Olympic Champion Billy Demong inducted into the National Ski Hall of Fame

Billy Demong is inducted into the Hall of Fame on March 22, 2024. Photo: Michele Roepke // TownLift

PARK CITY, Utah — The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame has inducted eight people into its 2023 class on Friday, March 22, among them is Nordic Combined Olympic champion Billy Demong.

Demong currently lives in Park City, but grew up in the Lake Placid area of New York, home of the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics.

This year’s inductee ceremonies, hosted at Park City’s Black Rock Mountain Resort, included ski days at Solitude and at White Pine Nordic, dressed-up dinners, tours of the otherwise private U.S. Ski and Snowboard building, meet and greets, live and silent auctions, catered affairs at the Utah Olympic Park’s Alf Engen Ski Museum and Hall of Fame display, and a lot of reminiscing. These multi day celebrations rotate region to region throughout the country.

This event is their biggest fundraiser.

This year’s other inductees are Hank Kashiwa, Mike Porter, Les Otten, Dave and Jake Moe, Jeff Brushie, Ross Anderson and Shannon Bahrke.

Justin Koski, executive director at U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame, which is located in Michigan, told TownLift, “We love Park City as our second home away from home, a hub because of all of the industry-wide activity based in this region. It’s so good to see all the alumni who have rallied around this event.” He continued, “We have people flying in from all corners of the country to attend, and we are especially grateful for the the support of Delta, Coca-Cola, and the Summit County Restaurant Tax Committee.”

Demong’s Nordic Combined results:

Olympics:

• Nagano 1998, 10th in Team and 34th in Individual
• Salt Lake 2002, 4th in Team 14th in Sprint, 19th in Individual 
• Torino 2006, 7th in Team, 25th in Sprint, 15th in Individual
• Vancouver 2010, Gold in Large Hill/10km, 6th in Normal Hill/10km, Silver in Team
• Sohi 2014, 6th in Team, 24th Normal Hill/10km, 31st in Large Hill/10km

World Championships:

• Czech Republic 2009, Gold and Bronze in Individual 
• Japan 2007, Silver in Individual 
• Italy 2013, Bronze in Team

World Cups:

• 22 World Cup podiums, including nine wins 
• 3rd, World Cup standings, 2009
• 3rd, World Cup standings, 2008

U.S. Championships Titles:

• Chicago, 2012
• Park City, 2008
• Park City, 2007
• Steamboat Springs, 2007
• Steamboat Springs, 2002
• Park City, 2001

Demong’s mother Helen was not only his but the whole school district’s music teacher and choir coach. Demong started cross country skiing at age six and ski jumping at nine. At 14, when most of his friends had dropped out of nordic combined to focus on biathlon or cross country, Helen said to her son, “If nordic combined isn’t fun anymore, you don’t have to do this.”

“And in a very passionate voice,” Helen told TownLift, “he said, ‘You don’t understand Mom, I HAVE to do this.’  “So he was always personally driven. You know, it’s something that came from within him.” 

Demong’s parents divorced, however both got to be at most of his Olympics. Demong was 17 when he was tapped to go to first of the five.

As a grandma, Helen fully supports Demong’s two sons, Liam, who goes to Ecker Hill Middle School, and Renn, at Trailside Elementary, in their nordic combined racing and jumping. Renn participated in his first official competition this month at the Utah Olympic Park and Liam earned a second place podium in a Team event in Alaska this month at the Jr. National Championships. “It’s really exciting.” Helen said. A couple years ago Demong jokingly told her, “You finally got one,” as Renn seems just as drawn to the musicality of the sport of figure skating.

“I am thrilled,” Helen said about her son’s induction into the Hall of Fame. “For years after 2010,” she added, “Every time I went into the grocery store, or the post office, or to a concert, people would stop and tell me where they were when they heard the news of Billy’s Olympic medals, or when they saw it on TV or who called them or who they called, it really rock this little town and neighboring areas. “I’m his greatest fan.”

Helen was there in Vancouver in 2010, “It was the most incredible series of events those two weeks in Vancouver, it was really emotional.” They were all at the USA House reception party after he’d won the medal. She knew her son had general intentions of proposing to his longtime girlfriend Katie, who had been a skeleton slider from Upstate New York. She was there to spectate Demong as she was on the U.S. Skeleton National Team, but no concrete proposal plans. Mom was sitting next to Demong’s sister, also named Katie, whose husband is now a ski instructor at Deer Valley, and “all of a sudden, there’s all this loud activity going on up on the stage, and then I look up there just in time as Billy drops to one knee. I thought his sister was was gonna like spit-take out her wine from sheer surprise.” ‘Oh, Yay,’ Mom thought, ‘It’s happening right now’. “He proposed to her in front of all of his friends, teammates, coaches, and family. Slightly stunned, she still said yes. And then the same night his coach got a call that Billy was voted on by the USA Olympians to carry the American flag in the closing ceremony. It was great.” 

Katie Demong, Billy’s wife, has parlayed her Sociology degree from Columbia, specializing in inner city issues, past her Masters degree she got in Colorado, into her current work as an assistant professor at Salt Lake Community College. Yet, she’s omnipresent at her sons’ competitions.

