{"id":800007,"date":"2019-10-02T17:04:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-02T23:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/school-league-builds-lifelong-love-of-climbing\/"},"modified":"2019-10-02T17:04:00","modified_gmt":"2019-10-02T23:04:00","slug":"school-league-builds-lifelong-love-of-climbing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/school-league-builds-lifelong-love-of-climbing\/","title":{"rendered":"School league builds lifelong love of climbing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ben Rathbun discusses competition route-setting Saturday with a group of American Scholastic Climbing League staffers and coaches who visited Eagle from areas around the state to prepare for the upcoming high school climbing season in Colorado.<\/strong>
John LaConte \/ jlaconte@vaildaily.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

EAGLE \u2014 More than 100 cumulative years of coaching experience came together at Eagle Climbing + Fitness on Saturday to prepare for the upcoming American Scholastic Climbing League season in Colorado.<\/p>\n

The annual coaches clinic predates the league itself, as competitive climbing in one form or another has been present in Colorado for decades, and the clinic has helped set the stage for the upcoming season.<\/p>\n

The league was created in 2018 as a spinoff of the Colorado High School Climbing League, which was established in 2008 as a spinoff of an organized climbing effort started in the early \u201d90s.<\/p>\n

Attending the clinic on Saturday, Colorado Rocky Mountain School coach Dave Meyer thought back to those days.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt started with Montrose High School and Gunnison High School: Both those schools had climbing programs, and they would bring their kids together to climb together,\u201d Meyer said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Not about winning\u2019<\/p>\n

Now serving hundreds of kids across Colorado, the American Scholastic Climbing League hopes to create a model that can be emulated all over the country.<\/p>\n

But first, it stresses a clearly defined set of goals, most of which minimize the competitive aspect of the sport while emphasizing \u201ccommunity, perseverance, trust, and support,\u201d according to the league\u2019s philosophy statement. \u201cThe League is not about winning or preparing individual students for the Olympics.\u201d<\/p>\n

For that, climbers have USA Climbing, the national governing body of the sport of competitive climbing. Making the high school league significantly different than the USA Climbing circuit was important to organizers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe focus is on getting all the kids together who are climbers in a really positive, supportive, connected atmosphere,\u201d Meyer said. \u201cBecause if it\u2019s only about the individual and beating people, they can do that with USA Climbing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Logical location<\/p>\n

Local climbing coach Larry Moore, who runs Eagle Climbing + Fitness, has been coaching at the USA Climbing level for years but is new to the American Scholastic Climbing League. Embracing the group\u2019s mission, Moore offered to host the state championship this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my main goals was to get the scheduling to be different enough from USA Climbing that kids could participate in both,\u201d Moore said.<\/p>\n

When it was decided that Eagle Climbing + Fitness would host the state championship in February, the new gym also became a logical location for the coaches clinic.<\/p>\n

The American Scholastic Climbing League season runs from September to February. League executive director Theresa Morris said having all 16 high school coaches from around the state in Eagle on Saturday would allow them to see the venue where state championships will take place. Eagle Climbing + Fitness has been open for about 10 months.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re getting coaching information and helpful hints, but also looking at the site,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The clinic is an important setup session for the upcoming season, Morris said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy being face to face and in person, conversations are more efficient, you get more done, I can catch everyone up to speed \u2014 it\u2019s more productive, more beneficial all around,\u201d Morris said.<\/p>\n

Scott Dodd and Ben Rathbun instructed the coaches on competition route setting, Dr. Mark Pitcher discussed injury awareness and prevention, Moore and Lucie Hanes discussed competition training and competition strategy, and John Mark Seelig went over strength training and nutrition.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goals are to get the coaches and the adult staff more training in climbing with youth, dealing with youth climbers and making sure they having an enjoyable and inclusive and safe experience,\u201d Morris said. \u201cSo they want to climb throughout their whole life.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story is from VailDaily.com<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ben Rathbun discusses competition route-setting Saturday with a group of American Scholastic Climbing League staffers and coaches who visited Eagle from areas around the state to prepare for the upcoming high school climbing season in Colorado.John LaConte \/ jlaconte@vaildaily.com EAGLE \u2014 More than 100 cumulative years of coaching experience came together at Eagle Climbing + […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-800007","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-24 19:54:56","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800007\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}