Bode Miller Announces New Winter Sports Academy

Olympic champion and U.S. Alpine Ski Team alumnus Bode Miller recently caught up with Pat Graham of the Associated Press to talk shop and announce Bode's new winter sports academy. 

Bode has partnered with the Institute for Civic Leadership Academy (ICL) to launch the Bode Miller winter sports academy, with the goal of opening a physical school location near Big Sky, Mont., where he and his family live in the winter. Bode told the Associated Press that the program itself is a flexible online learning program tailored to ski racers, snowboarders, cross country skiers and other outdoor sports enthusiasts in grades 7-12.

As Pat wrote, 

The plan is for Bode to will communicate with students, create video content, workouts and webinars to help local club coaches better work with their athletes. "At least, that's the bluprint in this time of the COVID-19 pandemic," the article says. Bode has been friends with ICL Academy founder Kirk Spahn for years, and while he has plans to open a physical school in the future, he figured with the current COVID landscape, there was no time like the present to act. 

In this model, one live online class per day will be required. Then, students balance the rest of the classload around their area of interest, whether it’s snowboarding, skiing or hockey.

Also, the classes integrate personal interests into the teaching methods. For instance, a skier/snowboarder may learn the physics behind the power generated out of a turn or the principles of edge angulation.

“It’s not going to be blatant all the time and in-your-face because I don’t think that would really help them,” Miller said. “But there are undercurrents of the sport that they’re involved in, woven through the entire academic curriculum.”

Growing up, Miller was a regular at a tennis camp started by his grandparents. He saw firsthand how many would return year after year because of their positive memories.

He hopes to cultivate a similar experience with this winter sports academy. Maybe even someday produce athletes who will be the stars of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team.

“We want to create a superstar — superstar kids, superstar people who are involved in the community,” Miller said. “That may sound idealistic, but it’s really an authentic part of our vision, and the DNA of the whole thing.”

Bode says about 100 students have expressed interested in the recently launched program. Costs will be around $13,000, with financial aid available.