For the first time in 20 years, Ohio University Club Waterski qualified to compete in regionals after a season of hard work and dedication. The team competed at the National Collegiate Water Ski Association Tournament in the Midwestern Region. The competition took place in Decatur, Illinois, and OU’s women’s slalom placed fifth.
Since before their first tournament in early September, OU’s club waterski team has made some impressive improvements despite many of its members being inexperienced with the sport. A team comprised of 21 skiers, they compete against other collegiate teams.
Sarah Jaroch, a junior studying hearing, speech and language sciences and the team's vice president, said the team is the biggest it has been in her time here with last year’s team being only around 10 people.
The skiers all have different skill levels, with no experience required to join. As a team, OU Club Waterski participates in three events: slalom, trick and jump.
The scoring varies among the events. According to Jaroch, slalom is when the skiers are tasked with navigating around buoys and they receive points based on their performance. For the trick category, the judges score skiers for what tricks they do and the varying difficulty of them. Lastly, the jump category is similar in the sense skiers are scored based on how far they can jump after going over a five-foot ramp.
President of the team, Madison Fantelli, a senior studying interior design, described how much the team has grown from her freshman year, in which COVID-19 left a hefty dent in the team’s numbers. Additionally, the poor weather during two consecutive Student Involvement Fairs affected the team’s recruitment levels.
“The team was super, super small, and then, my sophomore year, the Involvement Fair was a total rainout, so we barely got anybody that year,” she said, “Junior year, again, was another rainout, and it wasn’t until this year that there was actually an Involvement Fair that actually had sunny weather where we could actually recruit people.”
Fantelli emphasized the accepting atmosphere of the team, highlighting skiers can be from all backgrounds and skill levels.
“Anybody can be part of this team, anybody can come out and do it,” she said.
One obstacle some interested parties faced before joining the team was expenses. According to Fantelli, the cost of practice time often limited the potential for improvement among members; that was until sponsors made it more accessible to all.
Brothers Dirk, class of ‘90, and Deacon Dzierawski, class of ‘93, were both on OU’s waterski team during their time on campus. Deacon’s son Aden joined the team last year, and the brothers seek to ensure the team has all the support they need to be successful.
After witnessing the team that was once so successful struggle to perform well due to inaccessibility, the Dzierawskis made it their mission to offer both financial and training support. As alumni, the brothers consider it their duty to ensure today’s students can experience the same joy they got from the sport.
“For a regular college student, having to pay for ski time (like) 20 bucks for 15 minutes is a lot of money, right?” Deacon said, “In order to be good, you got to be on the water for a couple of hours a week just to get to where you’re going and so, we figured we can tackle this first thing by eliminating and reducing the barrier to access the water.”
Deacon said they were able to work out an agreement with staff at Yellow Dog Lake where the team practices to remove the financial barrier of gaining practice time.
Without having to worry about the financial cost, skiers can now concentrate on improving their skills while taking as much time as they need.
In addition to sponsoring the team, Dirk, who has made a living by waterskiing since 1991, provides training and mentorship for the team.
“My brother has been doing research on how their team can be more active in club sports (such as) what they need to do to get the word out, what they need to do to take advantage of the funds available to clubs,” Dirk said, “Then, where I come in is for the training aspect. I want to help them with their training, how they need to approach these problems they’re having as a team, obstacles that they need to overcome.”
Having alumni support has rejuvenated the team and, according to the Dzierawksis, they estimate the students’ hard work will land them a spot in the national tournament by 2025.
The reason why providing support for the team is so important to them, Deacon said, is that it’s more than just a sport. According to him, being on a team allows students to develop •relationships, leadership skills, methods of self-coaching and teamwork skills. Additionally, the Dzierawksis were adamant that the recognition for the team’s budding success should be given to the team itself.
“We didn’t ski for them, we didn’t recruit the people, we didn’t get them on the water, we didn’t control them, they did that all themselves,” Deacon said. “This progress is on them.”
As the team approaches its offseason, the group plans on lots of celebratory bonding within the team and with other university waterski teams in the form of regular hangouts, lake trips and more.
Evidently, the hard work and dedication of both the skiers and the Dzierawskis seem to have paid off. OU’s water ski team seems to have a bright future on the horizon.
