Bode Miller in the slalom Photo by Joe Klamar/Getty Images

Check out: Bode Miller Highlight Reel

Three weeks ago most Americans didn't know who Bode Miller was. But since his 60 Minutes interview (and a few choice words about skiing wasted—leaving us to infer that Miller frequently skis drunk) it seems he's everywhere—his girls-go-ga-ga mug plastered all over the newsweeklies. But the spotlight that shines on Bode brings attention to the whole U.S. Ski Team. Bruce Barcott, a writer and contributing editor for Outside wrote a behind-the-scenes piece on the team that appears in the February issue of that magazine. I caught up with Bruce recently for a little inside baseball insight into Bodemania, the “king of downhill,” Daron Rahlves and the Olympics.

MZ: Bode Miller seemed to piss a lot of people off with his 60 Minutes interview. Without it, though, it seems there would be very little hype regarding ski racing going on pre-Olympics. What do you see USSA doing to promote the sport to the American public?

BB: The USSA has a really hard job in that area. Essentially they get one two-month window every four years to promote ski racing. That's all they get. We used to have ABC's Wide World of Sports with televised ski races so there was more interest in it. I saw a poll a few years that showed interest in ski racing among readers [of ski magazines] was like interest in Nordic skiing. It was really in the toilet. It was incredible. So it's a hard sell in the U.S.—to get alpine ski racers out there and get them well known. In a way, you really got to have a story like Bode Miller or Picabo Street, these outsized characters; these grand personalities who know how to wow a crowd and charm a camera, combined with great achievements on the field in order to capture the attention of the American public.

MZ: In that vein, it's hard to watch the brouhaha build around Miller: the 60 Minutes interview, the pissed off coach, Miller's less-than-contrite apology—without thinking it's all a PR stunt, a “bad press is better than no press” kind of thing. Plus, it creates this aura around Miller as “rebel,” something that Americans are extremely attracted to.

"Somehow we're supposed to put two and two together and wonder, gosh is this guy just skiing drunk every race?

BB: I don't think it was a stunt. I think it [the 60 Minutes quote] was a really nice anecdote about Bode winning the overall title, then going out and celebrating all night, then racing an inconsequential race (that race the next day was irrelevant), then lofting a couple of good quotes about it and 60 Minutes running with it. I think the main thing I objected to about that whole incident was the way that it was really never said, but as a viewer, you were really obviously supposed to infer that the fact that Bode blew off the course so much and took more spills than any other overall World Cup title winner in history, somehow we're supposed to put two and two together and wonder, gosh is this guy just skiing drunk every race? Which is absolutely ridiculous. So you have a combination of the hype building up and Bode either relating ski racing culture with a quote that had the word “wasted” in it, which was just, you know, throwing some gasoline on the fire. I don't think it was some stunt thought up by Bode at all. And the reaction got way out of hand really fast. I was really surprised more with Phil McNichols's comments about it. The way he talked about “maybe we should go our separate ways” or “I've really had it with Bode.” It wasn't a reaction to the incident itself, but I think it was more years of dealing with Bode's strange behavior and outspokenness. And dealing with it and dealing with it. And finally, it was, “I've had it.” Bode's really not a not a media rebel. He's really his own man. And he will take stands on what he sees as hard and fast principles and it would not be out of character for him to say, you know what, I can do this on my own. I can go my own way. I think Kristina Koznick has been going her own way on the women's side for years. I don't think it's been great for her, for her career, but she's done it. And Bode's so much bigger he really could do it.

Is it all a distraction to the ski team? Yeah, obviously. But I think it may be more a distraction for the coaches than the other racers. They enjoy each other's company on the road and they're a team and everything, but they're not sitting around the dinner table either worrying about what Bode's doing or harshing on Bode or anything like that. They're worried about their own races.

MZ: Bode's been referred to all over the media as skiing's “bad boy,” but knowing what he's done for the sport (introducing shaped skis, talking about the inequities of the World Cup circuit), he could also be described as a maverick. Which do you think he is and why?

BB: I think a maverick is the best way to describe him. Bode's a made-for-movie character—a work of fiction, And when I say he's a work of fiction I don't mean he's lying in any way. I mean that he's like a character out of fiction. He's colorful and outspoken. He essentially forced shaped skis onto the racing world, by doing it himself, by bringing them in and beating the pants off of everybody he raced. I think what the U.S. Ski Team coaches, maybe the whole organization, have learned from Bode, that you don't have to have one rote way of doing things. There's no “one way” of training, there's no one way of coaching. I think this generation of coaches: Phil McNichol, Mike Moran and Johnno are really different from past generations because they really do work with the individual skier and think, how am I going to get through to this guy? How am going to reach this skier and get them to change something about their technique or their race tactics? The old way of just screaming at them or pointing a fist in their chest doesn't work. And Bode's the guy who proved that it doesn't work. Bode's the guy who made the coaches really rethink the way they coach and everybody is coming out better for it.