jtslalom Posted November 30, 2005 Report Share Posted November 30, 2005 About seven years ago I went to my high school athletic director and asked him if I could start a high school race team. I live in NJ and we have a local mountain within 1/2 hour from about 10 high schools, all of which are in the same sports league. I was told that there probably wouldn't be alot of interest and that I would be competing with other sports like swimming, wrestling, basketball, bowling and the ski team. Basically I was told NO. I would like to know about how many high schools have a snowboard team and where are they located. I know that there are a few in New York around the Hunter Mountain area but thats all I know about. Any websites with information would be helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Salomon Orangge Posted November 30, 2005 Report Share Posted November 30, 2005 Mmm... its been a while since i've been in High School, or school for that matter, but I know that my school did not have a ski team. Those of us that did want to get into it were available to go to the local ski hill and join their team. Now... this was um... about 8 years ago since I was a senior in high school, so i'm not sure what they do now, but I think it is the same practice to go to the local spot and join their team. Dunno... maybe my HS was small... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Randy S. Posted November 30, 2005 Report Share Posted November 30, 2005 Why don't you approach the ski team and do it as part of, or as an adjunct to, the ski team. They already have the infrastructure, relationships, etc. You could just piggy back off their schedule, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest dragonsword5 Posted November 30, 2005 Report Share Posted November 30, 2005 I tried to get one started in my school too but I was basically told no as well. So what I'm doing now is training with the ski team with land training and hopefully persuade them to let me just do their gates at the practices and not compete. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ncermak Posted November 30, 2005 Report Share Posted November 30, 2005 look at the new england prep schools. also, Vermont HS snowboarding exists in the public schools... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Snowbrdr7 Posted November 30, 2005 Report Share Posted November 30, 2005 We're teachers at a prep school in CT called South Kent - we don't have a ski team or a snowboard team, but skiing/riding is a club sport. The kids go to Mohawk 4 times a week, weather permitting. It's more like a hump and less like a mountain, but it's fun. We have a few hard boot converts from our school, plus a few from other schools that have seen us riding, so we all ride together. We are sometimes alowed to run the gates that are set up, depending on how crowded it is. We'd be psyched to figure out how to race, or at least to try to get together with more schools at a bigger mountain for a few sessions. Since we're teachers we can probably help with the organization and driving! Our school is www.southkentschool.net Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Salomon Orangge Posted November 30, 2005 Report Share Posted November 30, 2005 Ahhh, Mohawk. I know that place. Been there many times when I was younger. I live about 2 miles from Ski Sundown though, so I usually took a lift or instructing job there in the winter when I was in HS. Was a good place to start my snowboarding, but I've been kind of spoiled with trips to the French Alps, and a trip to Winter Park outside of Denver. I was at Winter Park two years ago in march when they had that humongous 7 foot dump of snow that shut everything down. Was a greeeeeeat week for snowboarding. Mostly though, I spend my time at Stratton or Mt. Sunnapee. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NMU Alpine Boarder Posted November 30, 2005 Report Share Posted November 30, 2005 Why don't you approach the ski team and do it as part of, or as an adjunct to, the ski team. They already have the infrastructure, relationships, etc. You could just piggy back off their schedule, etc. That's basically how I started the college team here at NMU... I just talked to the Alpine Skiing coach, and I was told that I was welcome to tag along :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ike Posted November 30, 2005 Report Share Posted November 30, 2005 my school has a ski team (very good, we have 3 junior olympians) but no snowboard team, but we do have a snowboard club. But all it is, is a discount to a local hill, (the hill sux though) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enzo Posted November 30, 2005 Report Share Posted November 30, 2005 In NH, Holderness School (prep) www.holderness.org has an alpine racing team. You could also try CVA www.gocva.com in Maine. I used to teach at Waterville Valley Ski Academy www.wvbbts.org and we had a racing program as well. At WVA, even with a snowboard program in place, we would only have a couple of kids each year enrolled in alpine. One of our stars was Michelle Gorgone. Otherwise, most of the snowboarders were there for jibbing. At my current high school, we have a ski team that includes alpine, cross-country, and ski jumping. There's no snowboarding team or club. In fact, I don't know of any public schools that have a snowboarding team that actually competes in freestyle or alpine disciplines. Are there any in the country? It seems like the only schools that have a team are either prep schools or ski academies. Could you try to establish an extracurricular club/intramural racing team? If you get enough interest from your students, then you'll have a convincing argument for the A.D. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philfell Posted November 30, 2005 Report Share Posted November 30, 2005 There are some public high schools in Cali that have snowboard race/freestyle teams, they even have state championships. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharkey Posted December 1, 2005 Report Share Posted December 1, 2005 About seven years ago I went to my high school athletic director and asked him if I could start a high school race team. I live in NJ and we have a local mountain within 1/2 hour from about 10 high schools, all of which are in the same sports league. I was told that there probably wouldn't be alot of interest and that I would be competing with other sports like swimming, wrestling, basketball, bowling and the ski team. Basically I was told NO. I would like to know about how many high schools have a snowboard team and where are they located. I know that there are a few in New York around the Hunter Mountain area but thats all I know about. Any websites with information would be helpful. I skied on our HS team, as did my sister, who is now the head coach. She has seen my gradual switch to boarding, and now hardbooting, and we've talked a couple times about HS level snowboard racing. Her thoughts are the same as what i've seen above. I think there's three major issues: Having enough kids that want to race boards, having parents that want to participate and help, and having school support. I