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transferring and shifting weight from leg to leg.”
Koontz was inspired to bring the Riglet program to
Liberty after hearing the program discussed at a meeting, and
he’s had a big hand in its success. “I wanted to bring the Riglet
program to kids in our local area, so I immediately bought a
kit from Burton,” he said. “After two years we stumbled onto
the skiing piece. My team is made up of rental staff and snow-
board and ski instructors, so adapting the movements for
skiing happened on its own.”
The first outreach program Koontz did for Liberty was
at Paramount Elementary School in Hagerstown, Md., which
Jeff Boliba was incorporated into the school’s end-of-year field day. “The
laughter and excitement from the kids was all I needed to keep
pushing this program,” he said. “At this first event my team
Burton’s Riglet program proves you don’t have to be on the snow to get pumped worked with more than 400 kids in one day. Word started
up about learning to ride.
getting out about how much fun this was for the students,
Boliba says Riglet is a way to connect with communities, and the following school year my team held three more events
parents, teachers, and kids through PE, not only to share the throughout the school year. Over the past three years, my
sport but also to develop feeder systems to snowsports schools. team has introduced snowboarding to more than 4,100 ele-
“This is a great opportunity for our industry because more mentary school students.”
schools are looking for lifetime sports that kids can do with Koontz says it can take a while for a school to decide to
their families for years to come,” he said. try the program, but that once you land a connection with one
Anyone who’s watched kids participating in the indoor school, “word gets around and people will start contacting you
snowboarding program can attest to how much fun they have. to bring the program to the school.”
As one student in Portland, Ore., said after participating in a As for tracking how many of those kids eventually transi-
Riglet program offered by Mt Hood Meadows recently: “It was tion over to the resort, Koontz says that is a work in progress.
like snowboarding on real ice, and it was like Disneyland.” His “I’m working with the resort to find a way to issue a coupon for
buddy described it as being as much fun as a visit to Legoland. a free Learn-to-Board package to each student that has partici-
If you ask me, that’s pretty high praise. pated in one of our Riglet events,” he said.
While Riglet focuses on teaching basic snowboarding
skills indoors, resorts can adapt the program to include skiing TRAINING, SCHEDULING, & PITCHING
skills or develop their own unique programs. That said, one of THE PROGRAM
the reasons the Riglet program is so successful is that the cur- Once your resort has committed to presenting an outreach
riculum follows the Society of Health and Physical Educators program, the next step is to make sure your ski and ride school
(SHAPE) America Standards, the national standards that trains a select group of employees so they will be ready and
define what a PE student should know and be able to do as a available to deliver the program when a slot opens up in a local
result of a highly effective PE program (www.shapeamerica. PE program. It’s important to select enthusiastic, professional,
org). States and local school districts across the country use well-trained, and credentialed instructors who will not only
the national standards to develop or revise existing standards, represent your area favorably but who are great with kids—
frameworks, and curricula. If you’re looking to develop your preferably employees from the childrens’ snowsports school
own program, the SHAPE standards are a great place to start. since they are already trained to work with them.
Liberty Mountain, Penn., is one example of an area that Cross check availability when scheduling to ensure the
has customized the Riglet program to incorporate skiing small team can be ready to deploy, and don’t forget about
skills into the mix. According to Jimmy Koontz, the resort’s transportation (i.e., the company van/truck).
rental operations manager, ice rink operations manager, and Once your program is developed, management is com-
tubing operations manager, “We stumbled onto the idea of pletely behind it (it is, after all, a great marketing program),
using the spooner balance boards to mimic some of the skills and the staff that will be presenting it have practiced their roles
and movements of skiing. We use two spooner boards turned thoroughly, it’s time to reach out directly to a local school to
length-wise, and have the students stand on both boards find out if they would be interested in hosting the initiative.

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