STORY BY MYRA FOSTER
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY STRATTON MOUNTAIN RESORT
Since 1974, Stratton Mountain’s Allegro program has been a catalyst for community, building lasting friendships and a lifetime love of the sport while preparing young athletes for the podium.
The roots of freestyle run deep at Stratton, where Stefan Schernthaner brought the movement into Ski School with his Allegro program a full five years before the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) would recognize freestyle as a discipline.
In a Stratton news release from the launch, Stefan was described as being “in the vanguard that moved freestyle skiing from novelty performances attended by thrill-seeking audiences into the spotlight of national sports world history. And freestyle has come on like gangbusters.”
It would be another 14 years before freestyle made its Olympic debut as a demonstration sport. Bruce “Bogue” Bolesky, coaching at Stratton since 1978, was there in Calgary displaying his cutting-edge double and triple upright moves, executing the first triple helicopter in competition. He had won his first amateur event in 1975, commemorated by a photo in the NY Daily News, and was selected from a field of 150 for one of five spots on the U.S. Pro Tour, where he competed for five years.
Today, a third generation of skiers are training in freestyle (moguls, dual moguls, aerials, freeskiing’s halfpipe, and slopestyle). Allegro Alumnus Tim Massucco – at the helm for the last 10 years – is only the sixth program director in its 50 year history with a number of coaches going back to the early days including Bolesky, Richie Duncan, Nancy Baird, and Ken Cevoli (who was Tim’s very first coach!).
“The kids are so lucky to have a director like Tim,” Bolesky said in a recent phone interview. “He loves it. There is so much positive energy. The kids, the parents, they all come together. That is what’s unique about skiing. It unites us, breaking down all barriers.”
In a Stratton family tree of freestyle, Bolesky also coached Tim, who— at age 11—was the youngest skier to complete a 720 in competition. He’d been perfecting the move since he was 7! By 2004, he was 21 and the first to podium in both moguls and aerials at the same selections. Competing on the U.S. Freestyle Team, he was the overall NorAm Aerials Champion in 2006.
Back home at Stratton, Tim later coached a young Mac Forehand, who would go on to win two World Cup Slopestyle Crystal Globes – in 2019 (at age 17) and again in 2024. During the 2023 X-Games, Mac executed the first ever double-cork 2160. That’s two flips and six off-axis rotations. Folks – don’t try that at home!
World champion mogul skier Avital Shimko Carroll is another one of today’s top competitors who got her start in Allegro with Tim, joining the program at age 6. Along with her grandmother, parents and four older siblings, she spent weekends and holidays at Stratton, where “the coaches taught me to love the sport of skiing.”
Mac and Avital are just two of the nearly 10,000 athletes who have been raised in Allegro over the past five decades. And with today’s custom-built mogul courses, twisting quints, 16-18 foot jumps at 60-70 kilometers per hour, and freeskiing events now on the Olympic stage, the sport “has gone exactly where we wanted it to,” said Bolesky, now in his 46th season coaching young athletes at Stratton.
Tim was 7 when he first signed up for Allegro– already with six years on snow. His parents started him on skis before he could walk and he won the Gold Medal in his final Little Cub season. Graduating briefly to Big Cub, he looked for every opportunity to get air. He’d drop into the “Snowboard Only” park on what’s now East Byrnes Side and was landing 720s. That got everyone’s attention, including “Stevek” who invited him to join the program. That’s Stephen Kenney, the “Pied Piper” of Allegro.
For Stevek, coaching was about connecting with and inspiring each skier at his or her own level, Tim recalled. And his generosity was legendary. “If someone’s skis broke, Stevek made sure they got new ones. He would give you the shirt off his back.” In fact, he bought Tim his first pair of ski boots. Tim shared, “We always rented. I was 15 and Stevek got me those yellow Rossi Course boots.”
Stevek was a technical delegate on the World Cup circuit and he’d always share the swag, letting kids have a turn wearing the logoed-out jacket. One day, Tim asked why he didn’t get a chance; Stevek replied, “You’ll have to earn yours.” And he did, soon hitting 20-foot walls at 55 mph going 65 feet in the air for a triple backflip. Three on snow, four on water.
“Although we didn’t know what it was called at the time,” Tim explained, “it was the growth mindset that Stevek instilled. If you can’t do something, it’s just that you can’t do it yet. If you fall, get up.”
While Stevek’s competitive career was average, he aced it when it came to leadership style and the culture he built. “He always talked to everyone, and he listened. He remembered everyone’s name, and the details of their last run. He really cared. You could always depend on him. And those are the values we uphold today,” Tim added. “It’s all about the experience, and everyone having the best time. It’s about how you make someone feel. I want as many kids as possible to have the amazing experience I was able to get.”
Part of that experience is the Stevek Mogul Challenge, held each year including 2021 when it was virtually the only freestyle competition anywhere not cancelled by Covid. “We run it like a World Cup event, with Olympic level judges, out of respect for Stevek and the gift he gave us.” This year’s event is set for February 21-23, 2025.
“Stevek would be so proud of the accomplishments,” Tim said. “We are operating at a world-class level, the Stratton Winter Sports Club is an industry leader with innovation in training and building training venues.” In fact, Stratton will be hosting a NorAm Freestyle event on March 1-2, 2025, for the third year in a row.
While sometimes referred to as “Stevek’s program,” Allegro began with Stefan (Schernthaner) who had started skiing at age 3 on wooden skis made by his father. He traces his hot-dogging roots to a 1964 newspaper photo he’d seen of Stein Ericksen upside down on skis. He immediately started somersaulting on snow. “It impressed the girls,” he explained.
Before coming to the United States in 1968, Stefan had coached the Austrian women, including Annemarie Moser-Proll, who held the all-time record of six World Cup championships until it was broken by Lindsey Vonn in 2015. Around Stratton, he is probably best known as longtime leader of the Stratton Mountain Boys.
While continuing to coach racing, he was always trying new things. Front flips, back flips. And those geländesprungs, even competing in an early contest at Steamboat. “We made it up as we went along. If ski school said you had to ski on your downhill ski, we skied on our uphill ski. And we called it freestyle.”
Narrowly missing a victory (and a 1971 Corvette Stingray, plus $10,000 in cash) in the very first Chevy Freestyle Championships, he was determined to practice even harder. That next year, Jean-Claude Killy was the head judge; after seeing Stefan compete in aerials and ballet, with just moguls to go, the triple Olympic champion walked up and said, “I like the way you ski. I hope you win tomorrow.” Stefan recalled, “That was such an inspiration, I woke up and knew I would win. I never skied better in my life.”
Originating the flying royal christie as his finale over a 30-foot jump, he beat Wayne Wong at his home mountain of Waterville for the title and prize money. But in 1972, the car was a Chevy Vega. Station Wagon.
Stefan’s cutting-edge Stratton program quickly grew from a handful to hundreds. SKI Magazine featured more than 25 pairs of ballet, trick and mogul skis in its 1976 Buyer’s Guide and FIS officially recognized Freestyle in 1979.
By the early ‘80s, Stevek was on board. “He just knew how to work with the kids, to make them their best and to make them feel happy,” Stefan recalled. “He was the one for it.”
While the skis, technique, and tricks continue to change, “the great thing about skiing is you can enjoy it forever,” says Tim. “It’s a lifetime sport. It’s making friends for a lifetime. I know I have.”