Jim Winthers
Recreation/Development | 1996
Hometown: Donner, California
Among the earliest pioneers in adaptive alpine skiing was Jim Winthers, a World War II veteran who was a member of the U.S. 10th Army Mountain Division – the Skiing 10th – an elite unit specifically trained for alpine warfare. In 1953, Jim became the Director of the Donner Ski Ranch in Northern California. Reunited with two of his Army buddies who lost legs in the war, and using techniques he saw in Europe, he taught them to ski on one leg.
Jim was later sought out by Jim Graham, a former skier who lost his leg to cancer and wanted to learn Winthers’ techniques. Two years later, Graham and Winthers and two others began developing techniques to share skiing and teaching methods at weeklong clinics. Eventually, Graham and fellow clinician Dan McPherson became the first and second PSIA certified ski instructors with a disability.
In 1967, the National Amputee Skiers Association (NASA) was founded with three chapters, and later renamed as the National Handicapped Sports and Recreation Association (NHSRA). Ben Allen, another protégé of Jim Winthers, became another one of the few certified ski instructors in the country. In 1970, he moved from the West to attend Tufts University Medical School. Wanting to establish an amputee ski program in the East, Ben reached out to the Haystack Mountain Ski Resort in Vermont. With Fran Rebstad, he established the first official handicapped ski program, known as the Haystack Chapter of the National Inconvenienced Sportsmen’s Association.
All of these ensuing instructors and chapters were a direct result of the decades of vision, training and mentorship of Jim Winthers.
