Why is "team skiing" almost exclusively exclusive to collegiate waterski?

[jgills88]

Let's just get this point out of the way, collegiate waterski easily translates to team skiing because schools are an easy way to group skiers together, and it's more difficult to get the numbers (somewhere between 10 and 30 skiers for 5 rounds in each event) outside of the college environment. Also, world's is another example of team scoring, but I am mostly asking for about AWSA tournaments where people are basically skiing as individuals.

 

Now moving on. Why aren't teams more of a thing in 3-event tournaments? Teams and team points help less skilled skiers stay in the loop and continue skiing until they can become more "threatening" on the water. Skiing with and for other people can help encourage people to go to more tournaments, and adds another flavor for caring about how well other people ski.

 

In my state (Ohio) there have been some forays into team formats as a secondary part of the tournaments. One year, the tournament organizer made teams the day of by taking skier's averages and grouping them into somewhat even teams. Then this past year, they took ski clubs and formed teams based off of those. Both of those formats added to the tournaments, and I think that they can lead to more growth in the sport if building teams for tournaments were more of a thing.

 

Has their been wide adoption of team scoring in the past? What challenges and opportunities does using a team format provide?

[jjackkrash]

The team aspect of college skiing makes it way more engaging and fun; it also carries more pressure with it because teammates are depending on you. There's nothing more fun than college skiing and I wish there were more skiing formats like it.

[ETskier]

Several years ago we had 3 or 4 clubs in central IN where we did an impromptu club team tournament Labor day weekend. It was a blast. So much trash talking and kiddling around. Good food, beer, bon fire, etc, and of course, stories. Kids can be involved too.

[buechsr]

Travers has done their Grand Prix for a few years, which is not only a team event, it also incorporates some non-skiing events. Seems like a super fun idea.

 

My club had a pro am a few years back where everyone skied against their average, which, while not a new concept, would be easy to convert to a team format, either random or planned, as suggested by OP. That seems like a great start to team grouping. You could also ski one round as a seeding round, and then do a team buoy count total for subsequent rounds depending on how many teams were wanted. Heck, even just two teams could spice up an average class C.

 

Although my college was rarely (never) in the running for winning anything, it was fun to pull for your teammates. I hope this is a thought-provoking thread!

 

 

 

 

[klindy]

Part of the collegiate team skiing appeal is that ALL the skiers of one team/event ski together. In other words, you get to see ALL the women trickers or mens slalom skiers. The team points are based completely on the rank of the total number of skiers. So, as soon as the event is over, you can know exactly where each team is in the order of finishers. Same thing with the next 5 events (mens and womens slalom/trick/jump). With traditional 3 event skiing team members ski in various divisions/events at different times and it's nearly impossible to maintain some sort of 'live scoring' (or near real time) to know who's in the lead, etc. So once the tournament is over you can finally do the team scoring. At that time, most folks are headed home and the enthusiasm is gone.

 

In other words, it's a great concept, but doesn't work well based on how tournaments are typically organized. Best to think how we can run/group tournaments differently to accommodate the team scoring or do the scoring differently to maintain the team appeal. Both can be done, just need to define the format.

[Broussard]

@jgills88 The success of the team format of collegiate water skiing has little to do with the on the water competition and more to due with the aspect of of water camaraderie (living together, practicing together, eating together, etc)

 

You cannot replicate that by throwing a group of individuals together as a team for an event.

[Broussard]

Yes, team skiing has been tried in AWSA. In the 80s there were team competitions based on ski clubs - at that time many were still maintaining courses and jump ramps on public water and the ski club structure helped share the costs and work load.

 

More recently there has been an initiative to have skiers represent their respective states at Regionals and Nationals - but in my opinion this program has not been able to produce the intended effect.

 

https://www.teamusa.org/usa-water-ski/three-event-water-skiing/team-skiing

[brettmainer]

A good idea. We could do something in Sacramento. Various local lakes could send their top 5 men and women’s skiers and score it like a college tournament, or maybe the total of each team’s ZBS buoys. Probably slalom only, but it would be fun. A team trophy that could reside on the winning team’s dock until the next year.

[Broussard]

@brettmainer That could actually be a really fun event.

 

The only way that I see team skiing having any success in AWSA is if it is structured by ski club.

 

The issue is that the ski club has been mostly lost in the US and homeowners associations have taken over where everyone owns their own boat and skis with the same one or two people.