welcome to the secrets of college planning i'm your host anthony uva and today we're going to get some insight into skiing and snowboarding at the college level my guest today is dan kemp he's the consulting for aces educational consulting and  welcome to the show thank you very much anthony appreciate it sure no problem so dan i usually ask my guests where they went to college so where did you go to school absolutely i actually went to the university of utah great ski college mountains are extremely close so every once in awhile anthony we'd have a professor or two that would post a note on the door on just one of those rare ski days that said see you in the al to lift line so it was a great place to attend university great place to go to college i did my undergraduate graduate degree both at the university uta great so let's go back into high school first basically when you start thinking about college and going on a college you know into the studies that you that you did well i was fortunate and i think a lot of athletes nowadays are the expectation that i always had was i would be going to college i started thinking about going to college as i entered high school so i was particularly aware of what courses i needed to take and what i was most interested in doing it began my experience and what i do now is helping in assisting students really pick those courses complete the work they need to complete and really carry through a educational career from high school on through into the college career and to do the do ski or snowboard of the college level i did we did not have i was not an alpine athlete specifically so we had many different competitions at the local ski areas regional competitions in the west those kinds of things i did not compete directly in a college supported alpine or cross country  scenario or discipline within skiing so i competed at the local level in the regional level in terms of different big mountain sports competitions that way ok so tell us a little bit about skiing at the college level you know what it kids need to have in high school to go on to college and ski at the college level anthony it's actually really interesting it is a competitive competitive scenario the division one division two n c double a supported sports in terms of skiing and snowboarding at the collegiate level are in the alpine disciplines downhill or giant slalom and also slalom in the alpine events and then also cross country so we were looking actually at a few statistics and i'll just look up here and discuss for a second but the disciplines that are supported we talk a little bit about approximately thirteen just under thirteen thousand alpine and cross country athletes in the high school competitive regions and clubs and sports that compete at the college level there's just over five hundred so it's actually quite competitive in terms z double a supported division wanted to vision to skiing at the collegiate level and how how many schools at the college level have skiing as an n c a a sport it's interesting to know there are different regions so you have eastern side you have western side you have central alternately there's about forty two colleges that compete in different scenarios throughout the alpine disciplines so that's not only division one but that is about the total number of colleges that are competitive in scheme ok so now is skiing mostly time where kids have to have a time in a specific event to get to the college level is there a specific time they need to reach correct it's very again the competitiveness in terms of skiing it's interesting that you bring up timing because so many of the different disciplines and what i've really found here at ace's academic consulting is that in the alpine disciplines on the cross country disciplines obviously the fastest person downhill went it's a timed event in other alpine and sport winter sport disciplines skiing snowboarding you have aerials you have moguls you have slope style you have bigger competitions you have halfpipe these are judged events so there is a subjective ness an object of messes in terms of timing and judgment from sort of judges and things in different sport disciplines and as i began this career as i really started to analyze and work with families that needed assistance in completing their high school scenarios and high school careers because of real success in sport the usa or or u s ski team really started adding in was able to add new disciplines so anthony things like ski slopestyle and skier halfpipe and snowboard half pipe these are disciplines that were added to olympic venues and olympic sport and the athletes in these sports became younger and younger so the disciplines the individuals winning and meddling and podium reaching that podium that top podium status in these disciplines were fifteen and sixteen and seventeen years old so within this scenario we started to recognize at the ski team and also myself individually that we had sport athletes that were reaching that penacoli of their success sometimes in the fifteen sixteen seventeen year ange and needing to travel five months or more in the winter months me making  high school but for the collegiate side of things really a difficult scenario to complete ok so so now kids in high school that had that skiing at the high school level is it more that they you want them to do more outside the high school competition and more personal training than just the high school schedule that they do that's a good question and that's really what does happen so as students what we've recognized so frequently in the analysis of the sports and this edition of newer younger achieving sport athletes the reality became as they experienced more and more success in their sport they were required if you will or had the opportunity i sit say to then travel more frequently and compete more frequently things like the world cup things like additional training in the southern hemisphere in the early part of the season that might be end of august early september school starts a winter sport athlete that is really pursuing the highest level of achievement in their leet sports would be in new zealand or chile where the snow is so our training our competition and our travel became so extensive that typically as they experienced more success akhet scuse me after logically they began to have more and more difficulty academically while so so now i guess it's  expensive sport the parents need a lot of money to have their kids in the sport well that's a good question and unfortunately it is an expensive sport there is a tremendous of amount of travel right now i have students all over the world  so the reality of the dollar amount it's i want to say no you don't have to have a lot of money to compete in terms of it because there are those genuine talent  athletes that are are just really reaching those top pennock oppositions and i mention the top podium status without all of the dollars and cents if you will the reality is many different sports require different scenarios so in the alpine events more time on snow more miles on the skis often means more success and so more the right coaching is essential the right training is essential red equipment is essential oftentimes that requires dollars and cents if you will to go chase the snow so they call it the winter circus