Killington Special to Graves

By Tom Haley
THE RUTLAND HERALD
KILLINGTON, Vt. — The distinctive voice belonging to Peter Graves entertained and informed the crowd at the 2022 Heroic Killington Cup over the weekend. It is voice that has taken him to 13 Olympic Games.

His globetrotting has had him describing Nordic skiing or ski jumping to national audiences but the 1970 Mount Anthony Union High School graduate will never forget his roots and how this grand life in sports media all began.

He was still in high school when he started penning a sports column for his hometown newspaper the Bennington Banner.

“They sent me out with a camera. A lot of my interest in journalism was sparked by that,” Graves said.

His love of Nordic skiing was fostered by Mount Anthony coach Bucky Broomhall.

“They never heard of cross country skiing until Bucky Broomhall came to town,” Graves said.

Broomhall came to Bennington in 1966 after growing up in a legendary ski family in Rumford, Maine.

He cultivated a love for the sport in Bennington, orchestrating a ski program from kids in kindergarten through high school. He coached cross country, ski jumping and downhill and his teams won five high school state titles.

After turning his tassel at MAU, Graves was off to Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado where he was on the cross country ski team and majoring in physical education.

He thought his career path was going to lead him to being a physical education teacher.

But that seed for journalism planted back home in Bennington would soon grow.

He began his career in broadcasting as a news director for KIUP Radio in Durango.

“I loved radio,” Graves said while preparing for his weekend as the announcer for the Killington event.

He also got early exposure for television work, serving as the reporter for southern Colorado on Albuquerque station KOAT.

“I learned to write for radio which is a lot different than writing for newspapers,” Graves said.

“My big break came in 1979 when Roone Arledge called.”

The late Arledge was one of the biggest names in TV news and sports. He was the President of ABC Sports from 1968 through 1986 and President of ABC News from 1977 through 1998.

“They wanted someone who knew Bill Koch,” Graves said of the Vermonter who won the silver medal in the 30-K event at the 1976 Winter Olympics to become the first American to win an Olympic medal in the sport.

Within a year, ESPN came along and Graves became a voice on the cable station for Nordic skiing and ski jumping for 15 years.

Graves has also announced cycling at a few Summer Olympics and one year was the announcer for the crowd at the Killington Stage Race.

He has been asked numerous times about his personal Olympic highlight and one of them was at the 1980 Winter Games at Lake Placid when he and Bill Flemming described the closest cross country race in history.

But the part of those 1980 Games that has really stayed with him was when the United States men’s hockey team pulled off the incredible upset of Russia that was stamped with immortality over Al Michaels’ TV call: “Do you believe in miracles.”

Graves was watching the event in the Olympic broadcast center and when it was over he took a walk down Lake Placid’s main street. What he witnessed was an incredible spontaneous display of patriotism.

“It was a love fest. Everyone was hugging everyone,” Graves said.

Graves now lives in Thetford where he has a studio in his home and broadcasts a per-per-view show that can be found at skiandsnowboarding.live.

He will get up at 3 a.m. to broadcast that show at 4 a.m.

The work he did as the announcer for the crowd over the weekend necessitates a very different delivery from calling the action over television.

“It is a very different art announcing for a crowd and broadcasting on television,” Graves said. “When you are on TV it is more conversational and you don’t get too high.

“Engaging the crowd is quite different.”

His contributions over the decades have landed him a spot in the U.S. Ski-Snowboard Hall of Fame in Ishpeming, Michigan where he will join native Vermont and colleague Doug Lewis who was inducted in 2007. Graves will be inducted in March.

Lewis, born in Middlebury, was a World Cup ski star and has been working with Graves in the booth for 35 years,

They were working together again over the weekend, expertly playing off one another and enjoying the fondness for the event that they harbor as native Vermonters.

“We mesh really well,” Graves said. “I set up a lot of things and then I let him run with it.

“I trust him so much.”

“I think we just play to each other’s strengths,” Lewis said.

“He has the skill to ask the right question at the right time. He brings out the best in me.

“And we never talk over each other.”

That telepathy was evident over the weekend as Graves would introduce the skier at the starting gate with pertinent data and personal nuggets. He would then throw it over to Lewis who would use his extensive Work Cup skiing background to analyze the run.

When Elena Stoffel made an error in negotiating a gate, Lewis pointed out to the crowd, “What a recovery but that’s a lot of (lost) time.”

When Sweden’s Melanie Meillard was coming out of the starting gate, Lewis told the throng what to watch for: “Is she moving with the hill instead of fighting it?” he said.

Graves informed the audience that Czechoslovakia’s Martina Dubovska had been battling a chronic back problem.

Following the Killington event, Graves and Lewis were off to Beaver Creek, Colorado to add their entertaining style to the World Cup men’s race at that venue.

Each event is different and special in its own way, but because Graves is a Green Mountain State native, he savors the opportunity to work in Vermont whether it is at the Harris Hill ski jump in Brattleboro or the Heroic Killington Cup.

“Our fans here are so knowledgeable,” he said. “At some other places it is about the wine and cheese.

“Here, they talk about the way a skier should have approached one of the gates.

“And the Vermont ski community is so tight. Here, people like Barbara and Marilyn Cochran are gatekeepers.”

The Cochran sisters are Olympic heroes already enshrined in the Hall of Fame in Ishpeming,

Graves takes doing homework, or show prep, to an art form. Friday, he sat with a thick file of information he had researched on every woman competing over the weekend in the Killington Cup.

When a piece of information fit the scenario unfolding in front of him, Graves was ready with it.

It is that type of dedication that has taken him around the world.

Yet, he has never forgotten where he came from, a trait he also admires in others including snow sports journalist Paul Robbins. The late Robbins, who lived for years in Reading, expertly covered snow sports and broadcasted Nordic Olympic events on TV. He is another who already occupies a place of honor in Ishpeming.

There is also a an award for snow sports coverage in Vermont that is named for him.

“As big as Paul was, he never big timed anybody,” Graves said.

The same could be said for Graves who never lost the appreciation for his hometown roots whether it was turning out a column for the Banner or broadcasting a Bennington Post 13 American Legion baseball game over Bennington station WBTN.

“I have had a lot of help along the way,” Graves said. “I have had a lot of encouragement from friends and people in my hometown.”

When he is is recognized at the induction ceremony in Michigan, you can be certain that Peter Graves will be carrying a piece of Bennington in his heart.

tom.haley @rutlandherald.com