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Mike Jankowski

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mike Jankowski, (born 1976) known as "Coach Janks,"[1] is a skiing and snowboarding coach.

Early life

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Jankowski is from Memphis, Tennessee, the youngest child of Madaline and Len Jankowski.[2][3] He graduated from Christian Brothers High School,[2][4] and attended Northern Arizona University.[5]

Coaching career

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In the mid-to-late 1990s, Jankowski was a snowboarding instructor at Arizona Snowbowl near Flagstaff.[3][5][6]

He was coach of the U.S. Junior National Team, then promoted to assistant coach of the Olympic Team, before being given the head coaching job.[2][7][8]

Jankowski was the Head U.S. Freeskiing and U.S. Snowboarding Coach, and the U.S. Snowboarding Halfpipe and Slopestyle Head Coach, for the 2014 U.S. Snowboarding Team at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.[2][7][9][10][11][12]

He has coached Gretchen Bleiler, Kelly Clark, Arielle Gold, Taylor Gold, Danny Kass, Scotty Lago, Hannah Teter, and Shaun White, and as of February 2014 had coached athletes to 19 Olympic medals since 2006.[6][13]

References

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  1. ^ "West Dover, Vt. skier hopes to bring home gold". NBC. Retrieved April 4, 2014.
  2. ^ a b c d Calkins, Geoff (February 14, 2010). "Mike Jankowski's life hardly a 'pipe dream'". The Commercial Appeal. Archived from the original on February 19, 2010. Retrieved January 21, 2016.
  3. ^ a b "Snowbowl Celebrating Sochi Connection". Flagstaff Business & Online News. February 1, 2014. Retrieved April 4, 2014.
  4. ^ Hanson, Justin (March 29, 2014). "Memphis grad coaching Olympic teams in Sochi". Wmctv.com. Retrieved April 4, 2014.
  5. ^ a b "US Olympic snowboarding coach doing Arizona proud". ktar.com. Retrieved April 4, 2014.
  6. ^ a b "Arizona no longer out in the cold". Azcentral.com. February 23, 2014. Retrieved April 4, 2014.
  7. ^ a b "U.S. Snowboarding Names Team". U.S. Snowboarding. November 26, 2013. Retrieved April 4, 2014.
  8. ^ "Games like Olympics but bigger – coach". Queenstown News. August 16, 2013. Archived from the original on April 7, 2014. Retrieved April 4, 2014.
  9. ^ "Mike Jankowski To Be U.S. Snowboarding Head Halfpipe Coach", Snowboard Gang
  10. ^ "Mike Jankowski praises "different" family man David Wise". Sports Mole. Retrieved April 4, 2014.
  11. ^ Jason Blevins (February 8, 2014). "U.S. snowboarder Sage Kotsenburg becomes first gold medalist of Games". The Denver Post. Retrieved April 4, 2014.
  12. ^ Anson, Jason (December 21, 2013). "The Sport Technologist Chronicles: #SnowboardTechNews: Mike Jankowski, Head coach for the U.S. Freeskiing and U.S. Snowboarding". Sporttechnologist.com. Archived from the original on April 4, 2014. Retrieved April 4, 2014.
  13. ^ "Taylor Gold | Snowboard | United States – Sochi 2014 Olympics". sochi2014.com. February 23, 2014. Retrieved April 5, 2014.