Just when any sensible Midwesterner with a boat and water skis has exchanged them for more seasonally appropriate gear, such as fireplace tongs and flannel pajamas, along comes the 19th annual National Collegiate Water Ski Championships, scheduled to run Thursday through Saturday in Wilmington, south of Joliet.
While other campus jocks are passing the old pigskin this weekend, shielded from the elements by jerseys and padding, some 170 collegiate water skiers will be throwing flips, slicing around slalom buoys and flying off a 5-foot ramp in water that’s bound to be bracing. Twelve teams, representing six conferences around the country, will compete for a national title for the first time ever in the Midwest.
They’re prepared for apres-ski. “We’ll be bringing long johns and jackets,” drawled Bill Bagley, water ski coach at Northeast Louisiana University, the powerhouse of collegiate water skiing. The NLU Indians, who ski on a bayou that cuts right across their campus in Monroe, have tucked 13 of the last 18 national titles under their life vests.
Besides NLU, other schools competing this week in what has been called the “Yankee Nationals” are the University of Southwestern Louisiana, Texas A&M, Rollins College and Eckerd College in Florida, Bates College in Maine, Arizona State University, University of Washington, University of Alabama, Clemson University in South Carolina, Michigan State University–and the host of this year’s tournament, Purdue University.
If right now you’re thinking the words “Boilermaker” and “water skiing” don’t seem to go together, you’re not alone. “People are always amazed to find out Purdue has a water ski team,” said Jeff Surdej (pronounced SER-day), president of the school’s 106-member club. “It’s because of the weather. You say `water skiing’ and people immediately think of Florida. You’d get the same reaction if you said Florida Southern College had a snow ski team.”
Sort of the Jamaican Bobsled Team of water skiing, the Purdue Water Ski Team got started in 1984 but didn’t even have a boat until this year. Before that, they practiced when they could behind a boat borrowed from the Kokomo (Indiana) Ski Club, an hour from Purdue’s West Lafayette campus, and surprised even themselves by placing eighth at last year’s nationals. “Being there was a dream,” last year’s club president Chad Kodiak told WaterSki magazine. “Finishing eighth was like winning.”
This year, the Boilermaker skiers acquired a boat and a site 15 minutes from campus. “It’s a 4,000-foot lake owned by a peat moss farmer,” said Surdej. “The real name of it is Otterbein Lake, but we call it Lake Purdue.”
The 18 previous collegiate nationals, always held in October, have taken place in more ski-appealing places, including Milledgeville, Ga.; Austin, Texas; Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.; Sacramento, Calif.; and Monroe, La. So how did the biggest tournament in collegiate skiing end up amid cornfields just south of Chicago? And where the heck is the water?
The site is Water’s Edge Estates, a community of planned homes and townhouses recently developed by Shorewood residents and water ski fanatics Barbara and Roy Surdej, parents of Jeff Surdej. Water’s Edge, where buyers have snapped up waterfront lots, has two small man-made lakes, perfect for serious skiing.
“This is like our own `Field of Dreams,’ ” said 41-year-old Barbara Surdej, who grew up in Chicago (“near 31st and Pulaski”), but has skied since she was a child with the Wilmington Ski Warriors, a club that uses an old strip-mine-turned-lake. The Surdejs are building a lakefront home at Water’s Edge. “We’re not rich people,” said Barbara Surdej, “but this is something we’ve always wanted to do. We found investors, got a bank loan, bought land and sold lots.”
Last year, Water’s Edge Estates and Purdue got an enthusiastic nod from the NCWSA’s board of directors to host the 1997 championship. “The vote was unanimous. The tournament has always been in the South or West, but Purdue has one of the largest teams, with the most spirit, and people started saying, `Why don’t you guys have it?’ ” said Jeff Surdej. Then reality set in. “Definitely a lot of southern skiers are worried about the cold. They’re afraid that in Illinois in October, it could be snowing.” To allay fears, the hosts have promised to provide several warming amenities for the skiers.
“We’ll have dressing rooms with heaters on the starting dock. That’s a first for any tournament I know of,” said Jeff Surdej. “We’ll also have a hot tub on the dock, and we may have a hot shower to kind of heat up the water right where you’re jumping in.”
NLU freshman Ron Fitts of Shreveport still expects to shiver. “It’s not so hard when you drop down into the water. It’s when you get pulled back up that it’s super-cold.” Fitts and other skiers said they probably won’t wear wetsuits, as the skin-tight outfits that retain body warmth also restrict movement.
The tournament skiers may get goosebumps, but so will more warmly dressed spectators as they watch phenomenal skiing that bears little resemblance to the goof-around recreational variety. In men’s and women’s slalom, scheduled for Thursday, competitors zig-zag on a single ski through a “course” of six buoys, throwing huge walls of spray (and occasionally taking spectacularly acrobatic falls). Each new “pass” becomes more difficult to complete as the rope is shortened and the boat speed is increased (up to 34 m.p.h. for women and 36 for men).
The two other events, on Friday and Saturday, are jumping, which is thrilling to watch and potentially dangerous, and trick skiing, featuring body-twisting spins, flips and rope toe-holds. (Jumping may well be the competitors’ favorite event in Wilmington because protective — and warm — suits and helmets are required attire.)
Each person who’ll compete is an outstanding college athlete, but a few are more than that — they’re professional. Because water skiing is not an NCAA sport, qualified university team members may also compete for money. As to the number of pros who’ll compete at the nationals, “We’ll at least be in double digits,” said Jeff Surdej. Among them will be Rollins College senior Rhoni Barton, cover girl for the October WaterSki magazine and winner of several pro tournament titles. NLU’s Jamie Beauchesne was one of the hottest young slalom skiers last summer on the Cafe de Colombia Water Ski Tour, which showcases the sport’s top athletes at stops around the world. Beauchesne’s teammate Fitts, 18, also skis on the pro tour and currently holds the world record as the youngest person to jump farther than 200 feet.
In addition to having members who ski professionally, several of the top collegiate teams have other advantages over their Midwestern counterparts, including on-campus practice sites and money (not to mention better training weather). According to NLU coach Bagley, “Our kids can go to class from 8 to 8:50 in the morning, walk down and take a ski set (on the bayou) between 8:50 and 9:50, and be at a 10 o’clock class.” Teams at hot ski schools also get financial support from their administrations, which helps pay for everything from scholarships to boat gas.
“We don’t get a dime from the university,” said Purdue’s Surdej. Last year, however, the team raised $4,500 to pay for boat and ski site maintenance, gas and tournament expenses. “We took my parents’ boat to football games and parked it outside the stadium. We’d be in our ski gear and pass donation jars, asking for help getting to nationals. It seems like everybody in America has tried to water ski and people were really supportive.”
Regarding possible cool weather for the championship, the Purdue team president isn’t worried. He’s chilled out before on skis. “At the regionals in Decatur a few years ago in September,” he recalled, “we were scraping ice off the boat windows.”
———-
Besides the collegiate competition this weekend, there will be Tommy Bartlett-style pyramids by show skiers, an exhibition Saturday by world record-holding trick skier Cory Pickos and a wakeboard demonstration (flips and jumps on the aquatic equivalent of a snowboard). Admission is free. For hours and other information, call 773-582-0102.