Countless Parkites cherish the hats, gloves, goggles, glasses or perhaps parka they’ve gotten from Katie and Billy’s generosity as they frequently gift away one-of-a-kind industry items throughout the community. That’s not unlike how Helen describes Billy being the grateful recipient of some second-hand nordic combined equipment in New York.

Six to seventeen-year-old Demong’s cross country ski coach and sports-specific high school science teacher, at what is similar to the Winter Sports School, was Chris Seymore, He’s currently a manager in Lake Placid at what is the equivalent of both the Utah Olympic Park and Soldier Hollow. In New York this year, he told Townlift, “Billy always had his heart in both cross country and ski jumping.”

“Billy grew up in the Lake Placid area in a time where there was a lot of talented people here who went on to represent the USA as great athletes, and for him, every time he would be toeing the start line in a cross country race he would really be with contemporaries who were always pushing him quickly,” Seymore said. “In growing up, some of the traits that served Billy really well later in his career, he started quite early. He was always kind of a collector of ideas and information. He was always innovating in a really detail-oriented and creative way. Always trying to find an extra second here and extra second there or how could he optimize training or how could his mindset or mental game be better? And Billy took that sort of through his career leveraging that in a lot of ways to be really successful in life.”

“In the Salt Lake 2002 Olympics,” Seymore continued, “Billy kindly signed me in as his, (making air quotes) ‘uncle’ so I got to spectate from close up, cheering right next to his mom.”

Demong grew up cross country skiing at Dewey Mountain in Saranac Lake. Saranac Lake to Lake Placid, where the ski jumps were, is somewhat like the Heber City to Park City, and he actually lived in Vermontville, which can be loosely compared to Kamas. 

“The Dew Crew” is what the young athletes are called who ski at Dewey Mountain. That’s where many coaches, family and friends were gathered to watch Demong win his two Olympic medals, to local thunderous jubilation.

Demong called Seymore on the phone in Saranac Lake between his first and second Olympic medals for some familiar advise when Billy traveled back to his then home of Park City in the days between the races, during the Games, for some removed rest and relaxation.

“One of the many things I appreciate about Billy from a young age to today is he values the connections he has with the communities and the people he’s met along the way,” Seymore said. “When Billy came back to Saranac Lake after winning in Vancouver, there was a parade downtown the Town Hall was filled with hundreds of people. All the children of town were down on the floor in front of the stage. Billy handed them his Olympic medals, and they were passing them around through the crowd. And he got up and spoke and he thanked numerous people by name and his community. Billy then went out into the town and what was a very big celebration for him and the community. And what was fun about him was, everywhere he went, from restaurants, to shops to parks, was just handing out his medals and, with everyone who was enjoying that, he made everyone feel like they were a part of those medals. That connection with people and really wanting to help bring out the best in people and recognize their connection to him, and something bigger, is something he’s always done a wonderful job with. Billy is someone who seems to always land on his feet and is quite successful in all arenas. If Billy chose to any path, he would have ultimately been successful in it. For him, he really followed and chased the most lofty of goals. And he wanted the things that he achieved and he was focused on those. Even as my student, he was bright, a top scoring test taker, he was someone that he performs at a high level and everything he does, very well-rounded. He was someone who was a pleasure to coach, a pleasure to be a friend with, and yeah, he’s very deserving of this honor.” 

Demong’s first job was at a picnic-tabled, lean to-sheltered crab shack restaurant in Saranac Lake, It had, and still has, the same small town, family owned charm as where Liam has his first job at Park City Main Street’s Red Banjo Pizza restaurant.

Larry Stone, Demong’s ski jumping coach from age nine, also this year took young Liam to ski jump train in Norway. Stone himself started ski jumping in the 50s in New England becoming head coach in Lake Placid in 1988. He told TownLift, in New York while coaching this year’s National Championships. “Billy was a special kid but he was not especially good, at first. He sure jumped his heart out though and was super fun to work with.”

“He struggled with technical problems that were challenging to fix with his knee positioning and back positioning while jumping,” Coach said. “Then, the season he turned around 15, I remember my daughter was his same age and there were a lot of girls around at the jumps and stuff and one day I heard somebody say, ‘Holy Smokes, have you seen the muscles on Billy now?’ One of whom was my daughter. So, it was like, oh yeah, he started getting stronger. and he started jumping better, much better.”

Around that point, Stone was promoted to coach for the the U.S. Ski Team and was able to take Billy to Norway when he was about 16. Training in Europe led to a series of injuries from which he was instructed to take a year off from ski jumping. That year he moved to Steamboat Springs and he was able to focus solely on cross country, and as Stone puts it. “He grew into a truly talented skier. Then when he added ski jumping back into the mix, he became a real deal international threat. So, it was a hard climb for Billy, but once he hit his stride, it was just fantastic.”

After Demong retired from competition, he revitalized Park City’s USA Nordic.and became its executive director. The Olympic champion, championing the nations’ Nordic Combined community.

Having stepped down from that position, he’s currently still giving back as he announces world-class competitions and coaches for the Park City Ski and Snowboard Nordic Team, mostly for the same single-digit-aged athletes as when he first started out. 

Once every few years of late, lucky unsuspecting spectators have gotten to see Demong ski jump, and some of those times it’s been in a big banana costume, why? Because just like how his mom always wanted it to be for him, it’s still fun.

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The U.S. Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame induction ceremony, March 22, 2024.  Photos: TownLift // Michele Roepke