Competition waterskiing is the only thing that can save the sport

[aupatking]

The closing of Waterski magazine has me extremely troubled. I've typed this up, now at least 3 times, the first time thinking as a thread, but didn’t feel right about it. Tentatively had it titled as “the thread that gets me banned”. Thought I’d shoot it to John as a “letter to the editor”, then sent to a current pro, for feedback, to see if what I was thinking made sense, or was worth discussing.

Don’t worry, you won’t agree with me at least 4 times, but overall, I think my point is correct. At least worth discussion.

 

Competition skiing is the only thing that will save the “sport”.

 

If Putt-putt was what was marketed as Golf, that sport would have died years ago. When people think of Golf, they think of superstars like Tiger Woods, Augusta National, and St Andrews. If kitschy offshoots like long drive competitions were Golf, it would not have survived.

 

For that reason, I’ve always thought of guys riding coolers and picnic tables, calling it water skiing were bad for the “sport”. Seeing some dude in a leotard holding a girl up while he rides directly behind the boat on a foot wide banana boat is an instant turn-off to anyone looking for sport or competition. Not that I discourage people from having fun at all, but that is not a “sport”.

 

If we are ever to have superstars again like Andy Mapple or Sammy Duvall, competition is what has to do it, and has to be what people think of when they think of water skiing. For that reason, I believe fully that tournaments have to be brought out on public venues again. No matter the conditions. Records don’t need to be broken at every stop. Just look at the turnout to Moomba. And not just pro stops, but everyday tournaments. Local tournaments need to be held weekly, wherever possible, and open to the public, at low prices where yearly AWSA membership is not a requirement. $5 weekend membership, to cover the insurance requirements could solve that (plus tournament fees of course). When people think of water skiing, they have to think of competition or it gets relegated to where it is now, a fun little activity people do to get their kids on the boat.

 

We’re fooling ourselves to think that competition boat manufacturers aren’t sitting in board rooms saying, “we sell Surf/Wake boats 7-to-1 over our cheaper ski boats. What is our break-even, if we stop building ski boats and make up with a slight market share increase on the S/W boats?”. These are board room decisions that happen at publicly traded companies, who answer to share holders. It’s simply a money question, and how long will it be before we see major players back out of our market? The R&D alone for the engineers for a 3 event boat has got to be astronomical.

 

I keep hearing long-time pros, espousing “just get out on the water for fun” type mantras, but, I think that is just because they have the viewpoint of 0.01% of waterskiers who have only really known competition skiing. In my experience in a warm coastal area, there’s no shortage of people water skiing for fun. It’s those same recreational waterskiers who say to me that they had no idea there was even such a thing as competitive waterskiing.

 

All that said, I’m submitting my club’s articles and other legal this week, and am going to try to reach out to AWSA, as I have several times with no response. I am going to try to put together as many local tournaments as possible this summer, on both, our river site, and our lake. I know I’m going to eat money, time, engine hours, and depreciation, as I have with my unformed casual club, but with the death of WSM, I really fear the death water ski as a sport.

Just my thoughts. Any of that have merit?

Patrick

[oldjeep]

Nonsense. Competition skiing is a tiny fraction of people who ski. If anything comp skiing contributes to the demise of skiing - teaching that skiing is not possible unless behind a zo DD boat on perfectly calm water. Get off of the private pond and onto the lakes where "normal" people ski and have a look at how many there are and what they are skiing behind and on. Now you may not consider that skiing, but on an average day on a local lake you will see skiing. kneeboarding, wakeboarding behind any I/O or outboard the family has - some even ski behind (gasp) v-drives. At our annual cabin week we've got 25+ family members who ski/board/tube, some of us ski the course daily - others occasionally. Not one of us competes.

[MuskokaKy]

@aupatking , dont really disagree just think the mentality is a little behind the times. You need a new creative way or reach the masses...Social Media is the only platform Waterskiing can afford. I was and am a huge Andy Mapple fan...who isnt but i think the next face of waterskiing needs to be female. Manon, Whit, or go to a new Generation like Samanath D or N-Ross. We need to sell with a very limited budget.

