Both climbing gyms in town will overhaul their youth climbing programs amid a personnel shakeup that saw High Point Climbing Gym’s original instructors start a new team and move across town to coach at Tennessee Bouldering Authority.
High Point made a major splash in the climbing and bouldering world with their initial hires shortly after the gym opened in 2013 – husband and wife duo Lisa Rands and Wills Young.
Young had decades of experience. Rands had been the top-ranked boulderer in the world, was the first American to win the bouldering world cup and was a sponsored athlete for the North Face Global Team.
The couple moved from California to Chattanooga and started the team that would produce regional, district and national champion climbers.
“It was kind of a big deal to have people come from California to Chattanooga; it’s helped put Chattanooga on the map,” Young said. “I think Lisa being world famous helped with that.”
The two signed an agreement with High Point – which has downtown and Riverside locations – which ran until Oct. 31 of this year. By the end of November, they had a new team with nearly 30 members (almost all of whom followed them from High Point), ranging between 8 and 18 years old.
The couple was looking for freedom, control and a smaller community that fit better with their coaching style.
“We wanted to maintain independence; we didn’t have as much control or freedom,” Young said. “TBA is less tourist based. It survives on passionate climbers. It meshes more with where we come from.”
“It’s more, well, I grew up climbing outside,” Rands added. “This is more the style, the vision I see that I want.”
There have been adjustments to the new gym and team, called Synergy Climbing, she said. Notably, the gym is much smaller, but for the couple, that has been good.
The gym has become more of a base for training rather than the entire experience, they said. They spend more time climbing outside. The team is growing close and participating in group outings, birthday parties and other events.
“Our team does seem more cohesive, and it’s been really good,” Young said. “Our vision meshed really well at TBA.”
However, the move left High Point without a coach and without most of its team, allowing the gym to reset the program.
Since November, they’ve grown to 12 climbers between 10 and 16 years old instructed by a new head coach and four assistants.
“It dipped when Wills and Lisa left,” High Point General Manager Phil Pitney said. “This gives us a chance to start with a blank slate and reinvent our team. It’s going extremely well.”
The gym hired Pablo Hikewski to lead the program. Hikewski was the technical monitor for the Venezuelan national team before coaching three years in Miami, Florida.
While in Miami, the new local coach visited Chattanooga to climb, as the Scenic City is the nearest renowned climbing opportunity for Miami residents.
“Last year, when I [came] here, the town felt like a very nice place,” he said. “The people were very friendly. The weather is like my city in Venezuela. It gets cold there, too. I think it’s very fine to live here.”
Changes are apparent at many team practices. Kids line up to run stairs and exercise rather than purely climb.
Hikewski is concentrated on his athletes’ fitness. There are drills, agility work and a concentration on diet.
“Pablo is bringing an entirely different structure of climbing with measured data, physical fitness and evaluation,” Pitney said. “We’re utilizing fitness rooms and training tools that weren’t being utilized. It’s putting more structure behind it. That’s where we’re at now.”
Contact staff writer Mark Pace at mpace@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6659. Follow him on Twitter @themarkpace and on Facebook at ChattanoogaOutdoorsTFP.