for a reason and sometimes it truly is a circus so now at the college level you were saying before there's more than just alpine skiing and stuff is there more into mural type sports at the college level for this well again that's why one of those will segue a little bit into the reality of dollars and cents colleges are or are certainly not able to  support many of the different sports it costs hundreds and hundreds and thousands of dollars to create a world cup super pac halfpipe event so they don't have the ability for training and to keep up a winter venue so they utilize those sports are not able to be supported in a college scenario so cross country events and alpine events are truly the history and the legacy that has been for such a long period of time you look at some of the to college coaches these skiers at the high school level what what's the recruiting process interesting question i'm glad you brought it up it is in the alpine events very structured so you earn a level of points throughout your successes so as you win races the higher point status comes in those higher podium first second third place all the way really through the top thirty athletes so different regional events different hosted events for the high school athletes where competition is awarded the again those top thirty athletes earn certain number of points awarded for first place tenth place fifteenth place and so on the higher those points status certainly that begins to get those coaches eyes so recruiting begins as early actually very very young you know thirteen and fourteen and fifteen and sixteen to really watch progression so we see athletes that are finishing in the top thirty and then top twenty top fifteen they might podium a couple of times the following year and their their status just continues and their success continues to rise these are again in the alpine disciplines so much of what i am really excited about and just enjoy doing is working with my athletes and their families even in those younger levels so just last month in aspen at the x games we had a thirteen year old girl take the podium she want to gold medal at x games thirteen years old that is a student who is progressing tremendously she happens to be a free skiing slopestyle athlete so she's not looking at the college scenario in terms of combining her sport and her collegiate academic career but we're looking at kids really completely reaching the top levels at very young ages and those students need academic support to complete their high school careers and go continue to then get into colleges and continue their collegiate academic careers so so you're telling me that kids are playing the sport really early what's an early stage for families to start they kids in the sport are they doing it at three four years old and ten twelve years old they're there they get a profession at the sport sometimes absolutely one of the things that is just a bit addictive about skiing is is everything about skiing anthony that's the wonderful family sport outdoors i have two daughters myself and we started gauging when my kids can walk and when they can put their feet  but it's a great family sport and chase your kids around a mountain in the clean air on top of the snow just enjoying time together and so on sometimes just could not be better so we really enjoy it we feel like it's just been a fabul fabulous scenario and yes families begin sometimes as young as four five and six years old and then there's those fun little weekend competitions that happen at the local mountains the club level the families and the  young individual skiers start joining club teams and things of that sense so again the progression does begin very very young and talent starts to show at a very young age coaches you know we have kids and again looking at some of the action sports anthony outside of the collegiate sport supported sports specifically in alpine and cross country the action sports areas like x games we have nine and ten year old kids  going off mega ramps these are eighty foot gaps there eighty feet between launch and land that these ten year old kids have been able to begin training on and be successful with them so i know what some of the  academics needed for the sport what kids need to have in a high school level that that they're definitely going to get to the college level it's a great question and again i think it's similar and common although again we need factors we have to recognize that this is a sport that when competing at the college level is done and i always say to my athletes it's done at a college level obviously they kind of look at me still anthony they go yet and why you've been so silly about this the reality is college is about academics it's great that you're skiing and it's great that you might be fighting for a national championship but it's about academics the university of new mexico is another another university college that supports and they just i think it was two weeks ago anthony don't hold me to the quote but i think it was two weeks ago they just made an announcement that the the sport of skiing at the university of new mexico has broken the record for the highest combine a of all of their athletes and it's three point nine five while that's pretty impressive that's fantastic this is twelve women and eleven men that are just fantastic academic athletes so  maze and guys what's the what's the process at the college level what a kid's looking at how early did they get there once they get accepted into the school what's the process of skiing is it annoy you around type of thing for these kids what's their process they get there this is interesting because again depending on the college level and where students are going to university they need to have high level academia so when we're talking about  talk about what a great institution what a great university again don't quote or don't hold me to the quote i believe there except in straight for twenty fourteen fifteen was eighteen percent so from that standpoint to answer your initial question a student athletes need academically in high school to compete at the collegiate level boy they need amazing academia so we're looking at sometimes a p coursework we're looking at high level g level stats they need to be athletes that care dramatically if you will about their academic work so denver university is a little bit different certainly you know do you university of utah mile moderate these are folks that have in the range of seventy eight to eighty percent acceptance rates public universities so on so depending on the academic level and the skill level in the university student would be attending or pursuing to attend that is what the student then would need and that's where i really come in so we began at the beach at that gosh first semester first quarter of freshman year what courses as a student going to take levels of things like travel and competition that we just touched on anthony when a student is going to be away from high school for a training camp for three weeks we want to work with them and we may have to do something like take some of the elective credits in a blended learning environment which is what i kind of excel in and you know again i'm jumping tracks here on you but anthony one of the things that's so humorous to us sometimes is our high