Sherwood Center, Whitman College
Walla Walla, WA 99362
FAX: (509) 527-5960
Email: scheefmf@whitman.edu
WALLA WALLA, Wash. – Melody “Mel” Scheefer, a graduate of Williams College and a standout cross country skier, recently joined the Whitman College coaching staff as the head nordic ski coach for men and women.
Scheefer’s first season of coaching is shaping up to be a good one. She led the Whitman women’s team to a fifth-place showing in January’s first weekend of NCAA skiing, and anywhere from one to three of her women are on track to qualify for the NCAA championships.
Now in its third season of NCAA ski competition, Whitman has yet to qualify a cross country skier for nationals. As an NCAA Division III school, which does not allow athletic scholarships, Whitman competes in the western U.S. against mostly NCAA Div. I schools, including the universities of Utah, Colorado and New Mexico.
Scheefer developed her love of skiing growing up in Crested Butte, Colo. A graduate of Colorado Rocky Mountain School, she enjoyed great early success in skiing, kayaking and distance running. She then headed east to Williams College (Williamstown, Mass.), where she was the top skier on the Williams nordic squad in each of her three seasons. As a senior, she won three races on the Eastern Intercollegiate Skiing Conference (EISA) racing circuit, was ranked the top freestyle skier in the east, and led the Williams women’s team to its first-ever relay victory.
While at Williams, Scheefer also competed in two seasons of cross country running, sharing in the school’s 2002 NCAA Div. III national championship.
After graduating cum laude from Williams in June, 2003, with a degree in the geosciences, Scheefer completed an Outward Bound Leadership semester where she hiked, rock climbed and kayaked for three months in Utah, Arizona and Baja, Mexico.
With one season of athletic eligibility remaining in skiing, Scheefer took graduate courses in psychology at Western State College (Gunnison, Colo.) in early 2004 while competing on the school’s nordic team. She skied to a sixth-place finish at regionals that season and then capped her collegiate career by placing 12th overall (second among U.S.-born competitors) at the NCAA Championships.
After working last summer as river kayaking guide, Scheefer began her coaching career at Whitman in the fall. She challenged her team with tough lifting routines and a variety of roller skiing, running and bounding workouts. She also brought extensive knowledge of training and waxing theory to Whitman’s nordic program. “I’ve been interested in training theory for as long as I can remember,” Scheefer says.
Tom Olson, the director of skiing and alpine coach at Whitman, notes that “Mel’s energy and organizational abilities enabled our skiers this winter to train more efficiently and at better locations than ever before.”
Whitman’s nordic program and skiers have also benefited from Scheefer’s close personal and professional relationships with some of the best nordic skiers in the country. “Her contacts have helped our ski team gain national recognition, and they have given our skiers access to high-level training ideas and practices,” Olson says.