Go to the mobile version of this Web site.

Login | Contact Us | Site Map | Paid archives | Electronic edition | Subscription Questions | Extras

Ski-and-snowboarding academy turns itself around

By Joanne Kelley, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published January 11, 2008 at 12:32 p.m.
Updated January 11, 2008 at 4:39 p.m.

Text size  
Tony Seibert does an "Alley Oop Mute Grab" on the superpipe at Crested Butte, during training Tuesday Jan. 8. He is one of the student athletes at the Crested Butte Academy, which has risen from near-bankruptcy and is now going strong as a school for rising snow sports stars. At this remote ski resort, going to "boarding school" means spending as much time in a snow-packed terrain park as a high school classroom.

Photo by Dennis Schroeder © The Rocky

Tony Seibert does an "Alley Oop Mute Grab" on the superpipe at Crested Butte, during training Tuesday Jan. 8. He is one of the student athletes at the Crested Butte Academy, which has risen from near-bankruptcy and is now going strong as a school for rising snow sports stars. At this remote ski resort, going to "boarding school" means spending as much time in a snow-packed terrain park as a high school classroom.

More Skiing & Tourism

More stories »

MOUNT CRESTED BUTTE — At this remote ski resort, going to "boarding school" means spending as much time in a snow-packed terrain park as a high school classroom.

The students at the college preparatory school here even wake up in a hotel and spa that once housed a Club Med, a location that gives the skiers among them slopeside access to some of the most famed expert terrain in the country.

But for the 70 kids enrolled at Crested Butte Academy, the similarities to being on vacation end there.

On a recent Tuesday, those who live on campus rise before dawn for a mandatory breakfast appearance before joining the day students at a nearby building for an hour of strength training with their performance coach.

Brendan Gerard, a shaggy-haired 17-year-old and four-year academy veteran, arrives last because he's been scraping the wax off the bottom of his snowboard. He's soon groaning alongside two dozen other teenagers, some of whom begin stripping off their ski caps and tossing them aside with the parkas, boots and other layers of clothing that already sit in piles around the perimeter of the dimly lit room.

The students listen up as Bud Keene, who coached snowboarder Shaun White to Olympic gold in 2006, enters the room to put strict limits on the use of portable music players on the slopes. Keene, who joined the academy as head snowboarding coach last spring, allows a split-second for any questions.

"Everybody got that? Cool."

The new iPod edict comes as a blow to some of the kids in the room. But the change is just a tiny tweak when compared with the complete turnaround in the school's once lax standards and near-bankrupt status.

The school's reversal of fortunes gained momentum when the school was absorbed last year into the IMG sports and talent agency, the behemoth that has operated in 30 countries and represents big names such as Tiger Woods and other superstars.

IMG gave birth to the athlete endorsement industry when its founder began representing golfer Arnold Palmer. Its far-flung business now includes widespread media and entertainment interests and a division that operates a dozen sports-specific academies aimed at churning out future greats.

The winter sports emphasis at Crested Butte Academy filled a gap in IMG's diverse portfolio of schools, some of which cater to tennis players and golfers, even future trophy fishers.

Even before IMG was bought out by flamboyant New York financier Theodore Forstmann three years ago, it raked in more than $1 billion in revenue. Its performance reportedly has soared under its new management, but as a private company it doesn't release its financial results.

The deep-pocketed IMG has allowed the academy here to do more than just keep its doors open. It's moved from its aging quarters and dilapidated dormitories on the edge of the nearby town of Crested Butte to relatively posh resort digs that have it claiming to be the only ski-in, ski-out private school in the country.

Its recruitment efforts — the school has almost doubled its full-time enrollment in a year and now brings dozens of kids in for week-long training sessions — have been aided by its ability to lure big-name coaches.

Aside from Keene, other top coaches have moved to Crested Butte and made a full-time commitment to the program, helping to change the school's image almost overnight. Free skiing champion Carrie Jo Chernoff serves as the performance coach for all the athletes.

Drew Cesati, who left the U.S. Ski Team coaching staff to lead the academy's alpine racing program, describes the academy's previous incarnation as a "ramshackle joint that got pulled down. The vibe of Crested Butte kind of permeated the program. It was real laid-back."

Now Cesati and his coaching colleagues labor over training videotapes and spreadsheets to track myriad details about the students, both to keep parents updated on how they're doing and to figure out how to improve their athletic performance.

Among the requirements: three daily meals designed by a nutritionist, stretching, strength-training and mental conditioning programs, as well as a two-hour study hall in the evenings.

A typical day at the academy also involves four hours on the snow and four hours in the classroom.

The best way to unwind when the day ends?

