Roger Langley was a high school educator. He first became interested in skiing when, as athletic director of Eaglebrook High School in Deerfield, Massachusetts, he formed a junior ski program. He spent much of his life promoting and contributing to ski sport.

Roger Langley was born in Natick, Massachusetts on June 4, 1901. After graduating from Natick High School he went to Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts and graduated with a Bachelor of Education degree. At State Teachers College in Fitchburg, Massachusetts he received his Master of Education degree. Langley was a teacher and athletic director at Eaglebrook Middle School in Deerfield, Massachusetts from 1924 to 1934. It was there that he started the nation’s first full time ski program for juniors. The school’s headmaster, Howard Gibbs, had approached Langley about the need for a winter recreation activity for students as the school did not have a gymnasium. Although no skier himself, Roger introduced it as a winter sport and Eaglebrook soon became one of the biggest junior ski clubs in the Eastern United states. Langley continued in the teaching profession and was the principal of High Plains School in Barre, Massachusetts from 1943 until his retirement. From his experience at Eaglebrook, however, he would devote a large part of his life to the promotion of ski sport. He served as an early director and vice-president of the United States Eastern Amateur Ski Association of America, an organization he joined in 1925.

In 1932 Roger Langley became prominent on the national level, serving as secretary of the National Ski Association from 1932 until1936, president from 1936 to 1948 and was executive secretary from 1948 to 1954. He was also vice-president of F.I.S. from 1946 to 1951 and attended the F.I.S. congresses at Pao, France; Sohevinigen, Holland; Oslo, Norway and Innsbruck, Austria. He was instrumental in bringing about better relations with the International Olympic Committee and bringing the F.I.S. World Championships to the United States in 1950. Langley was a member of the Olympic Games Ski Committees of 1936, 1948, 1952 and 1956.

Despite serving on all the national and international committees Roger Langley still had the time and energy to be the editor of the American Ski Annual from 1941 to 1954, a monumental task in itself. In 1949 Roger was elected honorary director of the USEASA and was awarded honorary life membership in the organization. He served as its president from 1956 to 1958.

Roger was also instrumental in establishing the National Ski Patrol System and was designated as Patrolman number 1 by its founder and National Director, Minot Dole. In 1946 he was awarded the National Ski Patrol System trophy, in 1947 he was awarded the prestigious Julius Blegen Award and in 1953 he received the American Ski Trophy.

Langley was a historian and wrote much about the early ski history of the United States in newspaper articles and in articles for the American Ski Annuals. A staunch supporter of the U.S. National ski Hall of Fame, Langley along with Arthur Barth and Harold Grinden, proposed in 1944 that the National ski Museum be established in Ishpeming. His influence was felt in every quarter of skiing.

Roger Langley was elected to the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame in 1958.