The lack of a ski team at Creek left some athletes without the ability to ski competitively for their school.

Thanks to Evergreen High School, Creek students can ski again.

Creek and many other schools collaborate with Evergreen to allow skiers to compete for Evergreen so that athletes would not be left out from the competition. 

Evergreen High School Athletic Director Leroy Lopez was able to break down the details around how the ski team really works with the collaboration.

“The way it works is that CHSAA [has] the most [convenient] district offer the sport ,” Lopez said. “The same thing applies here to skiing. We have students from Douglas County, Denver Public Schools, Westminster, basically the entire metro area.”

Once the athletes join the team are able to choose one of three groups to join: Nordic, Alpine or Cross Country skiing. Luckily for most of the students, the practice spots aren’t too inconvenient.

“Nordic usually practice in the Loveland ski area while the Alpine team finds the backwoods trails and practices there,” Lopez said. “It’s not that far a distance from Evergreen.”

The vast variety in the schools that compete for Evergreen has allowed the coaches to have fresh and new experiences with different schools.

Cross Country coach Holly Boggs has always enjoyed being able to have experiences coaching with other schools.

“When I started, I had a whole bunch of Green Mountain kids and of course Evergreen,” Boggs said. “Then they graduated and then all of the sudden had Lakewood and Conifer kids… we make a conscious effort towards all the kids.”

The biggest team, the Alpine team, coached by Broc Thompson, has some of the most extensive variety in schools from all over the metro area.

“There’s obviously a lot of JeffCo kids but there’s all sorts of schools,” Thompson said. “We get kids from Creek, Colorado Academy and I’ve even got a couple from D’Evelyn this year.”

Alpine skiers like senior Griffin Terry were elated to take the opportunity to ski for Evergreen as he has connections around a lot of schools.

“One of my close friends goes to TJ, two go to Columbine. There’s a lot of Denver metro kids I know, including a few from Evergreen,” Terry said.

Evergreen also makes sure to instate on all athletes the importance of grades, as academics must remain an important part of the athlete’s life.

Terry knows all about the struggles this can cause for students.

“At some point, it just becomes such a time commitment,” Terry said. “For most kids it feels like you’re either choosing ski or school.”

Thompson also knows how the rules can impact the kids, as being the biggest team may include more athletes with academic struggles.

“Evergreen has some tighter eligibility rules about grades,” Thompson said. “They have their own administration system that checks the grades all around a bunch of school districts.”

This process, however, differs for Creek and many other schools as there are different grading policies for schools and calling the schools and finding out those policies can be difficult. 

“Not all schools have the same criteria for what constitutes a failing grade so that’s a bit challenging,” Thompson said.

Last year for Evergreen, the grading system did not prohibit success for the team.

The girls finished 8th and the boys finished 6th overall in the state. And even though the students and coaches want to build off that, they also want to maintain the variety and relationships amongst the schools.

“For me, it doesn’t matter where you’re from,” Boggs said. “I call them all my ski babies.”