FSC Clubs vie for Pauline’s Cup

Our clubs compete for Pauline’s Cup on the January trip. Call it winning for the glory, winning to show Pauline’s Cup to your constituents, to add your club name on the Cup like the Stanley Cup for hockey. It is a bragging right that stays with the club all year long.

Why it’s named Pauline’s Cup

Doris Jones, 2016 Pauline’s Cup winner

The first trophy, awarded in 1985, was donated by Snowmass Associates and the winning club, Miami Ski Club, kept it. The next year, Coors donated the trophy and so on until 1992. In 1992, Worldwide Ski Corp donated the trophy that became known as the Florida Cup. Every year, the trophy would journey in its custom-made box to the January Florida Ski Week. It would be presented to the winning club, who would put it back in its box and bring it back to display at their local events.

Over the years, the trophy handles have been repaired numerous times and the box went through numerous sets of screws, but every club still wanted to win the Cup.

In 2001, the FSC VP of Trips decided traveling around the country with the huge trophy was too difficult and replaced it with a “traveling” plaque for the Florida Cup winner (little did we know how true traveling difficulties would become after September 2001). The Board of Directors decided to present the old Florida Cup Trophy to the person who was the longstanding cheerleader for NASTAR and the FSC Founder, Pauline Borovicka Arias.

Pauline took the Florida Cup home, had it repaired and proudly displayed it in her home until she died in 2008. Her husband graciously donated the Cup back to the Council. The Board of Directors decided to reinstate the trophy back into service for the FSC.

In addition to the engravable plaque on one side of the base where the name of the winning club is added each year, a tribute to Pauline, a picture of her in her NASTAR bib and list of all of the NASTAR individual and National Medals Pauline won over the years were added. The Cup was renamed Pauline’s Cup in her honor. Pauline’s husband, Vince, and her daughter, Judy, attended the June 2008 meeting to present Pauline’s Cup to the winning Tampa Bay Club.

About Pauline

Pauline’s cancer continued to plague her but never stopped her. Over the years she had recurrences of cancer in her lungs twice, breast cancer, and then leukemia. She had to have a knee replaced and still skied with a brace. She looked to overcome each episode with the determination to get back on the ski slope. The year she died was the only time in 40 years that Pauline wasn’t on the ski slopes.

Pauline, a nurse by profession, used every vacation to ski. When she retired, she and Vince would plan out every week of ski season, skiing an average of 12 weeks straight. And at every resort she visited, she raced. The number of individual medals she won overflowed a drawer. As she got older, she got faster. Year after year she qualified for NASTAR Nationals. And she won her age category in her 70s. And she won one of the first platinum medals instituted by NASTAR.

Pauline finally succumbed to her health battles in 2008 shortly before NASTAR Nationals. NASTAR Officials sent her family a bib and a last gold medal for Pauline. In addition, they agreed to an FSC request to create a permanent award in her memory. Each year, the FSC provides a replica trophy of our Pauline’s Cup to be awarded to the Platinum winner in the Female 80+ category.