The importance of training year around
The football team has Williams Stadium, the basketball team has the Vines Center, the hockey team has the LaHaye Ice Center and the freestyle skiing and snowboard team has the Liberty Mountain Snowflex Centre.
Thrill seekers — Snowflex accommodates more than just Liberty students but professional athletes as well. Photo credit: Ruth Bibby
Without any of these facilities it would be difficult or impossible for Liberty University to host these sports teams. The reason they are successful in sports is Liberty’s incredible sports facilities.
The opening of the Snowflex Centre brought the opportunity for Liberty to have its very own freestyle team. Students could ski and snowboard before it was made convenient, but the Snowflex Centre was the catalyst that made a team possible.
“It allows me to ride all the time, whether it’s hot or cold, and allows me to practice year round and learn new tricks that I would not be able to learn without it,” Ryan Leeds, a Liberty senior and captain of the freestyle team, said.
Leeds is a great example of the necessity of the Snowflex Centre for these athletes, having been here a year before it opened and having no viable way to host a team.
To Liberty, snow-sports are available in an unmatchable way, all year, in all conditions, and to everyone. This gives Liberty’s freestyle team a huge advantage and has some credit for their success.
The Snowflex Centre offers multiple ways for these high-caliber athletes to train, progress and master their sport.
Besides skiing or snowboarding, the facility offers an Olympic trampoline to train aerial awareness. Aerial awareness is merely knowing self-proximity while airborne. The trampoline also builds confidence in the athletes for learning new spins and flips, as it offers a lower consequence for unsuccessful attempts.
The facility also has an Aratik Board Sports Trainer, which is a box and rail trainer that looks much like a parking stop. Athletes use this trainer to learn new tricks on boxes and rails. Much like the trampoline, this helps to build an athletes confidence in potential tricks and offers less consequence than trying it on a real box or rail.
If that was all the Snowflex Centre had for training athletes, the team would already have one up on other teams. That’s not all though. The Snowflex Centre also gives its athletes three jumps and nine boxes and rails to practice on. This winter specifically, that is a lot more than many mountains can say as they struggle with warm temperatures and little snowfall.
All that being from a training angle, there’s more to competitive snow-sports than training. The freestyle team also needs inspiration and for that they turn an eye to professionals.
The Snowflex Centre draws the attention of many professionals from all over the world, the highest caliber skiers and snowboarders. Some come to practice for themselves, such as Jay Panther, Mogul Skier for the US Ski Team. Others come to compete in the many competitions that the Snowflex Centre hosts. A few of the professionals that have visited to compete are: Cody Boan, Keir Dillon, Yale Cousino and Scott Stevens.
“Seeing how well they advance just in the time they’re here, with the lower consequence from our foam padding and being able to take a lot of runs, gives the kids that look up to them some confidence seeing that the pros are still progressing too,” Liberty Mountain Snowflex Centre’s General Manager, Drew Sherwood, said.
Professional athletes such as these bring their talents to the Snowflex Centre and the freestyle team athletes get to ride with the pros and learn from them.