Its recruitment efforts — the school has almost doubled its full-time enrollment in a year and now brings dozens of youths in for weeklong training sessions — have been aided by its ability to lure big-name coaches.

A typical day also involves four hours on the snow and four hours in the classroom. There are three daily meals designed by a nutritionist, stretching, strength-training and mental-conditioning programs, as well as a two-hour study hall in the evenings.

The intensive athletic and academic experience comes at a price: $34,000 a year for tuition, room and board.

The cost doesn't include multiweek summer training camps that often involve international travel.

The academy was founded as an alternative high school for local kids whose parents wanted them to attend high school in town rather than down the valley in Gunnison.

It went out of business briefly in the middle of the 2003-04 school year, only to be revived as a nonprofit, sports-focused prep school several days later. It lacked enough coaches to support the new approach. And the purchase of a new building eventually put the cash-strapped school over the edge.

"This was a third-tier boarding school — a school that survived by admitting everyone they could," says Graham Frey, who became the school's headmaster just before the start of the 2006-07 school year. "It was a mess."

About three months after arriving on campus, Frey boarded an airplane bound for Bradenton, Fla., home to IMG Academies and the campus of its biggest and best-known sports academy programs.

"If this place was going to make it, it needed a strong financial partner," says Frey, who made a pitch that eventually led to the IMG deal.

Despite all the time spent on the mountain, the highly structured lifestyle and all of the rules can prove daunting.

"You do lose a lot of your freedom. And it's definitely not part of snowboarding society to be restricted," says snowboarding student Gerard, who spent the early part of his youth in Cleveland. "I miss out on the whole party scene, but how can I be bummed when I get to snowboard when they're in school?"