to end the night, but there was enough laughter involved to keep it from being ugly and it is remembered as an adventure. There is a rumor, probably more wistful and wishful than true, that a love affair with a beautiful girl resulted in a daughter. Yet, there is no evidence that Spider had any capacity for hurting people. There was remarkable depth– a world-class athlete, a fledgling businessman with incipient plans toward participating in the development of the burgeoning Colorado communities, a spokesperson for corporations–and a colorful image that made him the premier draw of pro skiing. The quote that documentarian Ken Burns used to describe Henry Clay is apt for Spider also: “He had all the virtues indispensable to a popular man.”

Spider won the overall title the first two years he was on the pro circuit, and neither Spider nor American skiing would ever be the same. He made a great deal of money as a racer, around $200,000 a year (worth almost $1.25 Million in today’s purchasing power) in prize money and endorsements. In November 1974 he was featured on the cover of the popular Gentleman’s Quarterly magazine with the tag line “Spider Sabich: Pro Skiing’s Richest Racer.” He participated in celebrity ski racing events which were designed to gain support and fans for the pro tour. In 1972 at one of those celebrity ski racing events he met singer and Hollywood startlet Claudine Longet. One year later Claudine and her two children from her ex-husband singer and television star Andy Williams were living with Spider in Aspen. As previously indicated, Spider was a hard-living bachelor who had many girl friends, but Longet was the only one he ever invited to live with him. Miles Clark in a Snowbrains article wrote: “Spider had been living as an unruly, partying bachelor and his new life with Claudine and her children was a major change.  After the Claudine and the kids came his wild days were abruptly ended.  Naturally, there were conflicts between the two. Once, she threw a glass of wine at Spider’s head at a nightclub when he wasn’t giving her enough attention.  She forbade him from attending the ‘Best Breast’ bash in Aspen (the 70s were different).  Alcohol, cocaine, and other drugs regularly flowed through Claudine and Spider’s veins.  The power couple was weakening.”                                                

During those years I was working in Bear Valley and saw Spider a few times there, but he never mentioned and I was unaware of this aspect of his relationship with Claudine. I directed a master’s race clinic at Bear Valley and on one of his visits (for a pro ski race) Spider kindly volunteered to spend a couple of hours coaching the clinic. Needless to say, the racers were awe struck and ecstatic by his presence and the wisdom of his advice. A ski instructor saw us all standing around and stopped by to ask if I was teaching. “No,” I replied, “I’m learning.” Everyone laughed. I had a great deal to learn that I regret not learning sooner. After Claudine murdered Spider my good friend and fine photographer Don McKinnon sent me the following: “Dick:  well I guess it’s good that you had fond memories of Claudine for a while because I never did.  I met her long before Spider did down in Malibu.  I had rented a house on the beach not far from Andy and Claudine’s house to edit a surf film.  Back then Hollywood rental houses would deliver all the editing equipment necessary to cut a film.  Anyway some company got ahold of me to film an interview with Andy Williams about the singer Dusty Springfield and they wanted it shot at Andy’s Malibu home.  He and Claudine were separated but he had let her stay with her children at the Malibu house.  She immediately jumped in next to Andy and wanted to be in the tribute.  The director/ producer did not want her in it.  A very long argument took place and I finally had to relight and change angles to reveal the ocean and the inside of the house.  We finally got it shot.  Some time later I was jogging down the beach and ran into Claudine and her sister Daniele.  Claudine thought I would be the perfect person to date her bitch sister, so I did.  I was on a deadline with the surf film but made time to jog down to the house for sex with Daniele. Years later I was practicing tennis with a pro at the Maroon Creek Club preparing for a tournament.  The two sisters barged onto the court demanding to play doubles with us.  I calmly explained what I was doing but she threw an unbelievable tantrum on the court and had to be escorted away.  Later that evening a group of us, including Spyder and Claudine, were having before dinner drinks at Galena Street.  Claudine started screaming at me about not letting her and her sister play tennis and threw a steaming hot cup of coffee at my face.  She couldn’t throw well but some hot coffee did burn my ear and neck.  Spyder grabbed her and drug her out immediately.  Two weeks later she murdered him.  Sooo I’ve never had any good feelings about her.”                                                                                                   