@MarcusBrown is pioneering a new way for waterskiing to be viewed for the masses.

 

I do applaud the passion and effort you are putting forward. I too am looking to financially support the industry more than usual since the death of WSM. Us up north are talking about making trips to some of the major events ( which goes to your point about tourneys); buying product from players who actually support waterskiing; making a donation to BOS ;) buying a sticker is like a donation lol; even turning over our equipment a little sooner than usual.

 

New family moved to our lake last year; never been a cottage family or anything like that; owners are lawyers and kids are city kids - gave them a pair of skis as a welcome to the neighborhood gift...Best thing i could have done...the only water sport they partake in is water skiing and god forbid they will never own a wakeboard haha.

[aupatking]

All I’m saying is if we want the “sport of waterskiing” to survive, only the competition can do that. The i/o crowd could care less if DD boats go the way of the dinosaurs.

To be clear, I was an outboard skier for most of my life. I went to the mailbox every day, looking for Waterski Magazine, dreaming of Ski Nautiques and one day breaking Andy Mapple’s record.

Facebook is not the only way. The collegiate team model needs to be moved down to high schools, from there, the soccer/football club association model takes over. Come on, skiing is fun. It’s not like we’re talking kids into it, they want to! I, for one, will donate two older model, but still, high-end slalom skis today to my old high school for a club. I’d dig all around for combo’s and get them outfitted by mid afternoon.

Again, I’m talking about the “sport”, not the activity. I firmly believe the sport draws the activity. And you don’t have to compete, but a course skier is participating in the “sport”, no matter the boat. All of my life I aspired to be a competition skier, because of competition skiing.

[LoopSki]

Your forgetting one thing !! Tournaments are fricken boring. A complete snore. My wife hates going to the few I participate in. Try to get a newby involved dont take them to a tournament. They will fall asleep of boredom and never want to ski.

[sunvalleylaw]

Nate Smith has been crushing it with scores never dreamed of before, and has been dominant for a long time now. CP is coming back, Terry is in the mix, there are others I am missing. And of course the women's side is strong, with Regina leading the way. I think the level of competition is great. Probably historical. I continue to be inspired by it, and in fact entered my first tourney last summer. I did see some good energy among both the young and old at that tourney, but a small percentage overall. Hopefully it will grow.

 

That said, if we have that level of competition going on, and so few people view it in person and via webcast, as noted by Marcus in his podcast with Luzz, I do not see how competition waterskiing alone saves the sport. It is a part of the mix, certainly, and I love it. But it is not the entire story by a long shot. Access to quality slalom is another huge piece, and all the other stuff you can do behind a boat plays a role too. Just my opinion.

[swc5150]

Not sure WSM going away means our sport is dead or dying? One can only write the same articles in different ways, so many times. If anything, this is the best time in my lifetime for water skiing. Look at the amount of companies building high-end skis, ropes, vests and gloves. I didn't have all these options as a kid in the 80's. The big 3 are building insanely great DD tow machines, that now actually have family appeal, with the new Supreme coming soon (and 200R but I won't go there). Sure V drives out sell DD's like crazy...but so did I/O's back in the day. @LoopSki perhaps gives good insight as to why the tournament scene is small, but on our lake, I don't see any fewer skiers now than I did when I was a kid.

[aupatking]

@LoopSki you’re right there as well, to a degree.

If they can win it’s exciting.

Also, have you seen the boredom at a collegiate tournament? Me neither, no one has

[aupatking]

I guess what it comes down to is this: I’m going to do my part, in the direction I deem most useful.

[RazorRoss3]

You will never have the level of excitement from a collegiate event at a comparable AWSA event. That's like going to a football game and expecting the entire stadium to have the energy of the student section. Not to mention an average NCWSA event and an average AWSA event don't have anything in common from format, to size, to demographic.

 

"Saving the sport" means keeping the NCWSA kids around which is entirely related to ease of access and getting them to show up to the AWSA events which likely requires higher entry caps to keep entry fees down.

