Since the first intercollegiate ski competition between Dartmouth College and McGill University in 1913, the sport of skiing at the collegiate level has been evolving like any other sport. From the time of the first NCAA championship in 1954, the essence of the sport has remained the same, even if the look of it has changed.

However, an NCAA skiing championship in the early 1970s looked a lot different than the 2005 championships will appear. This year, a set number of athletes from both genders will participate in four events: classical and freestyle cross country skiing (Nordic events) and slalom and giant slalom skiing (Alpine events). In the 1950s, only men competed at NCAA championships in events such as downhill skiing, ski-jumping and for the coveted "Skimeister" award -- an honor handed out to the best skier in four different events.

A number of factors led to pivotal changes in the sport. Without the modifications -- which many people involved with the alterations said were unpopular at the time -- skiing would look either very different today or not exist at all as an NCAA championship sport.

Demise of the downhill

Downhill skiing, conducted over a full mountain face at high speeds, was a staple of Alpine skiing for more than 20 years. Its elimination after the 1975 NCAA championship ended an exciting part of intercollegiate skiing, some officials said. But part of what made the event exciting also made it dangerous, and two deaths during championships in the early 1970s prompted the NCAA Skiing Rules Committee to eliminate the event in favor of the giant slalom, a more controlled, slower-speed event that didn't take as much preparation to run.

"The downhill event is very high speed, with fewer control gates, and obviously takes much more preparation to run the race in terms of putting up safety netting," said Middlebury College skiing coach Terry Aldrich.

Preparing for a downhill race required not only the safety netting but also additional training for student-athletes who might not be accustomed to skiing full mountains -- many institutions would train their student-athletes on half or quarter mountains because they couldn't find officials willing to close down an entire mountain for training a college team. Former University of Vermont head coach Chip LaCasse, currently serving as major gift officer with the U.S. Ski Team, said ski teams would have to travel to the mountain an extra two to four days early to train on the full course.

"You had these talented skiers who knew how to go fast, but who hadn't been training it," LaCasse said. "They were training downhill on one-fourth or one-half of a downhill, and they'd come to the NCAA championship and encounter a major league downhill. That's putting those people in jeopardy, I think."

George Brooks, coach of the defending NCAA champion University of New Mexico ski team, said eliminating downhill also created opportunities for schools that couldn't afford to train on full hills.

"It's unfortunate, because I think overall there were enough athletes to supply colleges and to help in the pipeline to the U.S. Ski Team, but financially it just was not feasible. The schools were unable to spend enough at that time," Brooks said. "Today, if we had downhill it would kill the sport because of the requirements to make a downhill track relatively acceptable to participate. It was a pivotal thing; it opened up a lot more opportunities because when you cut down the escalating costs of running a program, you make it available to more schools."

Elimination of ski jump

In 1980, the last ski-jump competition was held at an NCAA championship. LaCasse, one of the members of the committee who voted to eliminate the event, said that as a former ski jumper and jumping coach, the vote was difficult for him, but he knew how necessary it was for the future of the sport.

Ski jumping had long been one of the most popular events in collegiate skiing, drawing thousands of people to winter carnivals in the northeastern states, but interest among athletes had tapered off.

"There weren't a lot of ski jumpers left in the United States to compete at that level. If they were in school, many were participating at an international level with the U.S. Ski Team. We were losing a number of participants in ski jumping and many high schools had dropped it," he said.

Another factor in eliminating ski-jumping as one of the events at NCAA championships was insurance, Aldrich said.

"At Middlebury, our jump was covered under the umbrella policy of the college because it was on college land. But that's not the case at some other hills on private land where separate insurance had to be provided for that event," he said

Aldrich also attributed the demise to a growing dearth of athletes taking an interest in jumping.

The expense of ski jumping also limited the growth of skiing as an NCAA sport, Brooks said, because many schools interested in the sport couldn't afford to build a jump for their student-athletes to practice on. As a club skier at New Mexico, Brooks recognized that until jumping was eliminated, New Mexico would never be able to field a varsity squad.

"With the elimination (of ski jumping), it really opened NCAA skiing up substantially," he said.

Combined championships

The elimination of ski jumping and the combination of men and women at NCAA skiing championships are two pivotal events that are intrinsically linked, LaCasse said. Before 1983, the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women sponsored a women's skiing championship.

At about the time ski jumping was eliminated, LaCasse said there was a "major crisis" in the sport, caused by dwindling numbers of institutions that sponsored skiing. LaCasse said that also at about this time, the NCAA was scrutinizing specific sports in an effort to cut costs.

"There were emerging sports that were getting more popular and there were sports like gymnastics that were losing some numbers," he said. "They came up with a formula that basically was cutting the number of participants based on the number of schools that sponsored the sport. Skiing was in a dilemma. If we really used the hard numbers it would put a lot of pressure on whether to continue skiing. Everybody was trying to work on what was going on. We knew something had to be done."

That "something" turned out to be creating a joint championship with women's teams, elevating the number of participants in skiing. The men's and women's teams would still compete separately and in identical events, but their scores would be combined to crown an overall champion.

The combination convinced some institutions that it was critical to build their women's programs, and helped a lot of women skiers to international prominence.

Cami Thompson, head coach of Dartmouth's cross country ski team, said she felt the combination, which happened while she was a student-athlete at St. Lawrence University, was a good change for women's skiing.

"I think it did legitimize women in the sport. Very often when men's and women's leagues have their own separate identity, the men tend to overshadow the women," she said. "After this change, every athlete, man or woman, is just as important to the overall score at the end of the day."

Women were granted NCAA scholarships to participate in skiing and because their scores counted toward championships, schools began to devote resources to the women's teams.

"It all of a sudden took skiing, which really was in jeopardy of losing its championship because of diminishing numbers, and doubled its size," Aldrich said.

The future

Many officials agree that the future of NCAA skiing is bright. The U.S. Ski Team is starting to look more and more toward the college ranks for its next generation of skiers, something that has gone back and forth over the years, many officials said.

Many predicted more parity among the current sponsors of the sport -- Brooks pointed to New Mexico's first championship title in 2004 as evidence of the growing strength of "newer" skiing programs.

"Parity will add to the excitement of NCAA skiing and continue to foster it to grow and become bigger and better," he said.

LaCasse said he believes NCAA skiing is healthy, though not without upcoming challenges, particularly the emergence of snowboarding. The sport has survived some serious tests, and he believes the future is solid.

"I think we've had to make adjustments and corrections within NCAA skiing to conform to all this (change)," he said. "I've got to believe the future is bright for NCAA skiing. There's room for everybody, and with the success of the U.S. Ski Team, there's a trickle-down theory there, and it really does work."