The Program: The Nobles Alpine Skiing program consists of boys’ and girls’ varsity and junior varsity teams. We compete weekly against eight other ISL schools, each squad vying for the league championship in this season-long competition. We also participate in the highly competitive Class A New England Championship field, skiing against the other 14 top programs across the region.

Philosophy and Expectations: Working hard, improving one’s racing, developing awesome team chemistry and simply having a lot of fun as a team are the four cornerstones of our program. In doing so, we hope that each racer develops a consistently strong work ethic, approach and attitude towards their skiing and racing. Although we face altitudinal as well as latitudinal challenges in Eastern Massachusetts, we feel that we offer an incredibly focused, productive and successful program nonetheless. We are open to accomplished free skiers looking to learn how to race as well as to those who have already raced for many seasons and are looking to get more on-snow time during the week, while they also experience team racing.

The Team: The team consists of 12 girls and 12 boys, with seven of each racing varsity and five racing JV. The strongest four finishers’ place points are added together and counted to determine team placing in the varsity race and each school’s top three finishers are counted in the JV event. At the New England’s (NEPSAC’s), each varsity team enters its top five racers in both giant slalom and slalom events and counts its top three finishers in each discipline, standings again determined by adding the three placings together.

Preseason Training and Holiday Camp: Before the snow flies, the team works out with the strength and conditioning coach, spins, plays soccer, team handball and Ultimate. We do tucks, we review best ski tuning practices, we hold the Wall Sit Championship of the World and we do snow dances encouraging Ullr to come to New England early and often. The on-snow portion of the season usually kicks off with our holiday camp, held either before Christmas or after New Year’s depending how the calendar falls in a given year. The team spends three days on snow, free skiing, doing drills, and training in gates. Venues used the past few years have included Cannon, Waterville Valley and Okemo. In early January, the second semester begins and everyone is fired up to begin the competitive portion of the season.

Ski Team lodge: The team has a dedicated room in the Morrison Athletic Center (MAC) with ski racks, cubbies for each athlete’s gear, a video monitor, four sharpening set-ups, two waxing stations and two scraping and polishing stations (see video link under Photo Gallery, below).

Beginning in January, we have a mandatory hour-long study hall on Mondays for all racers in Classes III-V before heading out to train at Nashoba Valley (or Pats Peak on occasion) from 6:00-7:40. We are back on campus around 8:30.

On Tuesdays, the team stays on campus and does a rotation consisting of a workout (cardio, plyo, yoga), video review and ski prep for the next day's race. Afterward, there is an optional team dinner and the team is usually back on campus by 6:15-6:30.

On Wednesdays, we race each week at Nashoba Valley, leaving campus by 2:00 and returning by 6:30.

On Thursdays, we have a work-out block for those excused from Friday training (and any of those racers training on Friday who also wish to participate).

On Fridays, those athletes in a weekend race program are excused from practice if they wish, and those that are not particiapting in one, train at Nashoba. Everyone is excused from practice on the Friday before each of the two winter holiday weekends (Martin Luther King and Presidents’).

Results: In the winter of 2022, the girls' varsity won their 12th consecutive ISL title and 19th in the last 20 seasons. The girls also finished 2nd at the Class A New England's out of the 10 schools competing. The boys' varsity finished 1st out of the nine schools in the ISL, their 4th title in the last 14 seasons, and finished sixth of the 12 teams competing at this year's Class A's.

 

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