From the Island to the Slopes: Hammond's Journey Still Developing

Mercer Island is known for producing many types of athletes: swimmers, basketball players, lacrosse players, soccer players. But one sport not usually associated with the island has produced one of the most successful student-athletes to come out of the area.

Courtney Hammond was recently nominated as Dartmouth's NCAA Women of the Year representative, following a successful ski career at the school. Hammond recently graduated from the university and is set to embark on back-to-back environmental research trips that will take her to Greenland and Alaska. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Hammond, however, is the journey she took to get where she is.

Early Start on the Slopes

That Hammond became a competitive skier seems almost preordained. Hammond's mother, Maureen, was a competitive racer who traveled with the U.S. Ski team. Her father, Curt, was a coach at the northwest regional level and with the national team.

Hammond first started skiing at the ripe age of two. After a couple of years, her parents put her in a program at Crystal Mountain. Winter weekends were spent with her family on the slopes.

“I grew up chasing [my parents] and my brother," Hammond said. "We would ski together, that was our bond. So I just grew up with it and that was the community I was raised in.”

By her own account, Hammond did not take to the sport right away. Hammond describes herself as "slow" up until the age of eleven and said it took her until she won her first race at that age to really comprehend that skiing was something she could do at a high level.

“Before that, I wasn’t that great of a skier, I was really slow and then I won my first race when I was eleven…That was a really big moment for me to win a race at home," Hammond said. "That was kind of when I realized, 'hey I can do this and I can go somewhere with it.'”

Hammond started traveling to competitions shortly after her first win. By 14, she had grown accustomed to traveling on a fairly regular basis. As she continued to perform well on the mountain, the possibility that she could perhaps compete at the highest level began to take hold. With that in mind, Hammond and her family made a decision that took her off the Island and all over the world.

Leaving Home

After two years at Mercer Island High School, Hammond had a choice to make. Stay on the island, continue competing in tournaments around the country, or make a move that would help her fulfill her Olympic aspirations. Before her junior year in 2003, at the age of 16, Hammond moved to Utah to attend the Rowmark Ski Academy at Rowland Hall.

“I had already been traveling for ski since I was eleven…so it wasn’t that big of a jump for me, I was pretty comfortable being away from home," Hammond said.

Hammond continued to develop her skills at Rowmark, with her eyes on the ultimate goal of winning a spot on the U.S. Ski Team and competing in the Olympics. After graduating in 2005, Hammond delayed college, deciding to spend two years chasing her skiing dream. She raced with Rowmark for one year and then entered into the U.S. Ski development program. It was during those two years of full-time ski commitment that a though began to enter Hammond's mind: maybe she needed something more than skiing in her life.

“I’d always had this dream of skiing on the US ski team and going to the Olympics and when I took those two years off, I really realized that I need more than just skiing in my life," Hammond said. "I really love skiing and I’m really happy that I participated in it for so long and wanted to continue, but I need to have another challenge, something to make think and push me in another way than a physical challenge.”

That revelation led Hammond to make a decision that began to lead her away from her Olympic dreams and towards a new journey.

The Dartmouth Years

Hammond's college decision was rooted in events years before she made the decision to attend the university and had nothing to really do with the school itself. Dartmouth wasn't the school with the sterling academic reputation, wasn't the place that presents its graduates with special opportunities. It was simply where good skiers went.

“Some of the older athletes had made the US Ski team and were also going to Dartmouth…I didn’t know anything about it, it was just where people who do US Ski go," Hammond said.

Starting college two years later than most of her friends was not an easy transition for Hammond. After several years of traveling around the world and two years of putting skiing over education, Hammond had an initially difficult transition period.

“It was a weird experience, I think it was weird for me because I made it that way," Hammond said. "I thought I was two years older and I had traveled, so I made a big deal of it the first team, before I realized it wasn’t an issue. There are a lot of students that do that and age isn’t really that big of a deal in college. Once I got over that, it was no problem.”

Once she got over her initial issues, Hammond took school much like she first took to skiing. After a slow start, she succeeded beyond even her own belief. Upon graduating this spring, Hammond finished Dartmouth with a 3.87 GPA and a degree in psychology and a minor in international studies. She continued to ski, balancing her studies with a schedule that, in some months, had her booked from 6:30 in the morning until five in the afternoon.

“Skiing is really difficult [to do while in college]," Hammond said. "Like any team, in the fall, we work out…but then once the season starts, it’s a huge amount of time.”

Despite the fact that her longtime Olympic aspirations had been pushed aside, Hammond continued to excel on the slopes. Hammond co-captained the 2010-2011 Alpine Ski Team and reached All-America status five times during her career.

That success, combined with her performance in the classroom, led Dartmouth to nominate Hammond as their 2011 NCAA Woman of the Year. Hammond was recently selected as one of two Ivy League representatives that will compete for the top honor.

“It’s an honor to be selected by Dartmouth to represent them for that, especially because skiing is sometimes a little bit on the fringe," Hammond said. "So for them to recognize me, I feel really honored by that.”

The Next Journey

The consistent factor that has emerged in Hammond's life since she decided to expand her horizons beyond ski, has been her insistence on trying new things. Despite her degree in psychology, Hammond has no interest in pursuing a career in the field.

“I was always interested in psychology in terms of studying it, I enjoyed learning about psychology, but I never really had a desire to do psychology as a career,” Hammond said.

What Hammond will do next is still up in the air. But, true to her character, she's provided herself with plenty of opportunities to figure out what it will be. Hammond left for Greenland on Sunday to work with IGERT, a Dartmouth graduate program that focuses on environmental research. Hammond will be documenting the trip through photos and video, before heading to Alaska in the fall to work on a different environmental research program.

"I haven't quite figured it out yet," Hammond said of her future in the field.  

Time will tell what the next step in Courtney Hammond's life will be. But if her history up until this point is any indication, chances are it will result in success.