Heuga grew up skiing in Squaw Valley and became a U.S. champion in 1960 at the age of 16. He came in the 1964 Games as one of the favorites, and part of a powerhouse team that included Billy Kidd, Bill Marolt, Chuck Ferries and Buddy Werner, and the drive to win the first U.S. men’s alpine skiing medal ever. Heuga and Kidd became lifelong friends after they made history, with Kidd taking silver and Heuga taking bronze in the slalom.
In one of those giant quirks of history, the man who took gold in that same race — Austria’s Pepi Steigler — also has been diagnosed with MS.
After top-six finishes at the 1966 World Championships in Portillo, Chile, Heuga became the first American to win the prestigious Arlberg-Kandahar in 1967 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. That same year he began to notice symptoms of what would later be diagnosed as MS. A year later he was named to his second Olympic Team, and appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated together with Kidd.
At only 26, at the peak of his ski racing career, Heuga’s MS diagnosis was confirmed. The conventional medical wisdom then was for MS victims to avoid physical or emotional stress. Heuga ignored that and created an athlete’s regimen for himself of physical activity, nutrition and positive outlook, which he shared through the center he created in 1984.
Today the Center, renamed Can Do Multiple Sclerosis, continues his legacy as a passionate advocate for other MS patients and for new treatment therapies which are now the medical standard for MS care.
Heuga has been honored by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and served on the President’s Council on Physical Fitness. He has been inducted into the World Sports Humanitarian Hall of Fame and is an honored member of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame, the Colorado Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame and the Colorado Athletic Hall of Fame.
His spirit lives on.
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