Robert “Barney” McLean, a native of Hot Sulfur Springs, Colorado, was one of the first great competitive skiers in the country.
His first title came in 1933, when he won the Class C Western Jumping Championships at the age of sixteen, and the last came twenty-seven years later in Aspen when he won the Veteran Downhill title in 1960. Twice McLean was named to the U.S. Olympic team, and he captained the 1948 squad. He was selected for the F.I.S. team in 1939.
In 1942, he won the International Championship and Harriman Cup; the National Downhill, Slalom and combined Championship; the U.S. Eastern Amateur Championship and Diamond Sun Award; and the Alta Cup; and he was recognized as the top-ranked American skier. In 1948, McLean won the Swiss Championship, placed third in the Giant Slalom in Oslo and fourth in the Holmenkollen Combined, the downhill and slalom in Argentina, and the Kandahar of the Andes downhill in Chile.
In 1950, he was named coach of the U.S. Men’s F.I.S. team and also conducted training camps to prepare American Skiers for future Olympic and world championships.
He is a past winner of the Robert Russell Memorial Award as the outstanding amateur athlete in the Rocky Mountain Association of the AAU, the Halsted Memorial Trophy for his promotion of skiing, and the Bass Trophy for his contributions to skiing and sportsmanship. He was also nominated for the Sullivan Award, which goes to the country’s outstanding athlete selected by the AAU. The culmination of his career came in being named to the National Ski Hall of Fame in 1959. He was belatedly selected for the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame in 1975.
