Phil McNichol Is Back With USST

Phil McNichol left Team USA in 2008. He's just come back to a very different program, and a very different job.

U.S. Ski & Snowboard confirmed in May that McNichol had been rehired as head coach of the Stifel U.S. Men's Alpine Ski Team, taking the reins for a second time nearly two decades after his first stint ended. He arrived at the team's late-spring training camp in Copper Mountain, Colorado, new to the job and, by his own account, still sizing up the squad he's inherited.

The résumé that got him the call

McNichol's first tenure, from 2002 to 2008, coincided with one of the strongest stretches in U.S. men's ski racing history. He worked directly with Bode Miller and Ted Ligety, and helped seven different athletes reach World Cup podiums during his time in charge, while the men's team finished second in the Nations' Cup standings twice.

After leaving Team USA, McNichol helped launch Alpine Rockfest, a giant-slalom race with a big prize purse held alongside a concert, served as athletic director for the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation, and spent three years, from 2019 to 2022, as Alpine director for Canada. He was inducted into the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame in 2022.

U.S. Alpine director Sasha Rearick, who is himself newly returned to the program after leading the men's team from 2008 to 2018, called McNichol a true team builder who creates an environment where athletes and staff can grow both individually and as a group. Rearick, who overlapped with McNichol as a fellow coach in the 2000s, described him as a mentor and said McNichol has a knack for helping other coaches build their own confidence.

A team that needs steadying, not rebuilding

McNichol was careful, in comments to Powder, not to frame his return as a rescue mission. "I don't come into this thinking that the men's team is in disarray," he said, adding that there are good things already happening within the group. But he was equally direct about what the job actually requires: stability. "I have a simple mandate: to try to stabilize the men's team and improve performance," McNichol said. "That happens through stabilizing personnel, philosophy, and direction." He argues that constant staff turnover creates its own kind of chaos: change the staff, and you change direction; change direction, and you change outcomes, which he says isn't something a program should be repeatedly put through.

The numbers explain the urgency. The U.S. men's Alpine team has won just two Olympic medals across the last two Winter Games — both silvers from Ryan Cochran-Siegle in the super-G — and finished fifth in the Nations Cup standings at the 2025 World Championships, behind Switzerland, Austria, Italy and Norway. In the 2025-26 World Cup season, Cochran-Siegle and River Radamus were the team's clear standouts, finishing 20th and 28th respectively in the men's overall standings, while the next-best American, Kyle Negomir, sat 72nd. It's a far thinner group than the one McNichol coached in the 2000s, and a stark contrast with the U.S. women's team, whose recent success McNichol says has been a reminder of what's possible on the men's side.

Building out the staff around him

McNichol isn't rebuilding alone. He joins newly hired head men's tech coach Paul Epstein and John McBride, a longtime, well-regarded figure in the sport who will lead the speed program. Rearick, who takes on the role of Borgen Family Alpine Director, is himself part of the wider reshuffle, having rejoined U.S. Ski & Snowboard after spending time away from the program since 2018.

McNichol says he nearly turned down a return altogether at various points, but had quietly stayed interested in getting back involved with U.S. skiing when the right moment came. He also pointed to the financial backing now underpinning the effort, praising Stifel and the broader group of sponsors the federation has assembled as central to giving the program room to rebuild properly.

What comes next

McNichol's mandate plays out over a long runway: rebuilding depth behind Cochran-Siegle and Radamus, and doing it through consistency rather than another shake-up. His own theory of the job is essentially anti-disruption — fewer changes in staff and philosophy, not more — a notably different pitch from a coach brought in explicitly to fix underperformance. Whether that patience produces faster skiers is the question the next several World Cup seasons will answer.