Flyer for the 2025 Lake Placid Hall of Fame induction. Source: Olympic Regional Development Authority.
On Wednesday, November 5th, Larry Stone, a former Northwood faculty member, Olympian, and current NYSEF ski jumping coach, was inducted into the Lake Placid Hall of Fame, which “seeks to honor the leaders and visionaries in our community who made the Games, the venues, and other keys to our legacy.” Larry is one such individual who has been a key to preserving the legacy of the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid through sport.
Larry is currently a Ski Jumping coach for the New York Ski Education Foundation’s (NYSEF) junior program. He fostered the athletes that now compete at the highest levels for Northwood School, starting to work with some of them as young as six. Larry was also a faculty member at Northwood from 1966 to 1968, teaching History and English while also coaching the ski jumping program. Not only was he coaching the team, but he was also still competing as a jumper. Two of his Northwood athletes, Jay Rand and Canadian Ulf Kvendbo, both Northwood Students, would compete at the 1968 Grenoble Olympics.
Larry Stone with some of his current junior jumpers. Photo by Eastern Ski Jumping.
After 1968, Larry moved back to his hometown of Salisbury, Connecticut to work as a coach for the Salisbury Winter Sports Association (SWASA). It was here that he began his junior coaching career. “You get little bubbles of kids that are really talented and push each other just like you guys,” Larry said.
Additionally, he used his emerging passion for coaching to enhance his own jumping career. “One way I could support myself and get SWASA to help me with training costs was coaching. But when you coach ski jumping, and I presume other activities like that, you start seeing things a little differently, and it kind of opens you up to approach the sport in a little different way. It’s more organic and all of a sudden you find that what you are working on with the kids becomes what you are working on as an athlete, and it’s clearer than before.”
For the last few years of Larry’s jumping career, 1972-1974, he moved to Woodstock, New York, where he could pursue his passion as a singer-songwriter as well as his ski jumping career. In 1974, at 29, Larry retired as a competitive ski jumper. He then returned to Salisbury, where he continued to work with the junior program. He encountered one such “bubble of kids” and coached them all the way to the “big hills,” which at the time were 60-70 meters.
Then, in 1980, he volunteered at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. “I was there working as a volunteer, and my job was to measure heel blocks up at the start because people were trying to get away with having too much. The night before the big hill event, the people running the program fired the US coaches. You develop really close bonds with your coaches, so the athletes were noticeably destroyed when they showed up the next morning. A couple of days later, Rex Bell and I were hired to be the ski team coaches for the rest of the year. Rex went to Europe, and I took over the domestic circuit.”
Larry was then instrumental in putting in place a regional system of coaches that still governs American ski jumping today. He was the regional coach for the Eastern Division. “My Salisbury kids started really coming around, so I focused on them for a couple of years. Then all of a sudden in ’88, I got a call about taking over the NYSEF program in Lake Placid. I did that for a few years, and then I went back to the US Ski team for 5 years. At the time, I still coached NYSEF, and I got help from Matt Cook, Casey Colby, and a few other coaches with that.”
Larry and Molly Stone in Salisbury, Connecticut, in 1998. Photo by USA Ski Jumping.
Larry moved to Park City in 1994 and stayed until 1996. There, he met Lindsey Van, a young American jumper. “I was really impressed with her possibilities, so I started taking her abroad. There was no women’s circuit at that point, but we started to put one together in Germany and Austria, and I started taking a group of US women over there, including my daughter Molly, Lindsey, and a few others. I officially took over the women’s program when Casey Colby stepped away. I hired a Norwegian guy, and we worked together toward the 2009 World Championships. There were several unofficial world championship events that the women went to, but 2009 became the first year that we had an official Women’s World Championship, and that year Lindsey won it.”
At this point, Larry decided, “That’s good enough. I think I’ll retire here.” Larry stepped away for a few years, living in the Adirondacks, running his farm, and playing music. Larry, however, couldn’t stay away from ski jumping and, in 2011, returned to NYSEF as head coach until 2016, when he moved back to his passion for the small hills. It was at this time that the current Northwood ski jumping team got its start in the sport. “I took my first jump ever with him back in 2016, and now, 9-10 years later, he’s still coaching me. It shows his dedication to the sport and his passion for his athletes sticking around and working with us. He embodies the spirit of the Lake Placid Hall of Fame,” said Jack Kroll ‘25.
Larry Stone coached current Northwood ski jumper Henry Loher ‘26 when he started out. Photo by Nancie Battaglia.
“My priorities were elsewhere. I really liked soccer and mountain biking, but Larry talked to my family and me and said I had a natural technique and encouraged me to really focus on ski jumping. Looking back on it, that may be the best decision ever,” said Henry Loher ‘26.
Larry is “grateful for the induction” and, in his speech, thanked all the parents and coaches who supported him over the years, adding that it is the parents’ willingness to let their kids do this crazy sport and their support that makes his job possible.
From the Staff of The Mirror and the Northwood Ski Team, we would like to express our gratitude for everything Larry has done and will continue to do for the sport of ski jumping, not only in Lake Placid but also across the country. Thank you, Larry!
