Brighton Ski Resort is located at the end of Big Cottonwood Canyon Road, and Brighton Ski Team calls this beautiful resort "home". The Brighton Ski Team is a ski racing team. Competitors train at Brighton up to three days a week with their coaches, and many team members come up in their free time to enjoy the mountain and a day of free-skiing. Although not officially run or financially supported by Brighton Ski resort, the Ski Team is given space on the mountain, a meeting place, storage space for race equipment, facilities from which to run races, as well as many other generous "in-kind" donations from the resort. The Brighton Ski Team is proud to call Brighton Ski Resort "Home" for a number of reasons.

The Brighton Ski Team is composed of young skiers ranging in age from 6 to 20 years of age. The youngest and least experienced members of the ski team are taught the basics of racing technique and good skiing skills, and are encourage to compete in races in order to do their personal best and get the experience on a race course that is necessary to move on to the next level of racing ability. Those skiers that are older or more experienced are taught the finer points of racing technique, practice skiing gates as well as learning more advanced skiing techniques, and are encouraged to ski hard on race days and utilize all the skills they've learned throughout the year. Although medalling in a race is a wonderful experience that every racer hopes for, and Brighton competitors bring home their fair share of trophies, Brighton also emphasizes fair competition, skiing one's best, and being a gracious competitor whether winning or not. Skiing and competing is and should always be something that the competitors love.

Prior to the first snowfall, the team congregates in order to form team unity and work out physically in preparation for the season to come. The team season is divided up into three main parts: 1) Dry-land training throughout the fall; 2) Early season practice during the first months of winter; 3) Emphasis on competition during the later months.

The Brighton Ski Team has been around since 1994, and is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing an opportunity for skiers to develop competitive skills and short- and long-term athletic and competition goals, all while having fun and developing positive attitudes towards competition and the necessary work that goes into becoming a serious athlete and competitor.

The tuition fees that are charged cover a variety of team expenses, including coaches' wages, equipment, and team expenses. Tuition is kept low i n order to allow as many children as possible to join the team, regardless of parental income. Brighton Ski Team has the lowest tuition of any team in the area, because we believe that any child should be able to enjoy the experience of being on a team. In order to supplement our tuition, we have corporate sponsors, hold fundraisers (some of which team members actively participate in, and which help develop team spirit and friendships), and encourage parental involvement and volunteering in many areas. By keeping our parental involvement level high we not only keep our costs down, but we promote family togetherness and a sense of community within the team.

In order to keep our tuition rates so low, the Brighton Ski Team relies heavily on parental involvement on race days. Rather than hiring "outsiders", we staff our races with parents and volunteers who have been trained to do a variety of the jobs necessary to run a competition smoothly. Our volunteers save us hundreds of dollars every race day, and we pass those savings on to our team members. In addition to saving the team money, volunteering at a race or snowboarding competition provides parents with an opportunity to understand exactly how a competition is run, what their child is involved with on a competition day, and all the ins and outs of a ski or snowboard competition. Although not required, volunteering is a core element of what makes Brighton Ski Team what it is, and all parents are encouraged to participate at some level both for their child's sake and for the sake of family togetherness. It is hard to miss your child's competition when you are out there in the snow with them! Parents are trained to work a variety of positions, from gatekeeping to running the barbeque (which is one of our fundraising activities). We have found over the years that volunteering at a competition has been a wonderful way for families to get to know one another and the kids on the teams, to learn to mechanics of a competition, and to gain an appreciation for all of the hard work that goes into putting on a competition from the perspective of both the competitor as well as the staff.

Our coaching staff is composed of U.S.S.A. (United States Ski Association) certified coaches, and we keep our athlete-to-coach ratio low, which keeps personal attention levels high. All of our coaches have racing experience, and are sensitive to the needs of young athletes. Most everyone involved with the team has a love of skiing, which is evident by the amount of involvement during races as well as by the amount of time many team members and their families spend on the mountain just having fun. All of our coaches bring enthusiasm and dedication with them to the slopes, and pass this on to the children they are working with.