Private Lakes, What Went Wrong

     Waterskiing has a short history compared to some sports but it has also been around much longer than many others. It is also a sport that requires little in the way of equipment.  No teams are needed. No single purpose fields or arenas. All that is needed is a boat, a body of water, a rope, vest and some ski’s.  A $40,000 ski boat, $1,000 skis, private lakes and personal coaches are not required. Skiing has gotten a bad rap lately as an “Elitist” sport.  I don’t know how this came to be and part of the debate on that is what this column is about.

     Most skiers came to learn behind an outboard runabout using handed down combo skis. This was and is all that’s required. To compete at the tournament level does require much better equipment and training but just to water-ski does not.  Our public lakes are crowded each weekend with families enjoying the water. The “Elitist” refer to these as the “weekend Wally’s” and while a certain amount of etiquette is required on the water, a family pulling their kids is a welcome site. They may be pulling a future Andy Mapple or Kristy Overton. It seems that the private clubs and aggressive skiers tend to think all open water skiers are, shall we say, unimportant. How wrong.

     Private lakes are what is keeping this sport from regaining its place in the public eye.  We used to hold tournaments on public lakes and have dozen of boats parked outside the area watching as well as hundreds of people on shore.  Now most class “C” and “R” tournaments have only the skiers and their families attending because they are at private ski sites with no advertising to draw people in.  Those weekenders are the ones that would come to your tournament to show their kids what the next level of skiing looks like.

     Many ski clubs are trying to help by hosting clinics. But a clinic is very limited in what it can do. No one can learn to run a slalom course or jump in one or two clinics and public slalom courses are in short supply. NSL tournaments are a great way to learn competition but you still need access to a course to learn how to ski it.  What is needed is more openness of our private sites.

     One idea that has been pitched to USA Water Ski is “associate memberships”.  This would give open water skiers set times to ski private sites. To take it a step further would be for several clubs in an area to rotate these associates to different sites on a weekly basis. This way your private site would only be disrupted for one weekend a month or whatever schedule works for your situation.  This would give the “associate members” much more time in the course and over the ramps so they could attend and compete in your local tournaments.

     To institute an “associate member” program does not require USA Water Ski involvement but their endorsement of this would help sway some reluctant clubs to open there sites.  It would also start to show that private ski clubs are not the elitist groups they are perceived.  The private ski lakes were a product of necessity but now they are causing a wholesale drop in new skiers competing.

     Much work needs to be done to promote waterskiing.  Professional tournaments need to be seen on TV.  Showing the top level of any sport is what drives young athletes to try it.  Local clubs need to make their community aware of upcoming tournaments and clinics.  Fresh faces and ideas should always be welcome.

     So next time you’re on open water and see a runabout pulling a ten year old, don’t complain that they just ruined your water. Smile and say to yourself, that used to be me.

Gordon Slingerland

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