SPORTS
CU ski coach Rokos makes team feel like family
CU ski coach Richard Rokos chats with Sara Hjertman before a run at a meet in Winter Park last Friday. (Andy Cross, The Denver Post)
WINTER PARK — Before they raced, they paused to remember their teammate Spencer Nelson. They said a prayer, and Nelson's parents sprinkled some of his ashes near the slalom starting gate on the mountain where he learned to ski.
It has been an emotional season for the University of Colorado ski team, enduring the loss of a spirited teammate who died on one of the Maroon Bells last summer. But throughout their painful journey, the Buffs have been comforted and strengthened by head coach Richard Rokos, a compassionate man known for his selflessness and sensitivity.
"We're a pretty lucky team, because he really, truly cares about us so much," sophomore Erika Ghent said during Saturday's slalom hosted by the University of Denver. "Because of that, we're an even tighter group, and we care about each other."
After the race Nelson's mother, Peggy Smith, reflected on the things Rokos has done to comfort her family, such as including them in team dinners when the Buffs were in Winter Park last week.
"He invites us for dinner, he makes sure we're involved with everything," Smith said. "Richard's just been unbelievable."
Rokos has lived an unbelievable life. Born in the former Czechoslovakia, he refused to join the Communist Party and risked imprisonment to defect with his wife and 18-month-old daughter in 1980.
In recent years he devoted countless hours to Jimmie Heuga, the iconic hero of the U.S. Ski Team who died last year after a 40-year battle with multiple sclerosis.
"Jimmie told me, 'This man is a saint,' " said Mike Marolt, an Aspen ski mountaineer and filmmaker who is working on a documentary about Heuga. "Every time I had to meet with Jimmie, Richard was there."
Growing up in the Czech town of Brno, Rokos was 13 years old in 1964 when the Winter Olympics came to Innsbruck in neighboring Austria. He remembers being "plastered to the radio," listening to a broadcast of the men's slalom when Billy Kidd took the silver medal and Heuga claimed the bronze, making them the first American men to win Olympic medals in alpine skiing. Rokos, an aspiring ski racer, was thrilled.
"There were underdogs," Rokos said. "Everyone in Czech was very supportive of Americans for many reasons, part of it patriotic, because Americans liberated Czech from Nazis."
That's not the way the history books of the Communist regime told the story.
"We end up on the wrong side of the line," said Rokos, who was born in 1950. "It was decided somewhere else, and we end up as part of Eastern Bloc. Russian influence and politics were pretty much pushed on us."
Rokos was repeatedly pressured to join the Communist Party, and always he resisted. Finally in 1980, while teaching physical education at the University of Masaryk, he was given an ultimatum: Join the party now or lose your job.
"There was no legal way out, so I had to escape," Rokos said. "I had friends who flew out on hot air balloons."
Rokos didn't have the proper papers to get past Czech border security with his wife and baby daughter, but the guard didn't examine their papers closely, so they made it safely into Austria.
"I carried briefcase," Rokos said. "My wife carried her necessities with diapers for daughter, that's it. It was frightening, because it was clear, if you are stopped at the border and questioned there, we'll go to jail and daughter will go to orphanage. You come to a point,
CU ski coach Richard Rokos assisted the late Jimmy Heuga on his first ride on a three-wheeled hand cycle, and continued to help on the Olympic bronze medalist's training rides. ( John Leyba, Denver Post file photo )
They spent a year in Austria before they were granted asylum in the United States. Rokos spent four years coaching athletes on the U.S. Pro Tour and became a CU assistant in 1987. Since he was named CU's head coach in 1991, his teams have won five NCAA titles.
He also got to know his hero, Heuga, a former Buff who was living in a Louisville nursing home. One day Heuga discovered the joy of working out in a three-wheeled hand cycle, pretty much the only exercise his advancing MS would allow by then. Rokos assisted Heuga on his first ride, and from then on, he made sure Heuga got out as often as possible.
Rokos would pick up Heuga and drive him to the CU track in an SUV fitted with a hoist. He would lower Heuga into his three-wheeler and strap him in safely so Heuga could circle the track, breathing fresh air and savoring the view. Over the years, Rokos did this "close to 100 times," sometimes sending out e-mails when Heuga broke personal records.
"This became his new passion," Rokos said. "He was so hooked on it that anytime we went, it was like a new day for him."
Heuga knew how lucky he was to have a friend like Rokos.
"Richard is remarkable, absolutely remarkable," Heuga said in 2005. "He's got to be a little bit of a dreamer, too. You've got to be a little bit of a dreamer. We all have simple dreams, just to be out in the blue sky, the fresh air, the sun in your face, with friends you like and your loved ones. That's really what it's all about."
Rokos doesn't regard what he did for Heuga as any great sacrifice.
"I didn't even think about it," Rokos said. "It was subconscious: He's a skier, he's my buddy, and he needs help so that is what he will get."
Heuga passed away just days before the Vancouver Olympics, and Rokos took it hard. Six months later, CU skiers would need their coach's help dealing with the loss of one of their own. Love was the answer.
"He was just a father to this big family," Ghent said. "We're just a really tight family. We call each other brothers and sisters, and he's our leader. He really helped keep us tight, keep us together."
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Making a break
Richard Rokos, on growing up under a Communist regime in the former Czechoslovakia:
"It was very restricted — the way you think, what you do, what they want you to do. Personal freedom was far back on the list of priorities.
"Yeah, you get free education, we have pretty much free medical, everything is free except the services are pretty lousy and very difficult to get through. Ideally you are becoming member of (Communist) Party, and then you move to different category, everything is far more available, you go to different hospitals, you shop in different stores.
"Lots of people gave up their personal beliefs and values in exchange for convenience. 'I have to do it because of my kids and my family.' I was under very heavy pressure in school because I was a fairly decent student, they all would like to see me join the party because I was part of young generation and succeeding. My goal was not to join, so I used all excuses to not do it, and eventually I ran out of excuses, so I had to leave."
John Meyer, The Denver Post
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Love and Gratitude!