JoeyMc

I don't knowif Jeff posted here being its no longer here... Here's my two cents.By no means whatsoever do I want to discredit anyone'sconcerns because I believe they are all very valid concerns. I wouldalso like to draw some delineations. NCWSA is more a confederationof regions, so every region is different; drawing comparisons acrossthe country is not nessicarily accurate or productive. As a skier who has seen my fair share of collegiate tournaments, Idon't think the trend is moving away from skiing by any meanswhatsoever. I agree with Joe when he says that the SouthCentral is actually not tamer, but you just have to take care of eachother. I also was in charge of a tournament where for once, werarely camped an entire weekend. The saturday night party wasin fact out of control, but the next morning, the site looked exactlyhow we found it. The only issue we had at all was the fact thatsomeone invited friends and they decided to try to drive back at 2:30in the morning. My brother dove through the car window while Iwas arguing with them and stole their keys. They slept in theircar that night. We were also in the middle of a field with noone around at all. I agree with MS.  And just to play the black hat, lets runthe other scenario. A zero tolerance policy on alcohol whereany team drinking at your site is immediately subject to disciplinaryaction. The thing people do not realize is that at least 75% ofcurrent collegiate skiers have never competitively skied. On ourteam and through out most of the South Central (ULL and ULM excluded)that number is closer to 95%. Collegiate teams SURVIVE by invitingpeople in who may not be skiing focused, and teach them how to waterski. Sometimes it pans out, other times it doesn't. You try toget a college student to drive across four states and not have fun. Skiing is important by all means, but its so damn difficult for abeginner to get good at it in a four year period, there has to besomething else to attract them and get them to stay. Its not thealcohol; its the camaraderie. I've met the best friends of my lifein collegiate skiing and some of those experiences involved alcohol(sometimes too much). The matter of adult supervision is alsoproblematic. Everyone there is an adult. And being from the SCR, itmeans we interact with the ULL and ULM sponsors. The joy aboutcollegiate skiing is that college students get to assemble their ownteams, and run them how they say fit. If they have a sponsor, itloses that student leadership aspect which means the most to me. I've learned more from being the captain of a ski team than I canever learn in an internship. Its as 30+ hour a week job. I shot myGPA to hell trying to get my team a place higher at nationals. Manytimes, I spent more time on the lake coaching and driving than I didin class. If it wasn't for collegiate skiing, I wouldn't love waterskiing as much as I do. Ask any collegiate skier, and they will tellyou a similar story. If you ask the ones with adult sponsor, itsmerely a means to ends in some cases, and it feels like it loses alittle bit of the magic. If you banned these memories no one wouldbe buying your used boats or used skis. If you look at thecollegiate water skiing membership numbers, hell look at USA WaterSki numbers. We are keeping your membershp premiums down by bringingmembers to this sport. Collegiate skiing would only exist in schoolslike the UL's. We only get to field 5 guys and 5 girls. Have you ever tried to run a team that only has 10 people on it? Howabout we try to pay (in some cases, ridiculously high) site rentalfees for the opportunity to ski limited sets? Or how about youdrive across multiple states like the midwest? Or buy a 25,000+boat? Does this have to be alcohol related? Not necessarily,but its what College students do. And I realize this sounds likesome sort of cop-out, but lets be quite honest. Its no different thanit was 10, 20, or 30 years ago. If you have a better idea, pleaselet us know, but its not because the “powers to be†have somesort of agenda. We are elected by our members. And to Horton's comment about it being a possible source for thefuture of water skiing. I actually completely disagree. Thegrassroots program and collegiate skiing are the only hope. However,collegiate skiing should not ride this high horse and not live up toits obligations to its officials and site owners. We need to meetyou guys in the middle somewhere. In order to do this, we need toset some ground rules for your specific site. Establish them. Letthe region leadership know. I would be happy to answer any directquestions. However, I should also preface this that my opinions are solely my own, and don't represent those of the NCWSA or any particular region.  Joey McNamara