CWA Blog Archive-Nonprofit Member Spotlight American Scholastic Climbing League

Nonprofit Member Spotlight American Scholastic Climbing League

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This nonprofit spotlight profiles the American Scholastic Climbing League and its founder Theresa Morris, tracing how a Colorado educator's vision grew into a national organization. Born and raised on the Colorado Front Range, Morris started climbing doing family laps on Boulder's Flatirons. After becoming an educator, she recognized the important lessons climbing can teach youth and made it her mission to get climbing programs into as many schools as possible. With a group of dedicated educators, she founded the Colorado Scholastic Climbing League, which later became the American Scholastic Climbing League. In the interview with CWA Membership Coordinator Quinn Gordon, Morris explains the organization's genesis. While teaching in Colorado, she encountered a youth climbing league run by Paradise Rock Gym, an 18-and-under series. Her program competed and had a fantastic time, but they were up against kids as young as six or seven who were, frankly, crushing them. Despite the fun, the age mismatch didn't make sense, so they decided to create a high-school-only league. That led to the Colorado Scholastic Climbing League, which grew through word of mouth. The spotlight illustrates how a grassroots idea, driven by an educator who saw climbing's developmental value, evolved into a structured, age-appropriate competitive framework for student-athletes and eventually scaled nationally. The article frames the ASCL as a way the indoor climbing industry can support climbing's growth to serve students across the country. The throughline is that scholastic climbing fills a specific need, age-appropriate, school-based competition, that general youth leagues don't, and that Morris's educator perspective shaped a league built around students rather than elite young prodigies. For gyms, the ASCL represents both a mission-driven partner and an avenue to connect climbing with schools, extending the sport's reach and its developmental benefits to student-athletes who might otherwise never find it.

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A nonprofit spotlight on the American Scholastic Climbing League, founded by educator Theresa Morris. After her high schoolers competed against crushing six-year-olds in a mixed-age league, she built a high-school-only league that grew from Colorado into a national organization, giving student-athletes age-appropriate, school-based climbing competition.