Greg Rhodes, Bend Endurance Academy’s new nordic ski director, wants the junior skiers he coaches to spend less time skiing.

It sounds counterintuitive, but Rhodes, who took the position in June, wants to help the academy’s junior athletes be not just great skiers, but well-rounded athletes — and people — as well.

“The problem right now in youth sports is athletes overspecializing at too young of an age,” Rhodes said. “Athletes will say, ‘I want to be the best skier in the world. I need to only ski. But there is a plethora of research that says overspecialization is not the way to have long-term success in a sport.”

Rhodes doesn’t need to look further than Minnesota, his home state, for a prime example of how postponing specialization can pay serious dividends.

When multisport athlete Joe Mauer graduated high school, Florida State offered him a full scholarship for football. However, he was the Minnesota Twins’ first pick in the 2001 Major League Baseball June Amateur Draft. Mauer, now 35, went the professional baseball route, and is still a very good player with the Twins.

“He chose (to specialize) in professional baseball,” Rhodes said. “But he chose that at the age of 18.”

While Rhodes is an irrepressible fan of Minnesota ball, his heart lies in endurance sports, particularly triathlons and nordic skiing. But variety is key.

“The academic research about sports specialization is saying, don’t do it,” Rhodes said.

Rhodes, 39, blends a background of professional triathlon racing, ski coaching, high school teaching with a Ph.D. in exercise physiology. He’s the mechanic and driver, not to mention a member of the Professional Ski Instructors of America national cross-country ski team. While some of his previous residences — Minneapolis, and Durango, Colorado — have strong nordic ski offerings and tight-knit communities, it’s natural, cloud-born snow that attracted Rhodes to Bend.

“We’re now looking at a sport that is (largely) based on of man-made snow,” Rhodes said. “There are certain destinations, and Bend is one of them, that is able to guarantee real snow for a winter,” said Rhodes, who still works in Colorado, where shorter seasons are common obstacles to nordic skiing, he said. Ski towns like Bend are frozen oases.

“I need to have nordic skiing within 30 minutes of my house,” Rhodes said.

Throughout the year, Bend Endurance Academy serves about 1,000 junior athletes ranging in age from 4 to 18. Athletic offerings include climbing, cycling and nordic skiing. There is adult programming, too. Rhodes is responsible for about 300 kids in the nordic ski program.

On a recent morning, Rhodes led three junior athletes on a multisport outing at Wanoga Sno-park. They used roller skies — which look like stubby nordic skis attached to wheels — to roll through some agility drills. More than 30 Bend Endurance Academy junior athletes were also at Wanoga to mountain bike on the last day of the summer mountain biking program.

“We did some combined cycling and roller skiing relays and slalom courses,” Rhodes said. “It brings cycling and skiing together. It was great to have athletes from both sports connect. This makes Bend Endurance Academy feel like a full team across all sports.”

As it has done in the past few years, the academy kicks off its on-snow nordic ski programming at the Yellowstone Ski Festival 2018 in West Yellowstone, Montana, during Thanksgiving weekend. Rhodes is excited to connect the academy’s junior athletes with others who are coached by Rhodes’ friends across the country.

“They get together and do social skis. They’ll learn that nordic skiing is a small-knit community in the U.S.,” Rhodes said. “It’s pretty rare that I ski on a ski trail in the U.S. and that I don’t run into someone I know from some ski club or ski school. It’s fun to have that opportunity and it’s fun to show kids that they can go to college and cross-country skiing is the family that they can always connect with.”

Rhodes’ trajectory winds back and forth from academia to the mountains. He graduated from Carlton College, south of Minneapolis, in 2001. He taught high school biology for a couple years before pursuing a career as a professional triathlete.

He taught skiing and snowboarding part and full time for more than a decade. Rhodes earned a Ph.D. in exercise physiology at the University of Minnesota in 2017.

Rhodes finds delivering the latest research and scientific innovations from the annals of academia “back to the field, back to the trenches,” gratifying.

“I like actually working with athletes and utilizing the scientific foundation of what I’ve learned and saying, ‘This is how it really looks when we implement it with athletes,’” Rhodes said.

Sandy Visnack, the executive director of the academy, said she’s given Rhodes a blank slate to develop the nordic program.

“His passion for nordic skiing and outdoor activity was really compelling,” Visnack said. “He’s very quick with understanding what someone’s individual goals are, working with the whole athlete, just by saying, ‘OK, we want to get you on the podium.’ When I checked references, they went on and on about how wonderful (Rhodes) is. (Someone) said, ‘If you don’t hire him, I’m going to find a way to hire him.’”

One of Rhodes’ junior nordic skiers is Sadie Peterson, who’s from Mora, Minnesota. A junior majoring in education at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, the 20-year-old is also on the school’s nordic ski team. She has spent the summer in Bend training with Bend Endurance Academy. A teammate had done the same the year before when the nordic program was helmed by Bernadette Nelson.

He encouraged Peterson to join him with a few other Badger athletes.

“Once we met Greg, I knew I made the right decision,” Peterson said. “I really like his coaching style. He’s super caring, and he has a huge passion for his athletes. He has a wealth of knowledge of coaching and training. He really pays attention to the little things, which we don’t always know are super important.”

Those things include nutritional tweaks such as fat adaptation, which teaches the body to use stored fat more efficiently.

Peterson and her fellow athletes have sampled widely from Rhodes’ cross-training smorgasbord, which includes roller skiing, weight training, trail running and mountain biking. The latter was new for Peterson, who tried out her first trails on a mountain bike Rhodes’ wife lent her.

“He stresses the importance of balance. If you over commit your self to one thing (like a particular race or season), that thing can flop. Sometimes you’ll find yourself thinking about skiing too much. Sometimes your brain needs a break from that. I think balance is important that way — to just let yourself think about other things and alleviate some pressure.”

Peterson wants to continue training at the academy and under Rhodes’ direction.

“As long as Greg is there, I will be coming back, for sure,” Peterson said.

— Reporter: 541-617-7816, pmadsen@bendbulletin.com