Snowboards rule at Colorado boarding school
Students at Crested Butte Academy hit the slopes — and the books
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 slope-side access to some of the most famed expert terrain in the country.
But for the 70 youths enrolled at Crested Butte Academy, the similarities to being on vacation end there.
On a recent day, 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 last spring as director of snowboarding and freeride skiing, allows a split-second for any questions.
The new iPod edict comes as a blow to some of the kids in the room. But the change is just a tiny tweak 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.
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. The deep-pocketed IMG has allowed the academy here to do more than just keep the doors open. It has moved from aging quarters and dilapidated dormitories 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 youths in for weeklong training sessions — have been aided by its ability to lure big-name coaches.
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