Hi everyone, I am one of the officers for the University of Georgia waterski team. We are a collegiate team completing in 3-event collegiate level tournaments. However, we really need some help and guidance. Due to lack of funding and guidance, the ski team is really not doing well here at UGA. With the seniors graduating, we are down to four members (not including incoming freshman). In addition, we do not really have any sort of help from the university. They give us a tiny allowance each year to buy things with, but other than that we are on our own. We could really use any help, guidance, or coaching! I think what we really need is someone who help out with organization. Busy college kids are not the best at running a ski team! Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
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Alumni. You have a wealth of experience and leadership that can be handed down from your alumni.
Me. I will be very willing to sit down and talk all about it with you at one of the spring tournaments. You will likely find me in the boat, or ashore judging.
I don't have a ton of time to pour into it this morning, but I would like to refer you to another similar thread where a lot of discussion was made in regards to your inquiry: ballofspray.com/forum#/discussion/comment/186020
Hope to ski you soon!
I'd add a couple more resources to tap, parents of team members - especially if they are skiers. And the local skiers (most of the team skis are donated by local club skiers) can be very supportive.
Good luck and have fun.
Eric
Promote, promote, promote on campus, all year around! Have monthly call-outs now until the end of the school year. Get people involved who are interested even if they have never been behind a boat before. Don't be afraid to teach them, after all we are here to have fun. The more members you can get the more money you raise and more networking you can do. During my college ski team days we had a whole group of kids who were a great part of the team and their first or second time behind a boat was a school. You don't have to have the "best" skiers on campus....that will come with time, promotion, and a lot of hard work. One thing we did is had boat on campus day. Not sure your situation but if the team has a boat or if someone can bring there boat to campus and hand out flyers with contact information and call out dates.
As for coaching, your current team is your best resource. Help each other out and work to make each other better. If someone has a friend of family member that can come and give pointers that great too! We never had a "coach" during my time in school but all helped out and utilized our best skiers for resource. Video cameras help too, this allows for some self eval.
Hope this information helps, if you have more questions feel free to PM me.
Purdue Waterski Team Alumni
Develop guidebooks as you go along. For example a "how to run a tourney" checklist so that when someone graduates, you don't lose that knowledge and pass it to the next officer. How to secure storage, how to install/take out the course, jump maintenance, ski storage, ski ordering, boat maintenance etc.
I also suggest that you create another post here on BallOfSpray with the title "Looking for University of Georgia Alumni skiers" and that you do the same sort of thing on Facebook. Make sure you friend me on Facebook. I have just short of 2K "friends" and I will re-share any posts you do about your team.
That should be a start. Keep me in the loop and we will see what happens.
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Support BallOfSpray by supporting the companies that support BallOfSpray
Barts★ Connelly ★ DBSkis ★ Denali ★ Goode ★ Follow ★ Hobe Lake ★ MasterCraft ★ Masterline ★
McClintock's ★ Performance Ski and Surf ★ Reflex ★ Radar ★ Rodics OffCourse★Stokes
Also, I would update your website. Take a look at some of the other teams sites to get some inspiration.