As they celebrate their time at nationals, Scripps members of The Claremont Colleges’ Ski and Snowboard Team reflect on the ways athletics has given them an incomparable community and deepened their confidence as leaders.
The 5C Ski and Snowboard Team at the 2026 nationals competition
By Nichola Monroe ’27
For the past six years, The Claremont Colleges Ski and Snowboard Team has been incredibly successful in sending athletes to compete at the US Collegiate Ski & Snowboard (USCSA) national competition each March. This year was no exception, with 17 athletes traveled to the iconic Whiteface ski resort in Lake Placid to compete in men’s and women’s ski and snowboard alpine and freestyle events.
Among them were Scripps’ own Katie Jenkins ’27 and Leila Jahic ’28. For Jenkins, there was no world in which she would not have joined the team. As the daughter of a former Scripps ski team captain, she showed dedication and grit in competition, and was recently named a team captain for the second year in a row.
“Joining ski team has been the best thing I’ve done since starting at Scripps,” says Jenkins. “I love the people, I love going fast, and I love skiing every weekend. It’s become such an integral part of my Scripps experience that I can’t really imagine my life without it.”
One of the best things you can do at the 5Cs is join a club sport
On top of her psychology major and double minor in environmental science and art history, Jenkins says the ski team “keeps her busy.”
“I’ve always been an athletic person,” Jenkins explains. “Being able to get out on the mountain and move my body makes me feel a lot better generally.”
For Jahic, a pre-med biology major and philosophy minor, the story is similar: getting off campus and connecting with people across the consortium has kept her dedicated to her fellow athletes.
“My first real experience was a Mammoth trip during my first year at Scripps,” Jahic says. “Showing up for a weekend to a cabin full of people I had never met was daunting, but I was immediately met with so much genuine curiosity about newcomers, and I felt very welcomed. Everyone was just happy to be doing the same sport together.”
Athletics at Scripps and the 5Cs: A Pathway to Community and Leadership
Jenkins says that skiing and competing most weekends facilitates a fierce friendship between teammates.
“One of the best things about the team is our strong community,” she says. “You have to be a special person to go away for the first three weekends of the semester to get up at 5:30 a.m. on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It creates a special bond between everybody.”
We don’t take ourselves too seriously as a competitive team, but that works in our favor. It creates a great social culture that attracts really talented athletes
Jahic was also recently elected to captain the team alongside Jenkins for the upcoming academic year. The two leaders attribute most of the team’s success making it to nationals to the environment they foster.
“We don’t take ourselves too seriously as a competitive team, but that works in our favor,” Jahic says. “It creates a great social culture that attracts really talented athletes. We have some impressive alpine and free skiers that we were able to take to nationals.”
The team boasts members who were former racing and mogul skiers, as well as talented free skiers and boarders. The diversity on the team is a major attribute to the team’s success.
“We always welcome people of all skill levels,” says Jenkins. “We support each other and have fun, even though we have varying ability and experience; that’s what makes our team our team.”
“Part of why we did well as a team at nationals was a lot to do with people’s willingness to compete,” adds Jahic. “In particular, our women free skiers showing up and trying new things has been really helpful to our team’s success.”
“For alpine, our team is a supportive enough environment that we get first-time racers who end up placing extremely high,” Jenkins continues. “For us, it’s more about supporting each other than beating our teammates.”
During the competition, the women’s free ski team competed exceptionally well, placing first in slopestyle events.
“The most electric moment of nationals was when we podiumed over Rocky Mountain College,” Jahic says, noting the school is home to a very talented team. For the 5C ski team, these moments of athleticism, sportsmanship, fear, joy, disappointment, connection, and more, meld together in the outdoors in a truly special way.
“One of the best things you can do at the 5Cs is join a club sport,” says Jenkins. “There is no comparable way to develop a community that strong besides sportsmanship.”