Spring break with ski team was always the best week of my year. The Illini Water Ski Team would pack up the cars on Friday night sometime between 4pm and 8pm (depending on who was playing a game of Jenga that they just couldn’t get out of), and drive through the night to Santa Rosa Beach, Florida to ski at Pickos Waterski School for the week. As it turns out, teams are still making the ceremonial pilgrimage to ski school each spring. I was fortunate enough to catch up with Miami University, University of Wisconsin – Stout, Marquette University, and University of Iowa.
Miami University
Miami University’s team spent their spring break at Swiss Waterski Resort in Clermont, Florida. They had twelve skiers (three seniors, four juniors, three sophomores, and two freshman) on the trip.
Plenty of skiers saw personal bests on this trip – both freshmen ran the course for the first time! Further, several skiers spent some time getting comfortable with “Big Red,” including Kevin (junior) who is starting to learn to ¾ cut.
Some of the teams’ favorite moments include:
- Getting to spend time in the boat listening to Clint and Franz coach our skiers. Being able to bring back some of their knowledge to share with our other skiers will be so beneficial!
- Hanging out lakeside, as if it were tournament season again!
- Junior slalom skier Madison said her favorite moment was getting to try out trick skiing, and watching everyone around her improve so much.
- Junior jump skier Kevin, said his favorite moment was starting to learn to 3/4 cut.
- On a day off, some skiers headed to Disney World while the rest of the team spent the day at the beach hanging out in the sun.
University of Wisconsin – Stout
UW-Stout spent Spring Break with Marquette University’s ski team at Bennett’s Waterski and Wakeboard School in Zachary, Louisiana. The team has been going on spring break for a few years now. A few years ago, the team started going to Bennett’s, and before that, the team went to Georgia together for spring break. In true ski team fashion, Stout and Marquette had a couple theme nights over spring break: Tuesday was Retro, Wednesday was Hawaiian with crawfish, and Thursday was denim-themed.
Taking our team on a spring break trip to a ski school is very beneficially as we all improve our skills and its great team bonding. There is no better way to spend spring break than skiing on a private lake with your friends. — Kaitlin Mallek
Some of the teams’ favorite moments include:
- First time landers: Kaitlin Mallek, Travis Revolinski, and Sam Hoheisel. It felt amazing knowing after all those attempts at landing a jump but constantly falling, that you finally got the hang of it.
- Kaitlin Mallek: My favorite part of the trip was getting together with Marquette and skiing all day with them. It was a great way to bond as a team, and to bond with Marquette as well. Also, the day I landed my first jump! On Wednesday, we had crawfish which was the first time I’ve had it, and it was delicious!
Genna Boeckmann: Her favorite part was coming back as an alumnus, and getting to know the current team. The trip made her want to be more involved, and keep up with the team. She also enjoyed joining up with Marquette to play, such as doing a big group belly flop, and tubing on Friday morning. It’s something we typically never get to do, and Luke (a coach at Bennetts) was a great driver.- Austin Anderson: He joined our team 2 weeks before spring break and wanted to join us for our trip. At Bennett’s he learned how to water ski, slalom, and jump. He said that “spring break was awesome! I was honestly kind of scared of going down to Louisiana not knowing how to ski. Not knowing the team very well yet, made it a little more nerve-wracking. But through great support of the team, I learned how to get up on two skis, and progressed to slalom skiing and jumping all within four days! Along with that we had a lot of great adventures. It was the greatest decision of my life, even though I was hesitant to join because I didn’t know how to ski.”
- Sam Hoheisel: Sam improved his form in all events and also landed his first jump. He said, “Landing a jump is addicting! The best feeling is riding away after landing a jump!”
Marquette University
As mentioned, Marquette joined UW-Stout in Louisiana at Bennett’s for their spring break. Marquette has a small team with many new skiers that were willing to step out of their comfort zones and try new things on spring break. Many of their female skiers landed their very first jumps over spring break, and many of their male skiers began cutting at the ramp. Led by Jack Misina, the team’s designated trick skier, the team was able to build a complete A-team to compete in trick this upcoming season.
Hannah Strachan says, “Overall, our board could not be more proud of the performances we saw this sprin
g break, as well as the team bonding that took place.”
Marquette’s team shared their favorite moments:
- Patrick O’Brien: It was nice to get out of the cold Wisconsin weather for a while, and the coaches were great, extremely helpful.
- Steph Hornik: The best part was being emerged in the waterski world 24/7, and expanding our ski family to include the Stout ski team, also continuing the belly flop tradition.
- Ben Walczak: My favorite parts of the trip were improving beyond what I thought I was capable of, and watching the team bond and come together throughout the week, and of course, afternoon tans on the dock.
- Allie Arnston: Getting to jump all day long.
- Hannah Strachan: It was great to be able to hear about the history of Bennett’s from Anne and Jay, and they were so welcoming to us all. We couldn’t have asked for better hosts.
- Patrick O’Brien, Jack Misina, Steph Hornik all had personal bests learning how to single cut on the jump and landing.
- Isabel Isaacson ran her first full pass on the mini course.
- Jack Misina learned how to do regular and reverse toe slides and a toe O on the trick ski.
- For many of our team members, including Sydney Kutsch and Rachel Weeks, this was the first time that they landed a jump.
This trip to Bennett’s was an amazing opportunity for our team, as it not only provided us with a warm and sunny week in the middle of March (something that can’t be found in Wisco), but also a learning experience and a perfect opportunity to brush of the rust before spring tournaments. — Hanna Stachan
University of Iowa
Iowa’s team went to Swerve Watersports Center in Tennessee, run by none other than Team Midwest Alumnus Mike “Unicorn” Bullock and the location for the 2019 NCWSA All-Stars. Iowa teamed up with the UW-LaCrosse and Iowa State University teams, and had a great time. Last year was Iowa’s first year at Swerve, and they had so much fun, they decided to return this year.
There were some good crashes (you can see that on #CrashingIntoMonday) and a lot of new personal bests from all three teams. We had to push through some pretty cold weather (it snowed one morning), but we got a couple warmer and sunnier days.
We all learned a lot and had a great time! Iowa’s team left a day earlier than LAX and Iowa State, so we missed out, but they had their own night jump session! They said that it was their highlight of the trip. — Hope LaMonica, University of Iowa
For these teams and others, their Spring Break #shreducation was a success!
- Spring Break 2018! - April 6, 2018
- Alumni Spotlight: Cole Kalkbrenner - February 23, 2018
- Auburn Volunteers at Storybrook Farm - January 30, 2018
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