Icons of The Sport - Carl Roberge

[ALPJr]

Just because...

 

[Andre]

Can 't remember the last time we heard of him...

Still skiing?

[Horton]

Carl lives in Orlando and skis on occasion. He still loves the sport.

[foxriverat]

Loved to watch him ski. He was a beast.

[eyepeeler]

I think it was 1986 in Wichita on the pro tour on the Arkansas River. I saw Carl do something that I have never seen any other skier do. At 38 off he severely broke over at one ball and down in the water...I thought he was done...he pulled broken over all the way to two ball...severely broken over down in the water...pulled broken over all the way to three ball...he ran the whole pass broken over and down in the water. I have never seen any other skier able to do that. And then tops it off with a tick tock.

[dbaconaz]

Awesome skier! One of the taller jumpers at that time and was always fun to watch him fly!!

[CBR51]

As stated above undefeated on Pro Jump Tour in 96. That’s impressive!

[liquid d]

Living in New Smyrna surfing more than skiing. He sets up employee benefit plans for companies. Doing great!

[Chef23]

When I was probably 10 we bought a Western Wood slalom from Carl out of the back of the Water Skier. It was beautiful wood and was the first ski I had with any type of tunnel. This would have been 76 probably. It was really cool to have his ski even then.

[Zman]

Carl's sister Karen was also a solid water skier.

[MrJones]

I thought those Sundeck shorts were so cool!

 

@eyepeeler

Dave Benzel had an article in Waterski back in the real early 1990's making one line comments about a bunch of pro skiers. Carl's was something to the effect of "if I had to pick one skier to make six mistakes at 38, and still run it.... Carl Roberge".

[Wish]

Had and missed the opportunity to ski with him recently and missed out do you schedule conflict. Bummed I could not make it. Hoping for another opportunity. Legend.

[DangerBoy]

Apparently, he had/has quite a sense of humor to go along with all that ability. Saw this poster for sale on eBay a while back... :D

 

 

[kc]

@DangerBoy I saw a video of Regina with a two ball at 39 that looked like that. She ran the pass. ?

[ALPJr]

I hope you bought it.

[DangerBoy]

The thing that really bugs me about that poster is that I can't cut that well on either side when holding the handle in the correct hand. :(

[geans]

I remember seeing Carl ski at the Coors Light tournaments at Marine World near San Francisco. Those were some of the best competitions ever! The lagoon was too short for a 6 buoy course so they ran 4-ball course - great entertainment for sure

[jcamp]

The old saying is never meet your heroes. Carl was my hero when I was growing up and I've had the great fortune of meeting/talking with him a couple times over the years and he is just one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet.

[DangerBoy]

Winning both jumping and slalom at the same time is pretty tough isn't it? I mean, slalom tends to favor taller guys but doesn't jumping typically favor shorter people? I'm assuming it does mainly because Jaret Llewellyn is only about 5'6" but other than that fact I'm not sure if it's fair to say that jumping generally favors shorter people over taller ones.

 

At any rate, if taller people tend to do better than shorter people in slalom, generally, and if shorter people tend to do better than taller people in jumping, generally, then for Carl to be able to win both events concurrently and that he's the only one that's ever done it would really speak to his extraordinary talent and ability.