Crosby Perry-Smith, ski jumper, coach and 10th Mountain Division veteran, died on September 23 at age 98.
Perry-Smith graduated from Lake Placid High School. At age 14, he won the U.S. Ski Jumping Championships in the 18-year-old class. At 17, he won the Maine State Championships, setting the hill record. While attending Syracuse University he enlisted in the Army Reserves. He then served as a demolition specialist in Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 86th Mountain Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division. He fought on Riva Ridge, Mount Belvedere and Lake Garda.
Perry-Smith settled in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. He competed for the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club and then attended Western State College, where he founded the ski team. He competed in the 1952 Oslo Olympics.
From 1951 to 1957 he served as a civilian advisor in mountaineering at Fort Carson, Colorado, training special forces headed to Korea. He served as chief of jumping at the 1960 Squaw Valley Olympics and coached junior jumpers at Winter Park, Colorado. In 1985, he coached the U.S. jumping team at the World University Games in Cortina, Italy.
Crosby received the Halstead Trophy for his contribution to skiing in Colorado. He was inducted into the Colorado Ski Hall of Fame in 1992 and the National Ski Jumping Hall of Fame in 2012.
Add new comment