December 7, 2022 at 11:49 a.m.
Hodag alum Kylee White seeking break in competitive snowboarding
Hodag alum Kylee White seeking break in competitive snowboarding
"The ultimate goal is to get on the U.S. snowboard team and, hopefully, make the Olympics or race the World Cup," White recently told the River News.
To do that, White has latched on with G-Team ProAm, a Minnesota-based development group that trains and races together. That will bring her to races on the International Ski Federation's (FIS) Nor-Am Cup tour this winter, where she hopes to race well enough and accrue enough points to qualify for the Junior World Championships in March in Bulgaria.
"My coach was saying something about how if you do well enough at the Junior World Championships then you can go on to the actual World Championships. I guess that my long-term goal, to race the World Champs," White said.
White claimed the 2021 girls' state title at Mt. La Crosse. She swept the slalom, giant slalom and boardercross races to become Rhinelander's fifth individual girls' state snowboard champion - joining Claire Hjelle and sisters Amy, Emily and Sarah Babcock.
Now a student at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, White kept racing last season through the United States Collegiate Ski Association. After one race, White said she knew she was capable of bigger and better things.
"There were three girls total and I was winning by upward of 10 seconds, so I was like, 'I think I need something with more competition,'" she said.
Unfortunately, White did not get the chance to pursue those goals further last season. She broke her leg in a skiing accident shortly after her first USCSA race, sidelining her for the remainder of the season.
However, that win, coupled with her high school resume, allowed her to head out to Colorado last week for a preseason camp with some of G-Team's coaches, including 2022 Team USA Olympian Robby Burns.
"My first day out there I was extremely rusty from having a broken leg last year," White said. "Robby was super impressed by the progress I made over five days, which is a pretty short amount of time to get back into it. We were pretty much just thrown into gates right away, like no drills or anything.
Heading out West to train is almost a necessity. The larger slopes, higher altitudes and steeper terrain more closely resembles what it seen on the Nor-Am and international circuits.
"It's actually a lot different snow out there," White said. "It's much softer and the elevation is so high that your legs are constantly fatigued from the lack of oxygen."
The G-Team ProAm season began this week at Buck Hill, just south of Minneapolis. The team is led by Zach Newman, who in the 2018-19 season helped coach seven of the 12 athletes who eventually named to compete on the US U-19 team for the Junior World Championships.
"He's one of the best coaches in the country for Alpine snowboard racing," White said. "A lot of his past athletes have gone on to the Olympics, U.S. Snowboard team, the X Games, all of those kinds of things."
While she tries to gain a foothold in competitive snowboard circuit, White has set up a GoFundMe page to help offset her training and racing expenses.
"Although this is a very exciting opportunity, the costs for this team are very high," White stated on her page. "As a full-time college student, I cannot take on this opportunity on my own. I am asking for donations to help me achieve my dream of continuing my snowboarding career."
In the future, White said she is hopeful that some of those costs will be covered by sponsorships, but she will have to first race well at the national level to catch the eye of any potential supporters.
"I'm hopefully looking to get some sponsorships this year," she said. "I have to do well in FIS races before I can do that, because no one really knows my name outside of Wisconsin or Minnesota yet."
To support White's pursuit, visit https://gofund.me/b1f11a4d.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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