University of Vermont Athletics

The coach credited with building the UVM ski program into one of the nation’s best, Chip LaCasse completed his 33rd and final year as the Director of Skiing at the University of Vermont in 2003.

During his tenure at UVM, LaCasse built the Catamount program into a national power, leading the Cats to six national titles, 10 runner-up finishes and a record 28 Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association (EISA) championships.

Named EISA Coach of the Year a record seven times, LaCasse’s skiers earned 44 individual NCAA titles and more than 250 All-America certificates during his remarkable 33-year run at UVM. Vermont skiers won three of the six individual titles at NCAA Championships six times, and 36 skiers LaCasse coached have been inducted into the UVM Athletic Hall of Fame. Of the eight skiers in NCAA history to win four individual national titles, two of them – Thorodd Bakken and Laura Wilson – skied for LaCasse.

In his final year as Director of Skiing, LaCasse had one more bit of magic to unveil at the 2003 NCAA Championship at Dartmouth. With the Catamounts two Nordic skiers short of a full complement of skiers, he led the Catamounts to an improbable second-place finish in his swan song.

A New England native, LaCasse was recruited for the University of Colorado ski team back in the 1960s by head coach (and former Middlebury Panther) Bob Beattie. LaCasse was an outstanding ski jumper for the Buffalos and became an assistant coach there while earning a master’s degree in physical education. He returned to the East and coached the Lebanon (N.H.) High School ski team before joining UVM in 1969 as Nordic coach under Denis Lambert. A year later, LaCasse succeeded Lambert as director of the ski program.