Why Marco Sullivan’s 17-year professional skiing career was more consequential than you think

Nobody did it better…while wearing more denim.

By Andrew J. Pridgen

Athletes, they say, die two deaths. The first when they retire, the second when their number is called up from behind the giant deli counter in the sky.

Marco Sullivan, a 17-year Alpine veteran of the U.S. Ski team and perhaps one of the finest examples of a man who threw himself down the mountain with such abandon that the gate sticks would quiver in fear before he got to them, retired over the weekend.

And in true Marco fashion, that funeral was more a wake—a celebration of his many lives in the sport.

I caught a glimpse of the Last Run on Saturday. Marco at the start gate of his final GS…in Lederhosen. He breathed in every turn like it was his last—in a way they all were—stopping itinerantly to embrace coaches, family, friends, competitors …and pretty much…