 

[Wish]

@aupatking the high school model has been tried here in FL. And even in a format that resembles collegiate team format with a mix of alternative competition options that allowed even a newby to compete. Problem for getting my daughters school involved was the liability of practice. Even with the AWSA helping its not something athletic directors may feel comfortable with. Then there is the gear, sight, availability, and boat. Not impossible as a few schools here did do this for a couple yrs I believe. Nautique even loaned boats for competition. The fun format made possible by the out of the box thinking of Jennifer LaPoint.

 

Best bet would be for manufacturers to step up and loan gear to a HS. Certainly does not have to be high end everything. This model has been done for Olympic Archery in Schools by Easton Sports. More the 100 HS across the country have received all necessary gear to practice and to hold matches between schools. And to some degree the level of gear is restricted so one child can't go out and drop 2k on a bow and have an unfair advantage. Goal is for all to participate regardless of income or skill level. But no participation trophies. You actually have to win. The program expands yr after yr adding more schools. If a school drops out, the gear goes back. Best program model I've seen for introducing a sport at the HS level.

[aupatking]

@Wish, I’m thinking more along the lines of a sanctioned club. not necessarily the hs paying for the program, but providing a space to meet and discuss and plan. They can use my boat. I’m trying to buy a bubble back, just for that purpose. Prostar for tournaments.

The archery clubs have been blowing up. All kids get a genesis bow, and all arrows are the same. No advantage, outside of skill.

@RazorRoss3 that’s an insightful look into it, and a great place to start looking for solutions. How do we keep the new alumni skiing?

[Wish]

@aupatking the schools did not pay for anything related to skiing or archery. Parents mostly did. It was the liability and access to gear and such that slowed progress for skiing and ultimately killed it. Archery has been a massive success. And if it keeps its current pace, it may become a collegiate sport from its popularity at the HS level. College clubs are being formed as we speak. If a ski company or companies step up with gear like Easton did for archery, I think it could fly.

[RazorRoss3]

@aupatking a great question, I wish I had a better answer. It comes down to cost and access. Fresh out of school it isn't easy to find a place to ski and if you can you can't afford it. I don't know what the approach is for fixing either of those problems.

[Horton]

Sadly I think the high school thing is a boondoggle. I do not see how it is realistic. There are too many dollars and details and organization required.

 

One of the projects I need to work on is to find ways to make it easier for College Alumni to have access to ski sites. If someone will come babysit for me that will move along faster.

[MrJones]

Agree that access and costs are killing it. (Competitive skiing) It will never go back to having clubs on open water public lakes and rivers. Partly because of that the number of people who even know it exists is very small. Out of those they have to have the interest, opportunity, and money to participate. When there are so many other lower cost/lower effort activities to pursue I just cant see it attracting new participants.

 

Post college is tough. Not only are most people starting careers, starting families, buying home,...(see cost issues)

[Horton]

@oldjeep

 

Perhaps the vast majority of people who ski do it for the pure enjoyment of being on the water. Those people largely buy mid range skis or ski on old random gear and ski behind older / affordable boats. Those skiers are the grass roots of the sport and should never be discounted.

 

I surfed (very badly) for a few years. I LOVED it because, for me, it was everything that tournament skiing is not. There was no such thing as a bad day of surfing. More to the point there was no SCORE to show me how good or bad I did. I assume that most skiers feel that way about skiing. I think that if I had kept surfing I would have eventually looked for some sort of competitive hook. I would have looked for some sort of measure of achievement.

 

Tournament skiing is there for those who yearn for the challenge and a measure of achievement. Hopefully those who become achievers will inspire those who are just starting out.

 

Most readers of this web site are not great skiers but I intentionally bias the conversation to higher end skiing as much as I can. The idea is that the more accomplished skiers will show the less accomplished skiers something to aspire to. I think the broader world of skiing works on the same idea.

 

Skiing would not disappear without tournament skiing but it would not be healthy.

 

[bigskieridaho]

@Horton agreed. And I will come babysit for you if I can use your lake and boat:) so you can do the college thing.

