Slice of Life:
McCall Area Comp! Let me hear you stomp! We’ve got grit, We’ve got pride, 1-2-3, let’s ride!
Hands clapping and feet stomping, this group cheer begins any gathering of the McCall Area Composite youth mountain bike team. With more than 80 studentathletes in 6th through 12th grade expected for the 2020 season, the team’s success and growth have begun to garner attention. The 2020 season will be the team’s sixth year in existence, and today the team is thirteen times larger than when it started with just six kids in 2015. In fact, the McCall program is now one of the four largest in the state. As a composite team, McCall Area Comp draws its athletes from McCall, Donnelly, New Meadows and Cascade. It is one of 28 teams in the nonprofit Idaho Interscholastic Cycling League (IICL), a statewide 56
Photo courtesy Melissa Shelby Photography
Photo courtesy Melissa Shelby Photography
organization that is part of the National Interscholastic Cycling Association, or NICA, the overseeing body for most school-aged competitive mountain biking teams in the U.S. During the season, which runs from July to mid-October, more than 1,000 student-athletes from across Idaho gather at a series of five regular season Continued page 54
