Future of competitive water-skiing rests with the upcoming amateurs
5/25/2004 4:23:52 PM by Mike Petrovsky
On the competitive level, it is doubtful the success of water-skiing will
depend on it becoming a popular spectator sport with a cast of
professional athletes.
Chet Raley of Lake Worth, a former national water-ski champion and
dubbed by many in the sport as one of the most renowned water-ski
coaches in the world, explained that unlike golf, tennis and baseball
-- sports that anyone can take up with relative ease and at a
relatively low cost -- water-skiing will probably not, at least in the
near future, become a nationally-televised, spectator sport that the
average Joe could relate to.
"But at the same time, the surge in the future of our sport will not
come from our professional ranks," said Raley, who owns and operates
Chet Raley's Palm Beach Training Center. "The future lies with our
amateurs." To that end, USAWater Ski is active in promoting the sport
on the college level and colleges and universities throughout the
country have competitive water-skiing in their sports programs. In
Florida, Rollins College, Florida State University, Florida Southern
College and Florida Gulf Coast University all have water-ski teams.
"None are considered powerhouses, but Rollins College has won the
Division 2 Collegiate Water Ski National Championships the past two
years and Florida Southern is quite competitive in Division 1," said
Scott N. Atkinson, USA Water Ski's communications director. Unlike
other sports, there is no one sanctioning body for professional
waterskiing. But there are professional waterskiers, some of whom are
good enough or popular enough to earn a living from sponsors who use
their names on waterskis, water-ski gear and equipment, Atkinson said.
USAWater Ski sanctions the events for the entire sport and has a
membership not limited to professionals. There are also many water-ski
"professionals" who supplement their income by operating water-ski
shops and schools and even some that hold regular jobs. "There are a
select few making a good living (from professional water-skiing), but
they're not getting rich," said Raley. As for the sport's professional
season, it rivals only NASCAR's in length. The Water Ski USAseason
began with Barefoot Water-ski World Championships in Mulwala,
Australia, during the first week in February and will end with the WWC
Wakeboard World Championships in Seville, Spain, scheduled for Oct.
13-17. Length of season is just about the only thing water-skiing has
in common with stock car racing, a sport whose professional drivers and
sponsors are in their popularity heyday with even presidential
candidates courting the motor sport's most loyal fans, the NASCAR dads.
As one avid South Florida water-skier put it: "We'll never be a NASCAR.
After all, everyone can relate to driving a car." Yes, like NASCAR,
water-skiing does depend on a motorized device, but the tow boat does
not play a role in determining a winner or loser. Atkinson said that at
most of the major water-ski competitions skiers are assigned a boat by
pulling a number out of a hat. "There are no skiers (trying to gain an
advantage by) taking their buddy's souped-up bass boats to
competitions," he said. And Greater Miami Ski Club member Ed Hickey of
Coral Gables called the tow boats "a nonissue" in today's waterski
competitions because they have been equipped with electronic,
engine-regulating devices that he likened to "a verysophisticated
cruise control." Hickey, 52, is a former national slalom water-ski
champion and a top amateur competitor in his age division. George
Levien, a top slalom competitor from Aventura and member of the Greater
Miami Ski Club, who was in Aspen, Colo., snow skiing when interviewed
by cell phone, likened the tow boat to a ski lift. According to
Atkinson, many water-skiers also snow ski because both sports require
the same type of balance and leg strength. So, if it's not the boat,
what gives a water-ski competitor an advantage?
Water-skis can give a skier a leg up on the competition. Atkinson
provided a list of ski requirements found in Water-ski USA's rule book.
They are:
- Maximum ski width shall not exceed 30 percent of the length.
- Any type of fixed-foot binding may be used.
- Any type of fixed fins may be used. (For the uninitiated, the fins on water-skis resemble those on the bottom of a surf board.)
- No other devices are permitted, except that devices affixed to the ski intended to control or adjust the skiing characteristics of the ski are allowed as long as they are fixed, in that they do not move or change during actual skiing.
- With all bindings, fins, etc. installed, the ski must float.
- Skis in the tricks event shall not have fins.
"The biggest requirement is the 30 percent rule," Atkinson said. "Other
than that it's pretty open, as long as the bindings and fins are fixed
and it floats.'' Probably the most competitive event in traditional
water-skiing is the slalom. Atkinson said the event is made difficult
by shortening the ski rope each time a skier successfully navigates a
buoy on the course. He said the shortening of the rope gives an
advantage to taller skiers who have a greater reach. At 6-feet-2 inches
tall, Hickey said height is a factor in the slalom, but not a major
one. He added that he has lost some competitions to men as short as
5-feet-8 inches. "It's an athletic discipline," Hickey said of the
slalom event in traditional waterskiing. "Muscle memory is the key.
Making a turn (in the slalom) requires a rotation of the body like when
swinging a club in golf or a bat in baseball." Hickey did not seem
impressed by the two newest offshoots of water-skiing -wake-boarding
and knee-boarding. In both events the skis are replaced by a small surf
board and the tow boats produce large wakes that enable competitors to
go airborne so they can perform flips and other acrobatic feats. Hickey
thinks young wake- and kneeboarders put too much stress on their bodies
and, in his eyes, both of the so-called "extreme-water" sports are not
lifelong sports like traditional water-skiing or barefooting, where
skis are replaced with a body suit made to double as a floatation
device. But Levien, Hickey's fellow slalom competitor, disagreed and
even called wake-boarding and knee-boarding "the future of the sport."
Ski coach Raley added that, as in traditional water-skiing, in
wake-boarding and knee-boarding "everything is how easy or light or as
extreme you want to go. You decide how hard you want to push it." Of
course by leaving the door open -just perhaps -- decades from now,
there will be a wake-boarder who, like waterskier Lucille Borgen from
Babson Park, will be skiing at 90 years of age in the Nationals.
Mike Petrovsky is a freelance writer based in Lakeland. He can be contacted at mpetrov@mindspring.com