CARRABASSETT VALLEY – Though he’s the top-seeded boardercross rider in his age group in the youth men’s division of the USASA Maine Mountain Series, Alex Tuttle, 15, is surprisingly low-key when he talks about snowboarding.
Maybe that makes sense, given where he spends his time.
At Carrabassett Valley Academy, where the Stratton native goes to school, Tuttle is in good company. Not only does CVA have a history of graduating top performers in skiing and snowboarding competitions the world over, it has also sent nine alums to the Olympics.
This year, for the first time, one of those alums – Seth Wescott – won CVA’s first Olympic gold medal in the relatively new sport of snowboardcross.
“One of the things I loved about CVA from the beginning is how the school has always been willing to be innovative and to change,” said CVA Headmaster John Ritzo. “We had the first competitive snowboard program (in any private ski and snowboard school). And the first competitive free ski program.”
Founded in 1982, CVA is “still pioneering,” Ritzo said.
“I still love the focus, I love the passion, and I love the energy. The kids are really exciting to work with,” said the 20-year veteran headmaster.
Ritzo looks for “a willingness to commit” to hard work when selecting applicants. And that willingness is what it takes to thrive at CVA. Up by 6:30 a.m., the kids spend two hours in class before heading out to train, four hours a day, five days a week. Then it’s back to school for another two hours of class before dinner, homework and an early bedtime. Even on weekends, they’re flat out all day long, either competing or training.
For Tuttle, the large amount of work both on and off the slopes “is not that bad – you’ve just got to manage your time.” He likes going to school with other athletes: “We push each other to meet our goals.” Boardercross practice is grueling, but “gets you stronger.”
“On the mountain we’re usually hiking. We don’t ride the lift. We take runs down, then hike back up.”
Like Tuttle, 8th-grader Juliette Bisson, 13, is at the top of her age group in boardercross in Maine.
A skier until 2 years ago, she said she knew the first time she tried snowboarding it would stick. “There was this kind of adrenaline. When I put on my snowboard for the first time, it was like I was in a totally different world. I picked it up my first day.”
“It’s been my dream since I was a little kid to come here,” Bisson said.
She loves both the boost CVA has given her athletically and the support she gets from spending her time with other athletes.
“I feel like if I went to a public school, they wouldn’t understand me, competing every weekend and being focused on that,” she said.
Going to school with her competition can get hairy at times, however.
“A lot of my good friends are my competitors. It’s hard to go from one point where you’re best friends to thinking about what can I do to beat his person – to come out on top,'” she said. “But at the end of the day we’re still just as good friends. We take it as it comes.”
CVA’s faculty and governing board have made a point to emphasize that “winning isn’t everything – it’s the type of person you are.”
“We expect kindness,” Ritzo said. And that’s what he likes best about gold-medal winning Wescott. “He’s kind,” Ritzo said. “He’s just very caring.”
For kids like Tuttle and Bisson, though, Wescott isn’t just a good guy, or even just a role model. He’s competition.
“He sets the bar pretty high for the rest of us,” said Tuttle. “Now we have to try to one-up him. I mean, we can’t really one up him, but maybe if we did it twice, you know …”
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