Vail Mountain School brings back Lisa Isom as athletic director
The former Battle Mountain coach previously served in the role from 2015 to 2019.
Courtesy photo
Lisa Isom is bringing a familiar mission to her second stint as Vail Mountain School’s athletic director: Get kids in the game.
“I’m a huge believer in interscholastic sports,” the former Battle Mountain Nordic ski coach said. “I really honestly believe every single kid should be able to go to school and participate in sports at the same time — at their school.”
Isom earned a college volleyball scholarship but eventually wound up competing as a professional triathlete. In addition to coaching everything from middle school basketball and volleyball to high school cross-country and skiing, she’s worked in athletic administration in the Middle East, Venezuela and Myanmar. She also served as Vail Mountain School’s athletic director from 2015 to 2019. Though she enjoyed her recent position with the Colorado Mountain College Foundation, the day-to-day office hours weren’t filling her cup the way athletics had the previous 25 years. When the VMS job opened up, it looked like a perfect fit.
“When I worked overseas, it was always in K-12 athletics,” Isom said. “That’s where it’s at for me. I love being in a school where the seniors are embracing the younger kids and they’re all in the same building.”
Isom takes over for Katie Arnold, who replaced Bobby Ecker in 2024 when Ecker was hired by Battle Mountain. Since then, Zach Holden has taken over the Huskies‘ job and Mike Garvey has moved into the role at Eagle Valley High School. Garvey, interestingly enough, worked at Vail Mountain School for three years during Isom’s first tenure. In fact, he helped Isom get started in physical education.
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“We sat down and did curriculum and I really followed his lead,” Isom said. “It’s kind of come full circle now that we’re both athletic directors in the same valley.”
Considering her longtime relationship with Garvey and Tim Pierson at Vail Christian, and having worked under Holden last season, Isom feels secure and connected to the community’s prep sports leaders.
“I feel like all of us work well together and will reach out to each other when we need something,” she said. “That’s also part of the reason I was excited to go back because these guys are people I can work with.”
‘A place for everyone’: The VMS Vision for athletics
Under Isom’s leadership, Vail Mountain School captured the 2017 boys and girls state skiing titles. Integrating Ski and Snowboard Club Vail athletes into the prep world was key to those squads’ successes, Isom said.
“It was a win-win,” she explained. “Club kids could do multiple sports and VMS could fill out its rosters.”
Isom appreciates the club’s importance to the valley and also understands Vail Mountain School’s unique role in providing a chance for skiers and snowboarders who often compete in individual sports on snow to form relationships within school teams as well. She pointed to Kaleb Gibbs — a multi-time freeride world junior qualifier who plays soccer, basketball and lacrosse for the Rangers — as a perfect example.
“He just wants to jump in there and give it a try and feel like he’s a part of these programs,” she said. “That’s really what VMS is enabling these kids to do. I feel like there’s a place for everyone.”
Vail Mountain School enters the 2026-27 year with a new head girls volleyball coach in Todd DeYoung and a new boys soccer coach in Toby Kinney. In the spring, Mike O’Donnell — a former D-I lacrosse player who coached the Harvard junior varsity squad while he was in law school — will take over as the new boys lacrosse leader. Isom hopes to combat coaching turnover issues in the future by getting back to hiring more coaches who are also teachers. Walking the hallways provides them with an invaluable pulse on players’ day-to-day world, she said. At a 2A mountain school where athletes often balance multiple prep sports with ski club disciplines and a demanding academic load — all within a unique, accommodating schedule — that level of connectivity is even more crucial.
“And VMS is in this unique position of letting every single kid play,” Isom said. “No matter what their ability level is.”
In speaking to the state of the athletic program, Isom highlighted the successes of the girls basketball team, which qualified for postseason play for the first time ever last winter. Boys golf remains increasingly popular and numbers are healthy for soccer and volleyball as well. As someone with a natural bent toward middle school athletics, Isom identified vast potential in the large pool of lower school Nordic skiers and hopes to connect those athletes to the high school team down the road.
Looking back at her past experiences — both home and abroad — Isom said one big difference overseas is that sports are not taken quite as seriously as in America.
“Parents were lining up at my husband’s door, at the science and math doors and not the AD office because they saw sports as a fun way to get kids involved in their school,” she said. “It’s just different. Good, bad, right or wrong, it just wasn’t as competitive.”
Even though her own competitive juices are still flowing, Isom’s foundational motivation is anchored in opportunity.
“I wish every single kid could be a three-sport athlete,” she said. “When we learn those skills when we’re young, it makes us all more athletic as we get older and more likely to jump into something new or continue something for the rest of our lives.”
The lifelong lessons — and relationships — are just a couple of reasons Isom said her “heart and soul are most at home” in the athletic director role.
“I have to admit, I just love the work,” she said. “It’s not all about the win-loss record. … I love being around the athletes.”
