Help Marshall Race At Nationals

Dear Reader,

Hi, my name is Marshall Brookins, and I am a Senior on the Cody Nordic Ski Team.

During my five years of Nordic skiing, I have become very accomplished. Not only have my accomplishments been seen throughout my racing career, but with my team, family, and community.

Here is a little backstory about how I’ve become engaged in Nordic; I signed up for the Nordic team in 8th grade simply because I thought it was Alpine skiing instead. Boy was I wrong, I ended up going to the first practice, and I remember coming home and complaining to my mum about how everything was revolving around running. My mother’s response was, “you made the commitment, and we stick to our commitments.” After hearing these words come from my mother, I quickly reassessed and became determined to give it my all, even if I did have to ski uphills. I started enjoying nordic and indulged my social premises into the team.

After realizing how much fun I genuinely had during the season, I participated in Nordic my freshmen year. I thought it would be the same as middle school, but after the first race, I quickly realized that I was racing with the big dogs. Even though I was skiing at a higher level, my goal was still to have fun. I changed my motive from racing to having fun during the season and achieved my goal.

Sophomore year came around, and I participated in the team again with the same goal as my freshmen year, to have fun. However, due to the gracious change in the coaching staff, I had to change my plans to have fun and achieve high-ranking results for my teammates. Meggin Becker was the best change to the Cody High School Nordic Ski Team I could ever ask for. Not only did she help me realize that high-ranking results were needed, but also that engaging and being a leader and a follower for my team was just as important. As a result, I became closer than ever to skiing and my teammates my sophomore year.

I returned to the team Junior Year with more anticipation and enthusiasm than ever. I think I was so stoked for Junior year simply because I put more effort and work into my skiing during the offseason. However, I was shocked at my first race due to my unsatisfying results in Jackson. I had fallen three times on my first race, I thought my whole season was going to askew, but Meggin was there to reassure me that everyone was cleaning out the cobwebs and getting used to skiing again. I placed higher than the previous seasons and qualified for the High Plains team, taking me to Western Regionals.

My past accomplishments have allowed me to be invited to attend Junior National qualifiers and Junior National finals again. The only downfall is my family has had multiple medical hardships lately. My mum has been in and out of various surgeries and procedures the past two years, only to continue stumping her doctors in finding the proper treatment. She has an anticipated surgery planned for after Junior Nationals, for which we have been putting money towards her medical traveling and stays. This causes a rough patch for my journey due to insufficient funds.

I have started a fundraising campaign where I custom make gloves, but as I only profit a minimal amount off of each pair, it's improbable that this will be my primary source of funding. This is where the community comes into play. Throughout my childhood, my mum has instilled many traits; one seen thoroughly in my life at this moment is, “if you don’t have the money or can’t afford it, then you don’t need it.” This causes a very emotional event due to how hard I’ve been working to achieve my goals for the past two years.

Last year, I completed my goal of Regionals because of the gracious community. I ask again for the help of my very supporting and fantastic community to help me push harder than ever to achieve the goals of competing in Junior Nationals and showcase Cody, Wyoming as a top competitor in the sport of Nordic Skiing.

Thank you for everything

Marshall Brookins