FRISCO
If you ever run into coach Terri Mayrer’s three young snowboard phenoms, ask to see the Avocado Dance.
Then again, chances are you won’t need to ask. No, these three are more likely to give you a front-row show, no charge, no fanfare – just the dance. But first, they’ll laugh through a few inside jokes before running down a “meet my coach” checklist. Within minutes of introducing myself to the three local rippers – Alyssa Moroco, Alina Cospolich and Jadyn Dalrymple – they were giving me Mayrer’s bio as filtered through a 10-year-old’s eyes.
“I know she likes snowboard,” Moroco said between bites of lunch at Mountain House in Keystone on a warm and sunny day in late February, just a day before the first and only slopestyle competition at A51 terrain park. “And she likes snowboarding.”
“She likes coaching us,” said Cospolich, pushing her prescription glasses back to the bridge of her nose.
“She thinks we’re weird,” Moroco responded, followed a split-second later by Cospolich with: “And funny!”
The two break into laughter – light, rapid, infectious – and are joined soon after by the third in their trio, Jadyn Dalrymple. She’s quieter than the other two (although not by much) and after long it’s like they hardly remember that a stranger with a camera has crashed lunchtime.
“What’s my favorite food?” Mayrer asks her group from the far end of the table. Spread between half-eaten lunches and half-finished drinks, the wood table is filled with more pastel and neon than the Miami beachfront: Moroco’s teal helmet, Dalrymple’s polka-dotted facemask, Cospolich’s blue-green goggles, a sea-green backpack with plush spikes, multi-colored snowboards in hues of yellow, orange, blue, pink – you name it.
“Thai food!” Moroco blurts out before the other two, like she’s on a pint-sized version of Jeopardy. She smiles wide when Mayrer shakes her head in agreement. One point to Moroco, as if anyone but I were keeping track.
“Oh, I love Thai food,” Dalrymple chimes in, which leads to a smorgasbord conversation about the girls’ favorite foods: Thai, Chinese, spaghetti, candy – just about anything but the lunches on the table.
Mayrer lets her young athletes fall into a groove, watching with a silent grin from the end of the table as they change topics once more and start browsing videos on their cell phones. Mayrer, a 32-year-old snowboard veteran who competed for the University of Colorado-Boulder team before joining Team Summit three seasons ago, has been coaching 10-year-old Cospolich since she joined the team. She’s been with 9-year-old Moroco and 10-year-old Dalrymple for two seasons, and in that time, the trio plus coach have made an impressive – and almost unstoppable – team on the youth snowboard circuit.
The results speak for themselves: Moroco took first in the grommet girls division (8-9 years old) at the Copper slopestyle on March 6, while Jayden took third in the same division and Cospolich placed second in the Menehune division (10-11 years old). All three were pre-qualified for the USA Snowboard and Freeski Association National Championships at Copper before the season even began, and Mayrer expects big things from all three, especially Dalrymple, who turned 10 years old just three days before we met in Keystone and is now in her final season competing at the grommet level.
“It’s just cool watching these kids grow older and progress,” Mayrer told me while the girls were absorbed by a video on Moroco’s phone. “They’ve come so far from the time I met them.”
Like any sport, progress comes with hard work, and when the trio is on the slopes they almost unconsciously find focus most kids their age just don’t have. Mayrer has been training with them four to five times per week since November, beginning with basic runs through the terrain park before moving to new tricks in time for December’s first slopestyle competitions. Through the season, all three have competed in the three basic disciplines: slopestyle, halfpipe and boardercross, plus a rail jam here and there. It’s a long season, no doubt about it, but Mayrer is constantly impressed by her group’s willingness to learn and improve and simply be better than the week before.
“It’s what snowboarding is all about, just having fun and riding with friends,” Mayrer said about heading into the trees on a powder day for freeriding – one of the girls’ favorite activities. “That can build a lot of skills for these girls. We just want them to be the best all-around riders they can be and have fun at the same time. As long as they’re having fun, that’s what matters.”
But is fun all that hard to come by with this group? Mayrer laughs. Not really, she said, then .
“I have a video for you,” Moroco said to us, suddenly remembering that her coach and a stranger were still at the table. “This is Alina in a nutshell.”
Moroco runs around the table to me and before Cospolich can blush or protest she shows me a video of her friend singing. Something. It’s a homemade video, probably something the two made at lunch or maybe right after a training session in the terrain park.
What’s she singing? I ask.
“Hello!” Moroco says and beams another wide smile.
“Show him the Avocado Song,” Mayrer says. There’s a moment of silence as the girls look from one to the other to the other, and then they line up on the far side of the table. It’s a simple song – “Peel the avocado” is just about the only lyric, followed by “guacamole” – but it comes complete with synchronized motions and movements, not to mention plenty of laughter. It’s easy to see why these girls have done so well at such a young age: they’re naturally graceful and naturally playful, two of the most important traits for snowboarders of any age.
When the song and giggles end, Mayrer convinces her trio to finish their lunches and get ready for an afternoon photo session. There’s a competition on the horizon, not to mention training before the big show at Copper, and after a few more distractions the girls pop into business mode. It’s something they’ve learned from their coach: business when it matters, goofiness when it doesn’t, and fun from start to finish.
“I just want them to have fun with this experience (at Nationals) and get to ride with girls their age from across the country,” Mayrer said. “If they can land runs they’re happy with – if they can have fun – that’s all I ask.”
