I am a retired professor of agronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, who has skied the Birkie 36 times. I’d like to ski the Birkie at least 4 more times, but I’m 75 and nearing the point where every new year is more an act of serendipity than a planned event.
I have always enjoyed working with large datasets, and this comes from my UW years when I was a research geneticist/biostatistician/plant breeder. Most of my work involved field-based research evaluating extensive plant germplasm collections over multiple years and varied environments. I enjoy creating summaries from large datasets that capture performance potential in meaningful ways.
Only now, instead of plants, I want to focus on summarizing the performance of thousands of skiers over decades of the Birkie. The challenge is just as great given the tremendous variation in weather conditions, alterations in course/race management, and demographic shifts. I’ve started to do this in this website, but “started” is the operative word.
All statistics are bare bones at this point, but there is good potential for a more thorough undertaking. This project has benefitted greatly from the help of Dave Armstrong, Liam Johnston, and John Oman.
I would welcome additional help from anyone who is willing and qualified to move this effort to higher level.
I would also like to recommend the work of Paul Anderson and Ralph Bovard who compared the health and behavior of Birkie skiers to that of a representative swath of Americans. That data had been collected starting in 2014 as part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.
As a last note, I’m obviously enamored of the long tradition of the Birkie, and I want to make sure the long tradition becomes ever longer.
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Jim Coors
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