Photo Courtesy of Ty Alexander

A one-man team takes on the slopes

With the closest snow hours away, Ty Alexander, an agricultural business student, has had to work hard to make his future in snowboarding a possibility.

At the age of four Alexander started skiing with his parents, but it wasn’t long before he learned to snowboard.

“You hit 13 and snowboarding is the cool thing to do when you’re a teenager. So I took up snowboarding and picked it right up,” Alexander said.

Alexander has been snowboarding for 12 years and hopes one day it will pay off with a trip to the X-Games.

Alexander now competes for Fresno State in the Southern California Collegiate Snowsport Conference, Inc. (SCCSC), one of the 11 ski and snowboarding conferences in the United States Collegiate Ski and Snowboard Association (USCSA).

In addition to competing on Fresno State’s behalf, Alexander also serves as the treasurer for the Skiing and Snowboarding Club on campus.

“It is more of a [recreation] thing,” Alexander said. “I was looking for a team to travel with as a group and compete against other colleges. But this keeps me active with fellow students.”

The federation has tried on numerous occasions to get a team to compete for Fresno State but have come up short. Still, that has not stopped Alexander, who decided he would continue on as the team himself.

That’s when Alexander made the decision to contact the president of SCCSC.

“I told the president, ‘it looks like I will be by myself,’” Alexander said.

While Mammoth, Calif. is nearly six hours away, Alexander finds it hard to get to the slopes and much as he wants.

To begin his snowboarding quest, he competed in two competitions over the winter break.

Alexander competes regularly in three events: Snowboard Giant Slalom, Boarder-X and Snowboard Slopestyle. Each event involves skills, speed and intense competition.

Alexander will be heading up to his last competition before nationals this weekend at Mammoth.

The junior he has already placed for nationals in Boarder-X, but 0he hopes to qualify in his other two events this weekend as well.

The USCSA Nationals will take place during the first week of March in Sunday River, Maine. Here, Alexander will compete against more than 100 different collegiate teams across the nation in hopes of becoming No. 1.

Q & A

Q: What brought you to Fresno?

A: I am from Bakersfield. I graduated in 2003. Went to Bakersfield College for a couple years, got an associates degree and played football for a few years. I then transferred to Fresno State and I am studying Ag Business with one more year.

Q: Where do you go to snowboard?

A: I am lucky and my grandpa has a condo in Mammoth that I am fortunate to use. Whatever free time I get I go up and get as much time in on the slopes as possible. This season I have been there about a total of 32 days.

I spent all of winter break in Mammoth. I spent about 25 days in a row boarding, so that was fun. New years was my first competition, and then followed by a competition on Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Q: What is your favorite competition to compete in?

A: Boarder-X for sure. You line up with five other people next to you in the gates and you race down the hill with everyone at the same time. As you race down the hill you’re making turns, throwing elbows and cutting people off just trying to get down the hill the fastest.

Q: What is something memorable that has happened to you while competing?

A: First heat, I waited an hour for my turn. I took first place in that competition and moved on to the next qualifier. I sat around again and waited about an hour and a half sitting in the snow. I got first place again. I was pumped up. One more race and I was in the finals. I went down to the lodge and got a Gatorade instead of sitting around waiting. By the time I got back I missed my third heat and got disqualified. So, that was a bummer.

Q: What are your goals?

A: I am going to Nationals the first week of March. I hope to do the best I can. Maybe one day I will pick up a sponsor and may be in the X-Games some day, and race nationally.

Q: What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

A: I do a lot of duck and deer hunting, in the mountains around Bakersfield with my dad and a couple buddies. Hunting, snowboarding and drinking beer!