Louie Vito Inducted Into Hall of Fame

“I was a little kid from Ohio. I grew up riding a 290 vertical foot hill. I was always middle of the pack at USASA Nationals, but I got asked, you know, if I'd be interested in going to SMS in seventh grade. My mom said, ‘no way,’” Vito said in his acceptance speech. “Seventh grade, still not mature enough. Eighth grade, I had to make a deal with her because she cared about my education and Stratton Mountain School is top tier for education. But I had to take Latin at SMS, which in Ohio, we don't really offer Latin. So, I had a very old school Latin teacher that if I daydreamed, he would literally grab my face and focus me, force me to look at the book.”

You can watch Vito’s entire acceptance speech below.

Stratton Mountain School serves more than 150 student-athletes and is recognized as a U.S. Ski & Snowboard Development Site and High Performance Center. There have been 46 Olympians from SMS, and 6 of them have won Olympic medals.

Vito represented the United States in 2010 at the Vancouver Winter Olympics, where he finished in fifth place in the halfpipe. He competed for Italy for the first time at the 2022 Games in Beijing, thanks to dual citizenship.

At his last Olympics, Vito put down a run that he had never done before, which was good enough for 18th place at the men’s halfpipe qualification this year. Then, in a bit of an encore presentation, he rode in The Snow League’s third stop of the inaugural season in Aspen. He also had the chance to put down a unique run, one he hadn’t pulled out in a competition since he rode in USASA’s as a kid.

Vito was born in Columbus, Ohio, and raised in Bellefontaine, Ohio. He grew up riding at Mad River Mountain, where he continued to host a rail jam for charity years after he left.