[wtrskier197]

I mostly free skiing but enjoy the opportunities i have in a public course. Where I ski, on a given weekend there may be one other DD boat on the lake. A couple v drives and the rest are i/o. 90% of the boaters are tubing all day...and the ski course is like a magnet for the jet skis. When we do ski It's amazing how long the other boats stop and watch (my skiing is nothing marvelous), granted my location is not ideal for a lot of water sports. But it is sad how I never see anyone else skiing like ever and once in a while I see a wakeboarder. So with that said, from my perspective I don't think the sport will die but I dont think it's growing. The only skiers are the ones who grew up skiing and their families. It is good to see that the state university added a ski club in the last 3 years.

[aupatking]

@wtrskier197 if I could have liked, awesomed, and insightful’d your post, I would have. That’s exactly the problem I’ve seen on public water for the last 5 years. I’ve set up 2, public water, slalom courses. Literally, people sat and watched me run from 15 off into 32, and then came up to ask “what are you guys doing?”. These people were in a boat and both of them said they had skied before. Still, they didn’t even know what I was doing.

[BraceMaker]

@wtrskier197 right on. We are on a big lake, not many DD boats out most days just because it gets rough. But there is one course on our lake, its a constant target of the riparian lake association as it is off of a wetlands area where birds nest and they think it is disturbing wildlife. There used to be another course but that lost its permit.

 

If there were more ability to get a course permit there would be so much more exposure to skiing it and I think people who are out there skiing behind their boat might see the allure of trying to run the bouys

 

Horton nailed it though - the fall off of college skiers into not skiing at all is huge, if you can keep those people on the water, get more people involved in college skiing to begin with - and get the college ski teams more support it would be huge for the sport.

 

[RazorRoss3]

Keeping collegiate skier around is cost and access. No recent grad, myself included, can afford private site fees so more courses on public water where the cost are the permit and buoy replacement help a lot. If access is cheap then 5-6 guys going in on an '05 boat and a storage garage for it isn't completely unreasonable. Much easier said than done in states with less public water in the first place though.

[RINLE]

I fell off after college with less obstacles as the kids face today.

 

College club skiing was a blast. We had access to a private lake and a Mastercraft.

 

Halfway through college my pop was downsized, the Malibu Skier I got with a nice discount had to be sold to pay for college. The, I went to grad school.

 

I did not get back into my own boat until I was in my 30s.

 

I was lucky too. I got out of undergrad with no debt. These kids now days, same public college as me, are coming out owing on average $25 grand. That’s a decent used ski boat right there.

 

These kids coming out of college will need us older folks to provide ways for them to get on the water because many will be hard pressed to afford boating for several years post-graduation.

 

[6balls]

Access and desire to continue post college are problems. I know 4 others from my collegiate ski team that have boats and water access...one skis a course, none compete.

 

A serviceable hull at this point is not a terrible cost, but then the storage, the other equipment, the slalom course purchase/install, the trailering to a lake with a course, the hoping the water is smooth (but don't know til ya get there). This all competes with other priorities.

 

Ya gotta want it pretty badly...how do we stimulate the future desire from the collegiate set such that it's priority? For many of us we wouldn't be denied...and for us there's a way b/c we will find it.

 

Not sure it matters...I would literally give my past skis away to a college grad who was fired up (even the nice ones a few years old when I replace 'em), I would help source boats/courses etc, provide advice/install tips...just be a resource.

 

Should all collegiate skiers be offered a "start-up" resource area within BOS? We could all try to pay it forward.

[Horton]

@6balls I think you have the idea. I just need time to make the new web site pretty.....

[drew]

@RINLE, think back... did you work in middle school and high school? even for $3-4 per hour? Maybe more of us did that 30 years ago...

I think that kids that do that will figure out how to have whatever they want... and this is NOT at all an assault on those kids who do not ever work a minimum wage job, but just a compliment to the experience earned by kids in a low paying job. The earlier the start in the money game, the better the understanding.

I think that the number of young kids in the job pool is really small these days. Not at all a criticism of the kids, but just an observation. The markets create the offerings, the wants and resulting activity; parents seem to have decided that studying all day is a better program for kids.

And student debt, a whole other story. Of course higher education has strong societal value, but the availability of student loans has driven the cost of education through the roof (and probably cheapened the product); while contributing to some possibly irrational decisions. Perhaps the purchase of boats might be a more viable proposition to those who are emerging, if the temptation of student debt was not so available and looming.

