Bill Boyd, the new English teacher at AHS, seems like the sort of person who enjoys risks — on the ski slopes and in the classroom. His syllabus for sophomore English, for example, will not be ordinary or easy. On the first day of class, he suggested that students read a book with an exceedingly off-putting title: “The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language.”

That certainly doesn’t sound like the sort of stroll most teenagers are interested in taking. Boyd acknowledged that it was a risky suggestion but he believes students should never shy away from books that appear difficult or obscure. He added that the book’s title is the most difficult thing about it.

“It sounds terrifying but it’s actually really funny,” he said. “It’s about where words and phrases come from. I think it’s really fascinating.”

Boyd grew up in Telluride and then went to boarding school at The Cate School in California where he was an avid surfer and also a star soccer player. He was recruited to play soccer at UCLA but never got a chance to play due to a freak skiing accident. He and his younger brother, Baker, skied off a cliff they expected would be about 20 feet high but it turned out to be a 40 foot fall. His brother landed in a powder pillow and was fine, but Boyd landed on a hard groomed slope and broke two vertebrae in his back.

Instead of playing soccer at UCLA, where he was an English major, he did a lot of reading and writing.  Meanwhile, his family relocated to Aspen and after graduation, Boyd also moved here. He wanted a chance to spend more time with Baker, who is nine years younger than him. Boyd soon found work as a ski instructor and also as the assistant coach of Baker’s AHS soccer team. He had never thought of becoming a teacher but coaching high school kids inspired him to try it.

“I kind of realized through coaching soccer, there is a clear jump from coaching to teaching,” Boyd said.

Boyd, who will also be an assistant coach on the boys’ soccer team this year, brings a lot of his coaching experience and philosophies into the classroom. In his opinion, being a student in a classroom is very similar to being an athlete on a team.

“One person winning is really like everyone winning,” he said. “ You have to find your place on the team. You have to fulfill your responsibilities. The harder you work the better you do.”

Boyd especially hopes that his students, even the ones who hate to read and write, will work hard to overcome any reservations or fears about literature. He believes that reading books helps people “live a richer, fuller life.” If you hate reading, his advice is to take it slowly rather than avoid it or give up.  He even sounds like a coach when he talks about motivating his students to become better readers, students and human beings.

“To use a sports analogy, you take someone skiing for the first time, you don’t want to take them down a black run because it would just be horrible and not fun,” he said. “That’s what reading Shakespeare might feel like to you now. But, after you’ve skied a bunch down the greens and the blues and you get your feet under you, then all of a sudden all you want to ski are the blacks. All you want to read is Chaucer, Shakespeare and David Foster Wallace.”

If you are a student who has Bill Boyd as a teacher this semester, be prepared for a whole lot of black runs.