school require requirements graduation or two years of p e and when students are away and their training and their travel and their competition takes them away from high school we want them focused academically in the core subjects math english science history language some of my athletes this is a kind of a funny thing but some of my athletes have a difficult time completing the p e requirements when they're alito level skiers well so so the season itself is skiing at the college level would you say it's like november to february march or is it longer is there extra or extra things that they're doing it is extra it really does depend at the level where again there's a there's a a teeter totter if you will between the collegiate level and even getting to that u s ski team status level so in terms of college this season really does begin as soon as guys can get on snow november late november even and it goes through the middle of march sometimes the national championship sends you double they are end of march but yeah this is the season itself athletes are on snow as much as they can be so when there's snow in april the season continues in the training continues they do a lot of driving and training in the beginning really the physicality of skiing is top notch truly the g forces that downhill after leads are and are incurring on their bodies and things  people sometimes say skiing is not in an impact sport well it is when you crash that's so we're aware of concussion protocols were aware and we watch very closely closely towards things like injury  there was a statistic years ago that on the world cup which is a little different then really competing at the n c double a collegiate level you had a one hundred percent chance of incurring a season ending knee injury an a c l injury if you competed on the world cup for six years nobody had gone six years without having an a c l surgery well tell me a little bit about your consulting business and how to kids get in touch with you if they want to talk to you absolutely pretty three three zero nine one seven eight my email is again pretty darn simple that way de camp ace's academic consulting dot com and collegiate athletes in particular high school athletes you know anthony just like with so many other sports if we wait until oh gosh freshman year first semester we've already taken the a c t a and we say hey i want to try and compete at the college level and they'll point to being we got off pretty big uphill battle we want to start early we want to start early in those high school years great so so you're getting to all of these forty two schools that are out there how do kids from the south that want to do skiing how do they get involved in a  sport like that that's a great question and we do have some really fun athletes may have a couple of freeskiing athletes that began by starting up a nice little roto on a farmland kind of thing and building a ranch to get any kind of actual elevation this was in indiana and he's now one of our best free skiing out there what can happen anthony it's not true common to be blunt no honest skiing is a winter sport it is an alpine sport is a mountain sport so most of those that start in the south end up at a point spending a lot of time in colorado and spending a lot of time in utah where the terrain is where the gates in the training and the coaches tend to be around where you know these are the hubs of scheme so is there anything that these kids can do after college and how do you how do they get to let's say the olympic team or anything like that what what's the process that they take their you bet really the ski team has a great scenario great system that way but there are multiple stages in the ski team and a level b level c level d t more development team athlete has several years and we look at this and we look at some of our our top skiers you know bodhi miller has thirty eight thirty nine years old so these are guys that are well beyond that scenario the u s ski team starts to really again identify those development athletes those young up incoming fifteen sixteen seventeen year old that leads and they introduce them to new coaching opportunities new travel and training opportunities there is a national training group that is just fantastic they're actually over in europe now so they begin to train and travel and share opportunities where they are combined or together a team so there might be seven eight nine twelve that leitz that begin kind of on a track and they are identified and they are trained specifically on that track to try and make the u s ski team they begin at the development or d team status and then they begin to climb the u s ski team ranks to an eighteen status and how long as they usually take to to do that that's a great question it really means in the alpine menus boy going seventy miles an hour on skis downhill is typically not something that fifteen and sixteen year old students are doing now so alpine athletes tend to develop and begin that that status or that stage at a later athletic ability level eight hundred nine hundred twenty twenty two twenty three then so now the injury level starts to come back into happening it depends a little bit if you have a her track has been slightly different we have the lindsay bonds we have the stacy cooks we had ross we have the mackay was your friends these are all athletes that injury and that status can be part of the career and part of the idea of rest and recovery in terms of really the trajectory that an alpine athlete takes so injury is part of the sport unfortunately and frequently even for our collegian athletes and it might be in the beginning of the season and might be halfway through the season it might be at the very end during national championships but those athletes again we are able to attempt very much to flex the academic scenario so if we do incur an injury one of the things anthony we do right away is flex those levels of competition and travel oh injury occurred we can't do that let's increase the intensity of academics and really what we possibly can do academically while injury and rest recovery is taking place great w were coming to the end of our show and usually i asked my guess as a last question what advice do you want to give to the parents out there that their sons and daughters are are at the high school level skiing and they want to go on to college and well what advice do you want to give to those parents i think that's a great question the advice that i would give is to become involved get there early and do everything you can to support these young people streams there is nothing better than achieving dreams and achieving goals and these are young athletes that are driven i am here to assist and help and when ever i can do so as early in the high school hall academic career as i can become involved i'd like to and i think that we can get those students to panicle to the absolute apex of their career when lots and lots of people are working to support them it takes a village and this is definitely one of those sports that it takes an entire village i personally i like parents to be parents it's hard to be a parent and be a teacher the coach the assistant the travel agent the everything so we want to let the parent be the parent and we want to be the academic coach and the academic support right i'd