Skiers dreaming of a white Christmas

By Jeanine Cardullo, On-Line Forty-Niner

Thursday, October 8, 1998

Although the calendar shows a young October, and Santa

Ana winds continue to blow heat across campus, some Cal State

Long Beach students are already praying for snow.

Winter may not be here yet, but the CSULB Alpine Ski and Snowboard Team is preparing for competition now. While CSULB is known for men's and women's volleyball, softball, and baseball, downhill skiing may be CSULB's forgotten sport.

The team traditionally uses the fall semester to organize and train, as well as welcome any new members. During the dry months, the team trains at The Gold Mine and prepares for race clinics. When the snow finally falls, the team will be off to Mammoth Mountain to compete in the Southern California Collegiate Ski & Snowboard Conference.

While the team is still seeking members, this eclectic band of skiers and snowboarders already boasts a melding of students from very different walks of life.

Enter Avenue Three Pizza during a team meeting, and one will see a mixed crowd of cheerful, boisterous students comparing war stories about the hill. Grad students mix with undergrads, Russian and German transfer students blend easily into the Long Beach mix, and although this sport was once seen as male-dominated, this team has almost as many women as men. Differences seem to disappear when strangers come together for the love of the race.

Yevgeniy Myasnak, of Chita, Russia, is in his second year at Cal State Long Beach as a business major, and is a first year team member. "I'm here for the weather, the snowboarding. The coolest people I've met [at CSULB] are on the team."

"As a grad student, I'm slightly removed from campus life," said team member Hank Wise. "But by being involved in an active ski club, I get to enjoy the mountain, and stay involved in college life."

One objective of the team is to ride hard and have fun, but for Markus Davids, transfer student from Hamburg, Germany, it is all about the racing. Davids is an experienced snowboarder who used to teach snowboarding in his homeland.

"This year, I am encouraging a more serious sports focus," Davids said. "Fun is a part of this, too, but mainly, it's about the competition."

Every second weekend during the spring semester, the CSULB Alpine Ski and Snowboard Team will hit the powder to compete against other college ski and snowboard teams in the slalom and the giant slalom.

Students interested in joining the team are encouraged to do so quickly, as the team will be capped at 40 students, Dustan Baker, the team's secretary of travel, said. "There's no racing experience necessary, but you gotta love the snow."