Vail Mountain School concludes summer athletic camp
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VAIL, Colorado – For the past eight weeks, high school athletes from Eagle and Summit counties have gathered on Vail Mountain School’s athletic field from 8:30-11:00 a.m. four mornings each week for strength and conditioning, flexibility and mobility, energy and power system development, and sports-specific training.
With dew drops still clinging to the synthetic turf, Jamie Farquhar, the Vail Mountain School’s athletic director and the summer strength and conditioning program coordinator, quoted Anson Dorrance, who said, “The vision of a champion is someone who is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion when no one else is watching.”
The program, now in its second year, served eighth- to 12th-grade student-athletes, and about 35 percent of the 75 students participating attend schools other than VMS.
“The goal of the program is to keep student-athletes active in the summer,” Farquhar said. “The by-product is that they’re fit and prepared going into the fall season … and beyond.”
The coaches speak to the athletes about the importance of fitness as a lifestyle and demonstrate the many ways that the skills they are teaching can be translated into everyday life.
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While the program is offered four days/week, the athletes are asked to dedicate two additional workouts to their routine each week.
Mavis Cope, an eighth-grade student at Minturn Middle School has attended the program at VMS consistently over the eight-week period.
“It was hard at the beginning of the summer, but I can feel the progress I’ve made,” she said.
The program’s conditioning staff includes Farquhar, who is a National Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association (NSCA) specialist and an American Council on Exercise (ACE) certified personal trainer; John Cole, the director of strength and conditioning at Ski and Snowboard Club Vail and also a NSCA specialist and a three-time Athlete’s Performance Institute mentor; assistant headmaster Bob Bandoni, the VMS technical soccer program director, VMS girls soccer team coach, and former head coach of the VMS boys soccer team; Slade Cogswell ’03, the VMS men’s soccer team coach; and Lara Bossow ’03, the head volleyball coach for Battle Mountain and a four-year volleyball player at the University of Colorado.
J.C. Hernandez, who is preparing to begin his senior year at VMS as a varsity soccer athlete in the fall, has attended the program for the past two years.
“I’ve learned to focus on each aspect of being fit – staying active, eating right, and focusing on all the little things that will help me improve my techniques,” he said.
