Inside the Centre County facility that’s helping athletes prepare for the Paris Olympics
Beau Mitchell is sitting in what he calls a “ghost town.”
Most of the time, Woodward PA’s facilities are packed with dozens, if not hundreds, of skateboarders, BMX bikers and more from all over. But on a 60-degree mid-April day, it’s just Mitchell, Liv Lovelace and Felicity “Flic” Turner on their boards in Woodward’s “Progression Centre.”
Repeatedly, Mitchell watches Lovelace — one of the first skaters he ever worked with as a coach — as she attempts a kickflip back slide lipslide, providing guidance and encouragement along the way. The more Lovelace attempts the trick, the more frustrated she’s getting.
“What are you thinking about?” Mitchell, who’s wearing a green Thrasher beanie, says. “Be kind to yourself.”
After a few more attempts and fist bumps from her coach as she glides by him on her board, Lovelace lands her best attempt yet.
“This place is honestly the best,” she later says.
Over the past few weeks, Woodward, an action sports camp off of state Route 45 that’s been around since 1970, has been hosting national skateboarding squads as they prepare for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. Last week, the Australian national skateboarding team was the latest to use the facilities.
“This is really like the ... stomping ground, (for) a lot of these kids and these aspiring athletes to get to that platform of X Games or Olympians,” Lisa Pham, Woodward’s general manager, said.
With 48 acres of indoor and outdoor skate parks, a cafeteria, swimming pool and more, Woodward hosts bikers and skateboarders of all levels year-round. Each summer, it holds hundreds of youth skaters, bikers and more for weeklong, overnight camps.
Action sport professionals make appearances at the site once in a while, with Ryan Sheckler, Ryan Nyquist and Lizzie Armanto set to appear at its camps this summer, and the organization has a passionate team committed to creating unique experiences for its athletes.
Chris Hayton, now Woodward’s skateboard program manager, came to the summer camp as a kid and found a love for the community aspect of it.
“This place is so special,” Hayton said. “I want to just keep passing it down, keep the culture, keep the community in it.”
Emily Brooks, the women’s action sports manager, echoed how special the people and community are. After growing up going to the camp, she now focuses on making it a community open to anybody and getting women involved in action sports.
“I always found that the people (at Woodward) are the best,” Brooks said.
The summer camps are also how Mitchell, who had a career in professional skateboarding and surfing before he started coaching, was introduced to Woodward. His son saw videos of the camp online and wanted to go all the way to central Pennsylvania from Australia.
“He said to me from when he was like six, ‘Dad, I want to go to Woodward.’ And I was like, ‘Mate, if you save, I will take you there,’” Mitchell said.
After his son saved for over two years, Mitchell wanted to join him at Woodward but initially wasn’t allowed to be a “Cabin Dad” at the camp because he didn’t have a green card. However, after someone made Woodward aware that Mitchell coached the Australian national skateboarding team, he was offered to stay at the camp. Soon after arriving, he found the place special.
“I literally had the best time ever,” Mitchell said. “I wanted (my son) to have a camp experience, and I also wanted to spend some time actually looking at not just the facilities, but the way that the coaching worked as well.”
With skateboarding and BMX freestyle returning to the Summer Olympics after debut appearances in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Mitchell opted to return to Woodward for a week to train with 11 of his national skateboarders, including Lovelace and Turner.
Mitchell said the excitement in the skateboarding community has grown since it was made an Olympic sport.
“We’re seeing that across the world, that there’s more and more facilities for skaters,” Mitchell said. “I can clearly say now that (skateboarding is) a sport and these guys are athletes. So it’s amazing.”
Right now, his national team is in the “development phase” of their tricks for the Olympics. The process of preparation has involved planning out each skateboarder’s tricks, seeing what the official Olympic park will look like and coming up with multiple backup options for each trick.
In such an individualized sport, Mitchell said he can struggle to provide enough guidance to every skater, but at the end of the day, the coaching-athlete relationship comes down to trust.
“I can’t do the trick for them ... What I say has to be the right guidance, otherwise, they might not achieve their dreams,” Mitchell said.
As the Summer Olympics approach, Mitchell’s squad continues to take those steps of preparation, taking a stop in rural Centre County. However, as action sports also continue their international growth, Woodward continues to provide opportunities for kids to get involved, no matter their skill level.
“It’s really cool, because you just see the smile on the kids’ faces when they come here. This is just their Disney World,” Pham said. “Eventually, it just gets better and better and clicks for them, and then all of a sudden they’re on (the) X Game stage or they’re on the Olympic stage.”
