We’ve never really dipped into the world of sponsored athletes up this way. Not as a matter of strategy but more to the fact that the competitive world of athletic sponsorship needs resorts that offer them the shine and pop that big resorts can offer; fat marketing budgets, major on-mountain events, shepherds to look over them-things of this nature. This isn’t a slight on this world, but it brings into relief who we are and what we can offer when examining who to sponsor and what they need in return. Our brand is something we’re conscious of, often to a fault, and the people we connect with, the stories that they tell and the histories they have with this mountain, this community, need to have alignment. We can’t be something we aren’t and the people we bring under the tent need to be people who understand that, support it and, likely, have spent their fair amount of time under the tent—helping to build the tent even--already.
Enter, Callie Young, Jack Young and Avery Ellis.
Three kids who literally helped define the Raised Jay genus, and whose families have been part of the Jay Peak community since Raised Jay was a livable, defaulted reality and not just a marketing slug line.
In the interest of at least partial disclosure all three families are friends of mine and their kids, by default and decision, are friends with my kids. We played hockey together. Camped together and lived Jay Peak lives besides each other for what soon will start our 3rd decade. It’d be easy to think the sponsoring of these kids having connections originating in that orbit but their merits, their successes and challenges and the standards they have set for themselves, and by default any tranche of Raised Jay’er that follows, are their own.
Callie Young is the Captain of the Dartmouth Nordic Ski Team. She double majors in Geography and Biology. She races everything from sprints to 20k’s across her collegiate seasons even though last year she was on the World Junior Team for Freestyle Sprinting. Last year she was a USCSCA National Collegiate All Academic ski teamer.
Avery Ellis is a two-year co-captain of the Middlebury College Nordic Ski team. She races a variety of distances between 5k-15k with one 20k a season and plenty of sprinting. She’s qualified for the NCAA’s, which is no small feat and one she hopes to replicate this year.
Jack Young, brother of Callie, is a freshman on the Colby College Nordic Ski Team and ranks near the top performers already. He recently finished 4th in the country in the Junior Freestyle Sprint at The US National Championships in Midway Utah.
But the numbers and the results and the times are really the smallest part of who these athletes are. They are, first, students and members of our small community and people that contribute to making this small corner feel much bigger than it actually is. They are kids that have always put the work in and, as a result, became very easy to root for.
We are as proud of them for wearing the Jay Peak logo as they are to stand behind it. It means something to tell the world you’re Raised Jay and it means even more, to us, to recognize the people within our community that makes us go, and that make us Us.
Congratulations to Callie, Avery and Jack.
Steve Wright
swright@jaypeakresort.com
President and General Manager
Jay Peak Resort