 

[escmanaze]

Interesting take. I think I completely disagree with it. I think the future of waterskiing has everything to do with affordable access and literally almost nothing to do with how many local tournaments happen each summer. Still, an interesting take, worth considering.

[MichaelGoodman]

One of the biggest problems is how much time it takes to ski and the fact only one person can ski at a time. Most all day ski events limit 3 round tournaments to 30 skiers, and it takes all day to get everyone in. For a good practice set it takes at least 20 mins per skier

not leaving much time to ski after work and before dark. On the other hand take a sport like hockey you can have good game with 20 people (22 counting goalies) and be done in

one hour.

[DW]

If competitive waterskiing would be the conduit to saving the sport of waterskiing, the general public would have to be aware that tournaments and water skiing competition even exist. My experience is that in general, which in our case means 99.9% + of the general population, does not even know that one can compete and even fewer know that a top pro water skiing athlete ranks right up at the top in terms of human performance. Not trying to say it is not a good method to reverse a declining trend of participation, just commenting on my experience when I share my passion outside the core group of addicts.

 

[Nando]

@DW makes good points. In my area, we used to have 3-4, sometimes more, tournaments held in the core of the metro area where they were visible and accessible. For years, all had been held an hour or more from the population center, so no one watched. The competitive core was there, but there was never a casual skier who wandered over. I live on what had been the primary tournament lake and am often asked by people why there aren't tournaments anymore. They don't think they've moved, they think there's no more competitive skiing. We hosted a tournament last year, for the first time in nine years and it was amazing how many casual observers showed up. Visibility is one key (just one, but we need it).

[ejj]

I'd disagree, but I am a life-long skier that has never skied the course or been to a live tournament. I think a large population of rec skiers feeds into a competition setting, not the other way around.

 

Take a look at other sports. Downhill skiing--how many people race the Downhill event vs rec skiing. Almost none. How many people wake-surf in competitions vs recreational on any lake? Almost none. Golf is an interesting study--we are seeing a decline in rec golfers and rounds played. Has this affected the ad revenue with Golf Magazines and the Golf Channel on TV? (yes).

 

Related to Waterski Mag, that is a reflection of the print market dying and the rise of Ball of Spray et al. Plus the sharing of the lake with other water activities.

[Edbrazil]

Here is how it used to look. 1964 Nationals on the last day, during Mens Jumping. Solid mat of spectators. Also note the TV camera on the dock at the left. At that time, water skiing competition was seen as an extreme sport, particularly jumping.

[ALPJr]

Looks like Lake Charmauggagaugcharmbaug

[Edbrazil]

@ALPJr correct on the lake, but not on the spelling. Event held in a cove at the North end of the lake. For a non-built ski site, it was a good venue.

[escmanaze]

Lots of sports, particularly action sports like waterskiing, are growing by leaps and bounds, even though the competition side isn't really growing at all.

 

I think a good look at mountain biking, skateboarding, rock climbing, snowskiing, snowboarding, snowmobiling, and probably lots of others would indicate that a huge percentage of the population that are buying the new products that the manufacturers are making do so without ever having the slightest intention of "competing" at official sanctioned competitions.

[brettmainer]

Several thoughts:

1. I like beer

2. @Dirt can babysit for Buford. What could go wrong?

3. When I grew up, it seemed like a quarter of the families I knew skied and CAMPED at the lake...2hrs away. Now, all of my kid’s friends only play soccer/football/baseball and play video games. Noticeable less family camping time. I think that is the root problem. I had never heard of competition skiing before I was 13, but I had skied since I was 5, was better at it than my friends and was competitive. That is the recipe for creating long term water ski junkies like myself.

[aupatking]

Rec skiing was all I had done my entire life, until age 34. As a kid, I wanted to be as good as the pros I saw in Waterski Magazine.

To all of you who don’t think the competitive side matters, what ski are you on? A competition ski, based on R&D done by pros and tested in a slalom course? Do you ski behind a DD tournament boat? Even an old one, it’s the same. They were designed and tested to perform in tournaments and the course.

