Taking them to the top

His beginnings in the sport were humble and inauspicious, but when you started snowboarding when Mark Harris did, you didn’t have a choice.

In the mid-1980s, you lobbied to be allowed on the mountain, and once you got there, you had to endure insults from skiers.

While the sport has grown exponentially – back-to-back Sports Illustrated covers during the Winter Olympics, not a bad showing – Harris’ career coaching the sport has made similar gains.

It’s resulted in national awards, the honor of being named to coach a national youth snowboarding team in a world event, and even the theoretical possibility that a 37-year-old Spokane man could someday coach the American Olympic snowboarding team.

That’s a long way from a corner-page magazine advertisement for a snowboard, the spark that drew a young Harris to the sport.

He ordered one, taught himself, then the 1987 Mead High graduate fell in love.

Then, he began teaching the sport to others.

“You know the joke about the difference between a snowboarder and a snowboard instructor?” Harris asked.

“Two weeks.”

Those two weeks stretched, as Harris continued to advance in learning how to coach the sport, and saw a void in the programs available to teach young snowboarders in the Northwest.

About 10 years ago, Harris felt like he had reached a ceiling in his professional instruction.

“I wanted to deal with athlete development rather than just teaching how to ride,” Harris said. “There was nothing else, so you jump in and make it up as you go along.”

After some bouncing around, he’s found a home with his Schweitzer Alpine Racing School freeride team.

Since being there, Harris has continuously improved his program.

“The athletic side of (snowboarding) has become a serious viable endeavor,” Harris said. “You don’t get there by accident, and obviously, to rise to the top, it’s a huge benefit to have a coaching and training situation. We’ve gone from basic instruction to a full-time training program and people that train with me five days a week. That’s what you’ve got to do to be competitive.”

In 2003, it became apparent nationally that Harris was not only providing young snowboarders with opportunities, he was also coaching them up.

That’s when he was honored as the United States Ski and Snowboarding Association (USSA) snowboarding coach of the year.

From there, he developed a relationship with the national team, continuing his education as a coach and, again, he saw a void that needed to be filled for Northwest snowboarders.

There were enough informal competitions in the Northwest to satisfy semi-intense snowboarders, but Harris hooked on with the United States of America Snowboard Association (USASA), which governs local and national amateur contests, creating the USASA Inland Northwest Series.

“It used to be you had to move away (for competition), and that never made any sense to me,” Harris said. “You had fairly random Northwest events, but it never went anywhere, and it was never more than bragging rights, and for some, that was perfect. Others needed and deserved more.”

The fruits of that were evident earlier this month, when Harris was picked to lead the USASA boardercross team at the Junior World Championships in Val Di Sole, Italy, and one of his snowboarders went to compete.

So that’s going from essentially nothing to Northwest competitors in an international snowboarding competition.

That seems consistent with Harris’ track record.

“I came to him when I was 13 and I hadn’t really snowboarded much, but was relatively enthusiastic,” remembered Simon Windell, a Lewis and Clark High graduate attending Seattle University. “He took that, with no experience whatsoever, and my senior year of high school I was competing with Olympians at nationals.

“(His influence) transferred outside of snowboarding to real life, and coupled with that, he’s a great friend and a positive role model.”

That influence, with a couple of breaks, could extend to coaching in the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, which Harris said is a “real possibility,” but he’s quick to take the focus off himself.

“I’d like to take some of these homegrown kids and take them to the top,” he said.

“Some amazing kids have dedicated their lives to this. They’ve got the talent to go all the way and I’d like to see that through.”