Lion snowboarders look for spotlight

After years of increasing popularity, snowboarding has finally gained enough international recognition to be included for the first time in the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. Even though numerous Penn State students are catching the "frozen wave," many are not aware of the Penn State snowboard team.

Tomorrow the team hopes to increase its sport's local recognition when it hosts the second-annual Boardercross Competition at Tussey Mountain. The competition is open to anyone, with registration from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and a starting time of 1 p.m. There is a $5 registration fee and a $20 discounted lift pass.

There is a female division, and divisions of 17 and under and 18 and over for males, with trophies for first through third place. All competitors will be included in the raffle afterwards, with prizes including a new snowboard and three pairs of Nike gloves.

"It's going to be a lot better this year," said Penn State snowboard club president Chris Mitchell said. "It's going to be from the top to the bottom of the slope. There should be more obstacles than before, and there will be tons of free stuff given out afterwards in the raffle."

Mitchell founded the team in October 1996 with the intention of creating a group of snowboarders who could ride together rather than alone. Since then, team membership has risen from 20 to 150 students, and last August an administrative structure composed of nine new positions was created.

Mitchell knew once they had drafted a constitution and straightened out the loose ends with the University, membership would rise.

"It's more or less when you're first getting the club together it's kind of hard," Mitchell said. "Once you get the sponsors, you can get more people to join. You have the base to build off of."

It costs $20 to join the team, which gets discounts from Tussey Mountain on clinics, lessons, rentals and season passes. The team has also received discounts and free equipment from their sponsors. They received boards, bindings and boots from Airwalk, two boards from Joyride, a big discount on tuning supplies from Test Pilot and free gloves and discounted team jackets from Nike.

Equipment chair Matt Cantwell said the discounts have made it financially feasible to snowboard and compete more often than he would have without the discounts, and that the University helps out a little for intercollegiate competitions.

The team is slated to compete in a variety of competitions this year. Competition formats include big air, halfpipe, slopestyle, slalom, giant slalom, boardercross, giant air and mogul contests.

"(The different formats are) great because some people prefer to show off their speed and some people prefer to be creative and stylish in the halfpipe," said team vice president Pete Mozzone. "They're all just different forms of expression."

The competitions are held at different sites, which are listed on the team's World Wide Web page at http://www.clubs.psu.edu/psusnowboard.

In their first competition of 1998, Mitchell won and Rich Michalek finished runner-up in the slopestyle competition at Big Boulder Mountain. The team has competed every weekend this year and is scheduled to attend competitions through mid-April.

The team is comprised of both beginners and advanced snowboarders.

"If you need help, you can get help from other team members," said team member Kelly Ternent.

The team practices Tuesday nights at Tussey and conducts meetings on Wednesday at 6 p.m. in 123 Chambers. The snowboarders meet every other week in the off-season and hold trampoline practices to simulate in-air scenarios.