Why Utah's Kyle Whittingham needs the ski slopes

Life doesn’t slow down after football season for Utah coach Kyle Whittingham.In fact, in some ways, it speeds up. To 73.1 mph to be exact.Currently, that’s his speed record on the mountain. And the moment college football season is over for the...

Why Utah's Kyle Whittingham needs the ski slopes

Life doesn’t slow down after football season for Utah coach Kyle Whittingham.

In fact, in some ways, it speeds up. To 73.1 mph to be exact.

Currently, that’s his speed record on the mountain. And the moment college football season is over for the Utes -- literally, the day after the team gets back from its bowl game -- that’s exactly where Whittingham can be found: on the mountain, skiing faster than some people drive.

“It cleanses my soul,” Whittingham said.

A lot of coaches have something outside of football that takes their minds off the game for a bit, be it hunting or boating. But about a decade ago, Whittingham discovered that the mountain was his place and the serenity that he found there was something he couldn’t find anywhere else. And so now, from the day after the Utes’ bowl game until ski season ends (usually late May in Utah), Whittingham hits the slopes 30 to 40 times.

He had skied for a few years in high school after his family moved to Utah from Southern California, but when he left to play college football at BYU, he just stopped. College coaching took him from BYU to Eastern Utah to Idaho State before landing him at Utah in 1994. And for the last 23 years, Salt Lake City has been home.

But, even being in the middle of all the perfect powder for all that time didn’t push him to the mountain until 10 years ago when the consistent encouragement of his son Tyler and some family friends got him up on some skis.

Then, Whittingham was hooked.

“There’s nothing like being up on the mountain, just being up there,” he said. “Combine that with the exhilaration of skiing down the mountain, being able to go fast. ... I don’t know how to describe it. It just gives you a rush.”

Despite his impressive speed record and safety record, Whittingham has never taken a formal lesson. He does enlist the help of fellow skiers whenever he gets the chance, whether that be someone he runs into at the lodge or a skiing tutorial video that’s posted to YouTube.

Five years ago Whittingham got some extra help in his ski process as kicker Andy Phillips committed to the Utes. Phillips, a former U.S. Ski Team member who became a four-time Lou Groza Award semifinalist, gave the Utes a reliable kicker over the past four seasons. But he also gave Whittingham a few helpful tips along the way that have pushed him to new speeds and runs.

Typically, Whittingham takes to the mountain with Tyler, but if he’s just going up for an hour or two, he’ll head up alone. And from time to time, he’ll be recognized by Utah fans. But the goggles, ski mask and helmet do a lot to conceal the appearance of one of the more recognizable people in Salt Lake City.

And that’s one of the aspects that Tyler sees as a reason why Whittingham enjoys the mountain so much -- it really is one of the places where he can be alone and away from his public life.

“It’s great to be out there in front of 40,000 or 50,000 people, coaching a team and leading that team out in that stadium,” Tyler said of his father. “And then to have the solitude of the mountain of just being up there and being alone and having it just be you and the mountain.”

The mountain brought out Whittingham’s competitive side -- always looking for faster skis, better wax, tougher runs -- a side that is almost indistinguishable from his competitive nature in football. And after 10 years in the sport, he sounds like he could be quite the coach himself.

Ask him for advice, and it’s likely to sound like a bit of a mash-up between tackling and skiing -- which is exactly how you’d expect Whittingham, a former linebacker, to ski.

“The geometry of the sport is forward,” he says. “Everything forward. Hands forward. Knees forward. You don’t want to be in the backseat. That’s the biggest thing that separates the average to intermediate skier to the next level -- being able to keep everything downhill. Your chest facing downhill. Keeping everything forward.”

With a 73.1 mph speed mark, it’s safe to say that Whittingham is good with the geometry of the sport in keeping everything forward. And both he and Tyler believe he still has a lot in the tank.

Tyler estimates that his dad could clock 82 or 83 mph “if there were no people in the way.” And Whittingham hopes that his best days are still ahead.

And having already spent 20 days on the mountain with three months of prime ski time to go, Whittingham hopes that those days ahead of him -- both this season and in the coming seasons -- are hopefully more than those behind him.

“There’s no such day as a bad day on the mountain,” he said.

And he would know. He has seen a lot of them.

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