"Pass out," says 9th-grader Mick Osmondson, who aspires to making the U.S. Ski Team, but only after going to a private college such as Dartmouth, Middlebury or the University of Denver.

The intensive athletic and academic experience comes at a price: $34,000 a year for tuition, room and board. The cost doesn't include multi-week summer training camps that often involve international travel.

The academy originally was founded as an alternative high school for local kids whose parents wanted them to attend high school in town rather than down the valley in Gunnison.

It went out of business briefly in the middle of the 2003-2004 school year, only to be revived as a nonprofit, sports-focused prep school several days later. It lacked enough coaches to support the new approach. And the purchase of a new building eventually put the cash-strapped school over the edge.

"This was a third-tier boarding school — a school that survived by admitting everyone they could," says Graham Frey, who became the school's new headmaster just before the start of the 2006-2007 school year. "It was a mess."

Frey learned about most of the challenges the school faced only after he took the job. He knew he needed to find more students. But the first thing he did was excuse the 18 or so kids he didn't think could handle his plans to get tough on everything from classwork to partying habits. After graduating 18 seniors that year, the total student body stood at just 39.

About three months after arriving on campus, Frey boarded an airplane bound for Bradenton, Fla., home to IMG Academies and the campus of its biggest and best-known sports academy programs.

"If this place was going to make it, it needed a strong financial partner," says Frey, who made a pitch that eventually led to the IMG deal.

The majority of current boarding students are in high school but the academy hopes to recruit more middle-school-age kids.

"The longer you have a child in such a world-class training environment, the better," said Chris Ciaccio, director of business development at IMG Academies.

Kids who miss any comforts of home will likely be able to spend extra to get them starting next year. For an added fee, boarding students at other IMG academies can get a single room with amenities such as a plasma television, a washer and dryer, and even housekeeping services.

As time goes on, the school hopes it can become even more selective.

"The crew here will become increasingly hard core ... as we move into a position where we can pick and choose," predicts Keene, who started snowboarding before ski areas allowed the sport and has coached both amateurs and professionals for decades.

As Keene speaks, another coach leans into the doorway to tell him two snowboarding students haven't shown up for training because "their alarm didn't go off."

At a minimum, they'll be washing dishes after dinner. Next time, they might have to stay behind while the rest of their class hits the mountain, preferably on a day when conditions are optimal.

"They're in big trouble," Keene says as he shakes his head. "We're not their mother and we're not their father. They have to grow up a little faster here. That doesn't make us unique, but we're adamant about it."

He adds: "It may seem like a dream and it is. It's very glamorous and glorified. But they have to set their alarms and get up in the morning or else."

Despite all the time spent on the mountain, the highly structured lifestyle and all of the rules can prove daunting.

"You do lose a lot of your freedom. And it's definitely not part of snowboarding society to be restricted," says Gerard, the snowboarding student who spent the early part of his youth in Cleveland. "I miss out on the whole party scene, but how can I be bummed when I get to snowboard when they're in school."

As a bonus, the relaxed dress code means that many students wear saggy pants and hats around campus — or walk around with hair matted down or sticking out in various directions from successive days of hiding it under a tight cap.

Alan Kremer still wears his dark-orange boots and black boarding pants as he sits at his school desk in his computer class. After spending 9th grade as a boarding student, his family moved to Crested Butte from Florida and he attends the program during the day.

Joe Bosshard, one of the few student's enrolled in the school's high-altitude running program, also prompted his mother and younger brother to move to the ski town from Wisconsin.

As he and his classmates work on a spreadsheet exercise on their laptops, Bosshard clicks back and forth between the assignment and the admissions pages of Dartmouth College. He wears slippers in class as if he just shuffled down the hall from a nearby dorm room.

Gerard's ripped black pants are decorated with swatches of black fabric held on by safety pins. They advertise some of his favorite bands - from newer finds to the Sex Pistols.

"I'm all about the rock scene," says Gerard, whose dorm room walls are covered with huge posters, including one of the late Doors' frontman Jim Morrison and another of a Rolling Stones album cover.

How does he feel about his coach's earlier iPod pronouncement?

"I'm a little disturbed by that," he says. "I think it's just temporary."

Gerard has lived through the school's transformation but says "if I could go back and change things I definitely wouldn't."

Like Gerard, most of the academy's students choose the lifestyle because they consider it the best way to get an education while pursuing their passion, and, at the same time advancing their hopes of going professional.

"The big perception is that parents force their kids to attend, but that is inaccurate," says Ciaccio, the IMG Academies' executive. "It's usually the kids who are trying to convince their parents. Those kids who don't want to be there, they identify themselves very, very quickly."