Skiers are familiar with the colleges where the top skiers go — Dartmouth, Middlebury, Vermont, Colorado, Utah and a handful of others. These are the schools that regularly compete for the annual NCAA Championship.

There are others that compete in Division I with an occasional skier qualifying for the championships. Bates is among these schools, and the Lewiston college has actually hosted the NCAA’s — the first time in 1976 at Sunday River and Black Mountain in Rumford. But there is yet another level of college ski competition and a week ago I joined some of them at Sugarloaf.

The budgets for skiing at schools such as Dartmouth rival those of the big team sports, but the budgets of the schools I’m talking about is actually zero. The skiers pay their own way and coaches are either veteran teammates or former teammates who have returned to help out. The schools are well known, especially for academics, but certainly not for skiing — Brandeis, Wellesley, Wesleyan, University of Rhode Island, Yale, Babson and Springfield — here in New England. At Sugarloaf I skied with the team from Brandeis.

I had heard from coach Tom Reynolds about the ski camp as he travels from his home in New Hampshire to take part each year. Naturally, to learn about the program I had to go up to Sugarloaf and take some runs. The program started on Monday, but rain and freezing rain delayed my departure for the Loaf. I arrived on Tuesday afternoon and met with the coaching team. Perfect Turn supervisor Bob Trippi introduced me to the coaches, Beau Brigham, organizer of the camp and Fred Monroe, a certified coach in both the U.S. and Canada. I didn’t need an introduction to Reynolds and Scott Hoisington, who skied for him at UMF and is now a Level 4 coach. Birch Royal also works with the coaching team. All of the coaches are fully certified to coach at the highest levels which means the Brandeis students got coaching at a level the U.S. Ski Team would get, as good as those well known ski college programs.

I learned that they had spent just enough time on the hill Monday morning for everyone to get wet before moving inside for lecture, DVD and discussion. This classroom part of the camp gives the participants a preview of what they will experience on the mountain. With these veteran coaches dissecting the turns, the team members get a visual of that they will be looking to accomplish on the mountain.

The coaches pointed out how varied the 20 Brandeis students were in their skiing ability. They ranged from green-level skiers to serious racers. This is always a challenge for any group. By dividing them into three groups, they were able to match up according to ability but that still left one who was not ready for gate training. That individual was paired up with one of the Sugarloaf instructors for what amounted to a private lesson. One coach cited a young lady who had shown up when Brandeis first came to the mountain four years ago.

“We called her Susie Wedge, but she made up for her lack of skills with enthusiasm and three years later she was carving dynamic turns down the hill.” That’s real progress, especially for a skier whose skiing is primarily going to races on weekends with very little training mid week. Obviously, the one week each year at Sugarloaf had a real impact.

For a number of the teams this year, the camp was their first day on snow this season. From the coaches, I learned that most programs focus on potential podium skiers. This camp works intensively with the least skiers, pushing from behind. It works because the camp uses five or six coaches, all capable of training any level skier.

Wednesday morning, I joined them on the hill, but before I caught up with the Brandeis skiers, I took a warm up run on Boardwalk and saw a group running gates in that race arena. Thinking that might be the skiers I was looking for, I skied over and as I asked who they were I spotted a CVA patch on the coach’s parka. It was Mike Savage, a graduate of the UMF Ski Industries Program who is now directing the Alpine racing at CVA. He had a bunch of 12- and 14-year-old racers and watching them run the course, it was apparent that CVA is already looking for the next Kirsten Clark or Bode Miller.

I found my group at the ski school hut just above the base lodge and was introduced to them by Scott Hoisington. There I met Daniela Marshall a senior and four-year attendee at the Sugarloaf Camp. She complimented the program: “It’s wonderful. They have all these different skill levels to work with but they know what they’re doing. Most have never raced but they’re comfortable on skis. It’s Wednesday and we’re already in gates.”

Daniela learned to ski at Labrador Mountain in upstate New York near where she grew up in Syracuse. She had raced, but described herself as “middle of the pack.” At Brandeis she is studying neuro science as part of her pre-med preparation and is now looking for a medical school to attend next year.

We rode the Double Runner lift and joined the rest of the group on Lower Narrow Gauge where Scott Hoisington and Beau Brigham had set up a course. They were running gates and later would be video taped and critiqued. This year Brandeis skiers will add some mid week training by skiing in a night league at Nashoba Valley about a half hour from school. It’s evident that Sugarloaf has the high-level coaches to organize and run a first rate race camp. That’s why Brandeis came back for their fourth straight year and the following week, Columbia and Rutgers were coming in.

See you on the slopes.

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