My family all skied, with my kids all being good enough to be national competitors until they reached highschool. In highschool other sports & specialization start to happen. I personally skied in boys division back in the 70's and played varsity football & varsity wrestling. As I look back even then to be really competitive in skiing I would have had to devote more time to skiing & missed HS sports. I did manage to win a regionals in boys & compete in Nationals. But my ski season always was cut short for Football summer practices & training. My son went to the same HS and had an outstanding HS football career as a running back, leading to college opportunities, but he didn't have time to practice waterskiing to be at the higher levels & being competitive, he didn't like not being at the top, so in HS he skied some weekends and just had fun. It did help him to be disciplined at an early age as he tried all sports from skiing, football, basketball, baseball, but specialization starts at about highschool. All my kids were skiing a lot by age 6 & going to clinics ect… It was all positive. He took all that discipline into football, and after that ended up doing martial arts, MMA for a couple of years & is a blackbelt in juijuitsi which took 13 years. I took up skiing again in men 2 & still ski in men 6. Skiing is a great sport in that you can learn young & pick it up again later in life. Its also a sport that requires hours & hours of practice to be good at. Even gifted athletes that dont train will get beat by those that put in the time. Competitive water skiing is a huge time commitment and is a lifestyle for those at the top.