Alumni Profiles

Ski Moguls Two former ski teammates are still racing, and winning By Brion O'Connor '83

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Carolyn Beckedorff '89, left, and Jessica McAleer '95 at a masters event. Photo by Perry Smith

Former teammates on the UNH ski team, Carolyn Beckedorff '89 and Jessie McAleer '95 still love racing. Almost every winter weekend the two share the same hill on the New England Masters Sise Cup ski racing circuit.

They also share an intense, but friendly, rivalry. Since 2001, when McAleer entered the masters ski racing ranks, either she or Beckedorff has taken home the season's top honors. In nine seasons, McAleer has won five crowns, Beckedorff four. "I love the fact that Carolyn and I push each other," says McAleer. "It's an amazing rivalry," agrees Beckedorff. "I know if I want to win on any given day, Jessie's going to be coming after me. We both raise each other's game, and that's really neat."

While at UNH, Beckedorff was star-crossed, with a litany of injuries, including a blown-out knee and broken tailbone. McAleer, three years Beckedorff's junior, eventually received All-East honors despite fracturing both her wrists her freshman year. "They're very serious and they want to win," Beckedorff says of the UNH ski team, "but I don't think they burn out a lot of people. They do a really good job of fostering a lifetime love for the sport."

Off the hill, Beckedorff is the lead trader for a Boston investment firm, a wife and a mother (son Harrison is 7). McAleer is a recruiter for a Boston-based software company, Ab Initio. After UNH, she spent seven years on the pro ski-racing circuit. "When I got out of school, the bug still had me," says McAleer. "I'd been doing it for 20 years, and I felt like I had a lot more in me."

Both took up masters ski racing by way of coaching. Beckedorff agreed to help her former UNH coach, Paul Burton, with the Gunstock Ski Area program, where she met her future husband, Tony DiGangi. McAleer, after a two-year hiatus from the sport, returned to the Mount Washington Valley ski program, and her former coach, Dave Gregory.

In the gates, Beckedorff and McAleer take different approaches. Beckedorff is more tactical, a technical skier who relies on precision to find the quickest line. By her own admission McAleer is more about raw power, and the rush. Both remark how they admire the masters racers who compete well into their 70s, 80s and even 90s, and neither has any intention of slowing down. Beckedorff says she has "probably trained harder this spring, summer and fall than I ever have. I guess I am competitive in that way, because I want to bring my A game."

McAleer, meanwhile, spent two weeks this summer skiing in Chile. "I think I skied the best slalom of my life down there," she says. "I had an epiphany. I felt really strong. So I'm feeling really, really good about this season."