Take competition out of it, and those things are gone

[DW]

@aupatking : Human nature, given any activity the urge to compete is simply inbred in people, particularly ones with as David Hobbs put it, large attachments. Henry Ford pretty much saved his empire via sanctioning a race with his first car. If its there, we will race it :D

[RINLE]

Competition is good. That is what finally got my son slalom skiing. A new friend in college was way agead of him in wakeboarding and he wanted to be better than him in something so he finally tried more than one time to get up on a slalom ski and did it.

[skiinxs]

I think recreational skiing grows tournament skiing, not the other way around. In my opinion there are a number of factors that have created downward pressure.

1) There are a lot more "fun" things for kids and kids at heart to do than there were when skiing was much bigger. This splinters off the population and potential number skiing.

2) There are many, many more organized sports and activities for kids growing up; baseball practice, soccer practice, hockey practice, football practice, Lacrosse practice, gymnastics practice, cheerleading practice, the list goes on and on. Parents are consumed with being taxi drivers and trying to coordinate the schedules of multiple kids.

3) "Competitive type" skiing has all but disappeared from venues accessible to the general public. This may be the largest cause. As many have mentioned, almost nobody knows that there is a competitive side to the sport, most think skiing is completely dead, as they never see it anymore. The constant "upsizing" of boats on public water is one cause for this. Many years ago when I was a kid I learned to ski and a couple years later learned to slalom ski at Table Rock Lake. Other than a few large cruisers and houseboats, the average boat size was probably around 16'. If you had an 18' boat you had a large runabout! The water was always smooth unless it was really windy. You could ski in the main channel and rarely cross a wake. Today, I would bet that the average size boat is around 26' and there are many much larger. Unless you are back in a cove it is difficult to ski now and it would be very rare to see a competitive type skier. The rough water laid the ground work for "skurfing", later wakeboarding, as the rough water didn't prevent the activity and it was easier to do. As this grew in popularity, the tow boats used became larger and themselves created larger wakes, exacerbating the problem. The next evolution in this process became wake surfing, which could be done on much rougher water, was much easier to do (part of the dumbing down of America, everyone gets a participation trophy). Once again the boats get bigger, get overloaded more and run slower to make a bigger surf wake. The lake gets even rougher, skiing is almost impossible. Now the public never sees anyone trying to be a competitive type skier and the sport appears to be dead. Nobody sees a really good slalom run and says to themselves "I want to do that", because they don't know it exists.

4) Due to the above issues, we have all done everything we can to find private lakes which will allow us to do what we love. Since these private lakes are usually in the middle of nowhere, once again, the public doesn't know we exist.

I think the key to any hope of increasing the popularity of skiing is to somehow get exposure to the general public. The question is HOW? Finding public venues to host events with lots of "walk by" traffic or visibility to those already at a lake would seem to be very helpful, even if conditions aren't ideal. Still, there would be a need to somehow shut down boat traffic in a protected area. Then the "tournament level" skiers would have to show up. What is in it for them? If the conditions are not ideal, bumping up on the ranking list to try to get to nationals probably won't happen. Maybe we need to go back to event awards and "who was the best that day in those conditions" type of mind set. That is the key to success for events like Moomba, Malibu Open, etc.

 

[RINLE]

Not only are their more fun and competitive activities for thr kids today, but their sports are niw year round. Club or travel level sports for the kids now do not have an off season. For example, If your a good soccer player in middle school / high school you now have to play travel soccer year round and your club coach is likely the varsity assistant coach. So if you dont play travel or select you dont start in high school. Some of the families that used to boat with us dropped off after joining travel teams because their weekends at the lake started to be soent at travel tournament weekends.

 

One idea I had to help increase the fun of skiing is a handicap system like in golf where I could come out to the club course for the day, throw some cash down, trash talk the others, then if my daily best run is more competitive relative I go home with the bragging rights and cash that day.

[jcamp]

Can't agree more with the guys above who mention youth sports as one of the things killing water skiing. Families simply don't have time anymore to do things together as a family. Then add the hollowing out of the middle class and the loss of purchasing power that goes with it (and the loss of shift work that allowed for lots of dependable, easily scheduled time off) and it's no wonder participation in skiing has gone down.

