Skiing

Recent accomplishments:

Girls' Varsity:

• 2025 - Overall 2nd place
• 2025 - Non-public State Champions
• 2025 - GS States 2nd place
• 2024 - GS States 2nd place
• 2019 - Non-public State Champions
• 2017 - Non-public State Champions
• 2016- Non-public 2nd place
• 2015- Overall 2nd place
• 2014- Overall State Champions

Boys' Varsity

• 2023 - Overall 3rd place
• 2017- Overall 3rd place, Non-public 2nd place
• 2016- Overall 3rd place
• 2015- Overall 3rd place

The Team

Our team has been made up of roughly 20 students for the past few years. Boys and girls train
and compete together, although there are separate boys’ and girls’ races on each race night.
There are six varsity spots and six JV spots each for the boys’ and girls’ teams. Usually half of the new members of the team have raced before. However, all racers on the team have had extensive experience skiing on difficult terrain. All candidates must therefore be able to aggressively ski nearly any trail, on any mountain, under nearly any condition.

Team members must provide their own racing skis, boots, poles, clothing and helmet, but we will also attend ski shops in the preseason to order equipment. Although the School provides coaching, transportation and a large portion of the race fees, team members must pay for lift tickets and pay a portion of the race fees for the year.

The League

Blair’s alpine race team competes in the New Jersey Interscholastic Ski Racing Association
(NJISRA) in Conference B. There are 22 schools in the league, and out of 3 giant slalom (GS) races
and 3 slalom (SL) races each team attends throughout the season, there are anywhere between three and eleven teams in attendance.

At the end of the season, there is a JV State Championship race. Varsity teams that qualify then attend both the GS and SL State Championships, and individuals who qualify race in the Race of Champions. Finally, the top 7 racers in the league then have the opportunity to race in the High School Eastern Championship, which is attended by qualifying individuals throughout the eastern United States.

The Season

Our preseason dry-land training begins when the fall athletic season concludes, usually two
weeks before Thanksgiving. Practices generally last about one-and-a-half hours and consist of
stretching exercises, running, plyometrics, leg strengthening exercises, calisthenics and a cool
down. At some point in the beginning of the season, new members of the team will attend try-outs at Big Snow, and students who make the team will continue with dryland. Our on-snow season begins with our December winter break trip. In past years, we have traveled to Sugarbush, Okemo, and Stowe in Vermont. The ski racing season runs from early January to late February or early March. During a typical week, we will practice on snow two afternoons, race one evening, and tune skis and watch video of our progress on the off-snow days.

Criteria

As touched on in ‘The Team’ section above, there are certain criteria prospective team members must meet in order to make the team. These students must try out for the team at Big Snow through the coaches’ assessment. The criteria are as follows:

Candidates must be in control of their speed at all times

Candidates must be comfortable maintaining parallel skis throughout all points of a turn

Candidates must be able to deal with varying snow condition ranging from ice to slush

In addition, as noted in ‘The Season’ section above, we have two on-snow practices each week. Racers must attend both practices in order to be eligible to race in the corresponding week.

Meet Coach Anthony

Rob Anthony arrived at Blair in 2002 after teaching for three years at public schools in New York, Hawaii and North Carolina, and five years at Escuela Campo Alegre, a private international school in Caracas, Venezuela. Robin received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics education from the State University of New York College at Buffalo in 1993 and earned his master’s in education at The College of New Jersey in 2002. During his years at Blair, he has taught a variety of math courses, including algebra 1 and algebra 2 honors, pre-calculus and pre-calculus honors, and senior calculus. During his tenure, Robin has been housemaster of West Hall and South Cottage and assistant housemaster of Insley Hall. He currently resides in the Ciancia House with his wife, Rhonda, and their three boys, Elijah ’20, Ethan and Joshua.

Contact Coach Anthony at anthor@blair.edu for any questions.

Meet Coach Chrobock-Palanca

Haley Chrobock-Palanca '15 serves as an assistant skiing coach at Blair. During her time as a Blair student, she was a standout skier for the Bucs and was team captain from 2013-2015. Her high school career consisted of being a 2012 giant slalom state champion, a member of Blair's 2014 state championship team, and being ranked the 2nd best female skier in 2014 and 2015 by the NJISRA. Haley also qualified for the Eastern High School Regionals in all four years she skied at Blair. She later went on to Wellesley College and competed as a independent racer in the USCSA.

Meet Coach James

A 2023 graduate of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, Caroline James has joined our fine arts department as a video studies teacher and head girls' JV lacrosse coach. At Kenyon, Caroline majored in studio art and minored in classics and art history, and she completed undergraduate internships with a wealth advisory firm, a law firm, a medical solutions firm and a mortgage company. She also played women’s varsity lacrosse for four years and participated in the 2022 NCAA tournament as a Division III goalie. Caroline is no stranger to the boarding school world, having graduated from The Governor’s Academy in Byfield, Massachusetts, in 2019. 

Meet Coach Cholnoky

History teacher Peter Cholnoky comes to Blair from the Forman School in Litchfield, Connecticut, where he also served as a dorm parent, coach and advisor. Prior to that, Peter taught world history at Milton Area High School in Pennsylvania, and conducted in-depth research on U.S. covert operations in Latin America through the Emerging Scholars Program at Bucknell University. He earned his B.A. in history with a minor in education from Bucknell in 2022, graduating cum laude. In addition to teaching history, he is the assistant boys' 3rds soccer coach, and assistant ski coach.

Meet Coach Patzelt

Math teacher Timothy Patzelt comes to Blair from Kimball Union Academy, where he taught Algebra 2 and precalculus, as well as led STEM initiatives and advised capstone projects focused on AI. Tim has coached water polo at Tufts and Northeastern University and has professional experience as an AI prompt and software engineer, specializing in machine learning, predictive analytics and software development. A 2018 graduate of the University of Connecticut, he earned a BS in mathematics. 

View directions to athletic events. To read recaps about past events, go to the "Team News" tab above.

View more photos from the most recent season here.