I knew nothing about this dynamic when in December 1974 I got a magazine assignment to write a story about Spider. He happened to be in Kyburz visiting his family and I was in Reno visiting mine. Spider (a fine pilot) flew to Reno in his private plane and we flew to Sun Valley to pick up Claudine who was skiing there. The three of us flew to Salt Lake City and spent the night in a fancy hotel. The next day we flew to Aspen for an amazing, good skiing, hard living week of parties and conversations with Spider and Claudine. Her children were with their father. The last day of the year was celebrated with a huge party on several floors of one of Aspen’s hotels. I will never forget that evening. Several years later I wrote about it to McKinnon: “That night Claudine and I stayed up until dawn packing our noses, drinking wine and talking about many things. The next day I flew back to Bear Valley where I spent the winter. I saw Spider several times in several places after that but not Claudine. I liked her a great deal and found her intelligent, funny, engaged and a good companion. I mean, I liked her and thought she was good to and for Spider until she murdered him. The entire time I was living in Aspen in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s I never saw her until the very last day I was in town. I had packed up and was leaving town and heading for Moab to climb and had stopped by the market for supplies. As I was leaving we bumped into each other (almost literally) and we just looked at each other without a smile or a greeting but with (I hope) acknowledgement of what she had done to Spider and to all our lives.”                                 

I was referring to the four years I was Director of the Aspen Mountain Ski School from 1988 to 1992. With a month remaining in that last season I was unexpectedly and without following legal protocols fired by my immediate supervisor, an old friend. His stated reasons for the out of the blue move were bullshit and he would not discuss them. It took me a couple of years to figure out that he had placed himself between a personal rock and a professional hard place, and firing me was a (temporary) reprieve from the pressure. I have good reason to think this move was a significant contribution to his firing a year later. Nearly 30 years would pass with no communication between us when an e mail arrived from him with these words, “For some reason your name has been coming up a lot in the last couple of months.  Must be something in the air!  Karma? Who knows. Anyway I thought I would reach out and see how you are doing.” By the time his karma note arrived I had moved on, but in 1992 I was pissed. Aspen, like every town, city, nation, business and individual person, has its dark side, and my last two days in Aspen were filled with dark metaphors. My last run down Aspen Mountain was an enjoyable slide in the present moment as well as memory lane of Spar Gulch until just past Kleenex Corner when a skier in front of me on the cat track dropped just like he’d had a heart attack (which he had) and started sliding down Niagara. I skied below him and stopped his slide and he was not breathing. I immediately radioed the ski patrol which was there within a couple of minutes, but their cardiopulmonary resuscitation efforts failed. The man was dead.                               

The next morning I was packed up to leave town…unemployed, adrift, confused and disappointed about what had just happened and really angry. Skiing and climbing have always been physical activities that help me find my better self, focus on the present moment and seek the light instead of falling into the gloom. I was heading to Moab to climb its beautiful sandstone crags and already feeling better to just think about climbing when I stopped by the market in town to buy supplies. That’s when I ran into Claudine, who exemplifies the black worst of what Aspen means to me, as Spider represents the very best and brightest.                                                        

After seeing her I spent the next four hours driving to Moab and the next several days climbing there, contemplating the metaphors of watching a man die on one of my favorite mountains and encountering a despicable woman in one of my favorite towns and how to rise above them in the spirit of Spider Sabich.                                                                

Much to my regret and chagrin, the salient truth of what I missed in my talks that last week with Claudine was that she was an actress reading from a script of how she wanted her and Spider’s life to be presented in whatever I wrote, not the reality of her own person which she is most likely not capable of facing. In retrospect, I think that like other friends of Spider’s I knew that his love for her was authentic and supported him in every way I could.                 

  And there is this: That New’s Year’s Eve party in the Aspen hotel included entertainment by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and I was standing with Spider while they played the moving song by Jerry Jeff Walker, “Mr. Bojangles.” I’ve never heard that song without thinking of Spider and somehow feeling like the song captured his spirit and essence:                                

I knew a man Bojangles and he danced for you
In worn out shoes
Silver hair, a ragged shirt and baggy pants
The old soft shoe

He jumped so high
He jumped so high
Then he’d lightly touched down

Mr Bojangles
Mr Bojangles
Mr Bojangles
Dance

I met him in a cell in New Orleans I was
Down and out
He looked to me to be the eyes of age
As he spoke right out

He talked of life
He talked of life
He lightly slapped his leg instead

He said the name Bojangles and he danced a lick
Across the cell
He grabbed his pants for a better stance
He jumped so high
He clicked his heels

He let go a laugh
He let go a laugh
Shook back his clothes all around

 Mr. Bojangles danced and Spider Sabich skied and they both jumped so high, but the only time Spider was ever down and out was the last few minutes of his life.