[Conor]

I have never been to a tournament and grew up without a boat or waterskiing. But seeing those old tournaments from cox and mapple on tv ,years ago,welded a love for this sport in me that is hard to explain. I think competition is the cornerstone of any sport and it’s hard to see any sport thriving and or surviving without competition at a high level.

[theboardingschool]

I may be biased here, but I think more events like Buoys, BBQ, and Beers, or Radar Nation days could have a lot more of an effect than tournaments. I ski a lot, and I never have any intention of ever skiing in another tournament. Nor do I have any interest in hosting a traditional tournament at TBS. Honestly not much appeal there. Waiting around all day to ski one time, in a pretty intense environment, with a large portion of the people upset about how they skied, with very little interest in how other people skied other than their ski partner. It's not exactly an environment that breeds expansion.

 

But, casual days on the water, based on fun, with more of a focus on hanging out than setting your personal best, are days that people walk away from wanting to do more of. I'm not saying there isn't a place for competitive skiing, I just don't think it has much of an effect moving the needle. People will make time and pay to have a quality experience. My family will come out and spend all day at B, B, & B and have a blast. And, I'll barely see they because I'm bouncing around doing stuff all day. But, I'm pretty sure if I had a 3 round record, they would stay at home.

[jcamp]

"Waiting around all day to ski one time, in a pretty intense environment, with a large portion of the people upset about how they skied, with very little interest in how other people skied other than their ski partner."

 

Appreciate your viewpoint @theboardingschool but none of those things are true about the tournaments I go to. First, three rounds = skiing three times a day ... second, at least in my region people are just pretty damn happy to be there and don't get too worked up about their scores. A lot of self deprecating humor. And we all cheer for each other and have a genuine interest in how everyone skis. Whether it's someone getting into 39 or running all six for the first time, everyone understands we've all got a place we are trying to get to and are supportive of each other.

 

Central Florida can be a bit different though. Maybe trying getting out and about a bit.

[theboardingschool]

@jcamp Sorry for the generalization. I'm sure there are communities out there that are very different than what I described. Maybe it's more of the pro scene that I'm talking about. Maybe I'm wrong all together. But, one thing that a lot of skiers(pro and amatuer) said to me after coming to B, B, & B, is how nice it was that everyone stuck around to watch everyone ski. I had several guys pull me to the side that run tournaments up north asking me what the draw was, and I how I got so many people to come out to ski and hang out all day. And, the only thing I can answer is that it is a way different atmosphere than your standard tournament.

 

Look I owe my life to traditional 3 event skiing. It was what got me to where I am today. I have nothing against it. And, although I don't have any interest in hosting a regular tournament, it is a huge goal of ours to host the collegiate nationals here at TBS. But, once again that is a different vibe than the normal tournament, and more aligned with how we view skiing.

 

Once again, sorry if I offended you or anyone else.

[LLUSA]

Wish you would get back to skiing tournaments, fun is in the winning

[jcamp]

@theboardingschool No offense taken, just wanted to point out that your description of tournaments didn't match they way I'd describe them. I think there are rooms for both types of events (and even more than that) in the sport, for sure.

[mmosley899]

@theboardingschool love your concept and I really wanted to come down, next time! Collegiate Nationals would be fun too! Count me in! These days I am definitely more about hanging out than setting my personal best!

[ColeGiacopuzzi]

@theboardingschool is definitely onto something, being at Buoys, BBQ & Beer was a breath of fresh air, Definitely need to do something like it on the West Coast here in CA. After the day was over I told Travis along with the core group that put it on like he said we were amazed how many people stuck around, almost everyone the whole day. Everyone skied well and most importantly everyone had a smile on there face. I know with local tournaments I go to, a lot of people show up and ski and leave if they aren't helping judge or drive. I can definitely relate about how some pro tourneys can be pretty intense, I'v been there, skied in them and will tell you it can be quite an experience. Don't get me wrong I thoroughly enjoy it; it's fun but all business.