think i've listed these in order of importance to get a team going. Hell, even with an established team in our little West Michigan town, there's hardly enough kids that want to train for 2 months and then ski every day during the week for 8 weeks. And ski RACING has a pretty good amount of exposure to casual skiers. Most casual boarders only think about freestyle when the word competition comes up. What has been, sort of, decided, is to start a club first, and then once the kids are captive, expose them to gates and racing. That's a little easier when you're in control of the gates and equipment. Our plan was to have the club kids meet about 30 minutes before race practice is over, and just sort of see if anybody takes to it. With some support and information from people that DO race, it could probably get going in a couple of years, Even if at just a club level at a bigger hill closer to a city. That would bring adults into the mix, which would help. My hope is that this year goes by, and one kid buys an apline board. Then 2 next year, up until we can get some sort of 'all conference' group together in 3 years. ....Maybe it takes 5 years, who cares. If it makes a few kids stop sitting in the top of the terrain park on their asses, i'm all for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ike Posted December 1, 2005 Report Share Posted December 1, 2005 I think there's three major issues: Having enough kids that want to race boards, having parents that want to participate and help, and having school support. Yah, where I live, thers like only three grown up hardbooters! I don't know of a single kid... If it makes a few kids stop sitting in the top of the terrain park on their asses, i'm all for it. I hate it when they do that, or when the terrain park is closed and they block the real runs, just sitting there:AR15firin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drschwartz Posted December 3, 2006 Report Share Posted December 3, 2006 I coach a high school snowboard race team in northern california. We have a very active state league with over 400 racers attending state tournament every year(top 3-6 racers from each school's team). My snowboarding team has 20 boys and 20 girls, and I have to make cuts to keep it at the allowed maximum for the team. In contrast, the ski team only has 15 kids total (boys and girls). This is pretty universally the case in California, virtually every school has a larger snowboard race team than the ski team. The teams are combined under one head coach for all the schools and races are held with both skiier and boarder coarses set on the same day. On the downside, at least for our division (8 schools), none of the schools give funding for either the ski or the board team, so we do all our own fundraising. Anyone who has questions is welcome to e-mail me at dr.schwartz@mac.com. Sincerely, Paul Schwartz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr.E Posted December 4, 2006 Report Share Posted December 4, 2006 I "raced" for Tilton in NH several moons ago (err, 97 and 98 seasons?). In reality it was a ski team that let the snowboarders show up and helped schedual races for us with other New England schools. Other schools had coaching staff, our coach was a skier The team dissolved, but I was under the impression it came back a few years ago...? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pow Posted December 4, 2006 Report Share Posted December 4, 2006 I tried to talk to the ski team coach here about it, but she's one of the laziest people i know. so i was told no. I think Alakata had some luck with his ski team coach, so he might be able to start something up in our area. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin A. Posted December 4, 2006 Report Share Posted December 4, 2006 My sophomore year, I had everything lined up to start a ski/snowboard team...the local hill was going to donate lift tickets and training time, the bus company was going to give us a significant discount, and we had about 100 people willing to do it. We went to the athletics director, and we were told that the school couldn't afford it because the football team needed new jerseys. I lost all of my respect for that man that day. Football was the star of our school, even though we had about 6 state/regional champion skiiers at the school, not to mention many many budding racers who would have absolutley shined if given the chance. Skiing was the only NHIAAC sport that we didn't have...and the athletics director refused to add it. We did have 2 ski clubs though, there was a friday night club that went to Gunstock, and there was a traveling club that went on about 8 trips a year to various mountains via AWESOME coach bus, including an overnight to Jay Peak . Ahhh those were (kinda) the days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vandalrob08 Posted December 5, 2006 Report Share Posted December 5, 2006 WOW... You guys dont have High school Snowboard Teams??? Man, That sucks. Well My name is Robby Burns I am a high school racer from Mount Shasta California and attend Mount Shasta High School. In 1995 our High school started an Alpine snowboad team And it has been great ever since. Here is how it works. We have six divisions located all through California. We are located in Northern California so we are part of the Northern Division 1 along with many other schools. Then there are five other divisions located farther south from us. We have a six week season and we Race every Friday during that season. Then the top riders from each division are invited to the CNISSF (California-Nevada Interscholastic Ski-Snowboard Federation) State Championships. Also we have a local College that puts on a college class (Teachers,Credits and all ) where we have a two week Gate training session for Christmas Break. Also The College does a six week Gate Training program on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays so Our local teams can run gates and practice during the season. In small towns like ours, Alpine Racing is kinda worshiped by most. Here it is in the same category if not higher then Football, Basketball, and Baseball. It is a great system. Well I hope that information helps and also here is our State Website http://www.cnissf.org This website is mainy for our coaches to converse with eachother but I think it will help. On top of that, I have many forms and documents that I would be willing to send if you are truly interested. If you have any other questions I would be happy to answer them and tell you more about our system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vandalrob08 Posted December 5, 2006 Report Share Posted December 5, 2006 Hey Paul, Are you coaching in the Northern Division 2? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr. sandman Posted December 5, 2006 Report Share Posted December 5, 2006 hey paul, welcome to BOL.....................finally!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drschwartz Posted December 11, 2006 Report Share Posted December 11, 2006 Always looking, just never posted before Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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