The Dee Williams
Freestyle Fund
Our Story
At the age of 17 Diana Williams was named to the US Freestyle Ski Team, but on many occasions her limited financial resources prevented her from traveling with the team to national and international World Cup competitions.
Upon retirement as an athlete from the US Ski Team, Diana went from competitor to coach. And in 1988, at the young age of 25, she became director of the Killington Mountain School’s Freestyle program. In 1998 she became a US Olympic Team Coach and held the position until she retired from Olympic level coaching in 2002.
Diana believed in coaching not only to help her athletes improve their skiing, but to learn how to be great people and contribute to their community. The legacy of the young athletes that Diana coached and developed is legendary in the Freestyle world. They were not only world class competitors but more importantly young athletes that benefited from her rigor, and athletic and intellectual honesty that they have carried into adulthood.
After her passing from cancer in 2020, Alex decided he did not want to see other young athletes experience the financial limitations that Diana experienced, no matter what their level of skill. It is with this in mind that he created the fund to continue Diana’s legacy of excellence and compassion.
Diana Williams
Diana’s brother, Bruce Williams, created this celebratory art work in honor of his beloved sister. This art captures Diana’s love for competition and her passion for making life as fun as possible. Stickers, posters and even skis with this design will be an integral part of the little extras that we will be providing for our donors.
About The Fund
The “Dee” Williams Fund (The Fund) will include an initial endowment from her husband, Alex Gambal and The Fund will accept on an ongoing basis gifts to increase the corpus of The Fund. The gifts shall be tax deductible to the donors. Alex has committed to fund five scholarships annually starting in 2021-2022 in order to preserve and grow the corpus. The Fund has already awarded grants to support more than 15 early career athletes with financial need.
At least five more athletes will be selected for the 2023-24 season in Spring 2023.
Alex and Dee’s friends and family have set a goal to grow this endowed fund to $500,000 to assure that five freestyle athletes are supported every year into the future. Launched with Alex’s $100,000 founding gift, and having awarded grants totaling $35,000, the fund balance was $294,453 on 2/1/2023.
Together we can realize Dee’s vision to support the next generation of freestyle mogul athletes.
Your gift of $100 to $50,000 or more will support the next generation of gifted freestyle athletes, a true legacy to Diana’s accomplishments and character.
Please help us reach $500,000.
To contribute, please contact Alex Gambal at
4730 North 8000 West Tetonia, Idaho 83452 – 802 779 7678 – alex.gambal@icloud.com