ERIC SMITH
Lebanon Outing Club
Lebanon, NH
Big Voice, Bigger Heart
Chances are if you ski jumped or were around ski jumps in the east during the 90’s and early 2000’s you heard his voice at least once. Wil Smith had one of those voices that you could hear over everyone else especially when he was cheering for me or one of his grandsons. I will admit that there were times I was embarrassed that everyone could hear him, but as I got older, I was able to see his voice for what it was, pride.
This was a man that never ski jumped himself, but probably put in more hours to help the jumping community than most of us. The town of Lebanon, the Upper Valley, and the jumping community benefited from his generosity often. He spent numerous hours, digging and moving dirt with his own equipment to help install the first track at The Lebanon High School. Wil then used his incredible talent as a builder to restore the L.O.C. 50-meter ski jump. I will never forget the summer that we spent at Storrs Hill working on the jump. I know that all of us young jumpers learned a lot about hard work and laboring to create something that was bigger than ourselves that summer. Even when he wasn’t using his skills to help others, he somehow found a way to do what he could. The best example of this was when he volunteered to drive the Lebanon High School Ski Jumping team to all our meets so that we could use the small budget we had on wax. I don’t know why he would have agreed to drive around a bunch of loud and smelly teenage boys through late night snowstorms from North Conway to Concord, but he did it happily.
Wil became a constant on the side of the landing hill marking at just about every meet in the east from a 10 meter to a 90 meter. He loved the ski jumping community and watching each jumper progress as the years went by. In 2002, he received recognition for his many years to the sport, in being selected to stand on the side of the Olympic hills in Salt Lake City. While I know he was honored to have been selected to be a hill marker at the 2002 Olympics, I know that he was most proud of the work he put into helping L.O.C. and its future ski jumpers.
After three knee replacements and a hip replacement he still climbed up the steps of a landing hill, but most often to the judges stand in the later years. Even after I stopped jumping, he was still there and when Zayne started jumping, I could see the excitement in his face to have another Smith at the top of the hill. Eventually Zayne’s jumping career ended and my son took to hockey, but Dad still traveled and judged because he loved the sport.
I know if he could, he would be out on the hill this winter, insisting on walking up the steps at his own pace instead of getting a ride on a snowmobile. Waiting to see how much the kids had improved from last year and catching up with his fellow judges. I hope that he was able to leave a lasting impression on those that knew him, for me I will always remember that summer we worked on the 50 and I realized how much of a selfless hard-working person he was. I miss him and always will, but I will always have what he taught me and try my best to pass it on.
