Being a member of the Colorado State University snowboard team is more than the competitions, training and flips and tricks. According to president Joel Jenks, the snowboard team’s goal is to bring snowboarders from all over the country together as one community, where they could feel comfortable and compelled to pursue snowboarding and further advance their skills.

“I think my aspirations for the team are to bring people together and to make people feel more comfortable snowboarding in Colorado, because it could be intimidating for kids who come out of state or for people who haven’t been doing it for a long time,” said Jenks, a senior landscape architecture major at CSU.

Jenks has been snowboarding for about 10 years and has been the team’s president for a year.

According to Jenks, there are no specific requirements to join the snowboard team, except for a general team fee.

“We’ll accept anyone who is trying to join,” Jenks said. “A lot of the kids on the team are from out of state and part of it is giving those kids who don’t know anyone here that snowboards and don’t have a car. It gives people a good community to get up and snowboard on the weekends.”

Competitions specifically are more of an individual choice and Jenks said he usually informs the team when there are upcoming competitions in the area.

“I try to compete in as many competitions as I can, so usually I try to keep track of what competitions are going on and then I’ll let the team know,” Jenks said. “It’s definitely a goal of mine to see someone from the team go somewhere with snowboarding by being on the team and being able to go to contests and stuff.”

Alden Truesdale, team manager and sophomore engineering science major, competed in his very first competition last year. Truesdale has been snowboarding since he was 10 years old.

“It was the first contest I’ve ever competed in, so it was cool getting to see what the contest style is like and being up there with a bunch of other snowboarders that are better or worse than you,” Truesdale said.

As an out-of-state student himself, Truesdale specifically chose to attend CSU for the snowboard team.

“I’m originally from Massachusetts, and I knew I wanted to be an engineer and that I wanted to snowboard,” Truesdale said. “I knew that I wasn’t ever going to be a professional with snowboarding but I figured I could take it as far as I could get it. After CSU accepted me in December, I started doing a bunch of research by March, and by that time when Boulder finally accepted me, I was like — from what I could get online and from all the videos that I saw — ‘CSU’s snowboarding team is the team for me.'”

Social media director and photographer Erika Peirce also decided to attend CSU for the snowboard team. 

“It was really great to have a team that was worth joining, and that’s how I also made most of my friends,” Peirce, a junior horticulture major, said. “Going up the mountain with the whole team and being in the car with five other people who are your close friends and just fooling around is always fun.”

Peirce has been snowboarding for nine years and has held the social media director and photographer position on the team for a year.

“Our whole team is really close,” Peirce said. “Our goal is to shred as hard as we can and have fun doing it.”

Collegian A&C Reporter Amanda Thompson can be reached at entertainment@collegian.com or on Twitter @amanduhh3003.