Response to Points to Ponder ...

Thor,

Good to hear from you.  A lot of the things you have posted on your website about the
current status of competitive barefooting has been discussed in great detail in many
conversations that I've had with other footers.  I would like to back you by saying that you
are right on target with the spectator appeal and manufacturer support for the sport.

I think that the largest hurdle that we have to jump to gain manufacturer support is with our
numbers.  This is a vicious circle.  To gain manufacturer support you need a consumer
base.  To gain a consumer base you have to have media coverage.  Media coverage is paid
for by advertising from the manufacturer.  Everything breaks down to cost versus potential
profit.  We just don't have the numbers in competitive barefooting to justify manufacturers to
sponsor major events or media coverage for us.  Heck, it's tough enough just to get
products made.  If conventional waterskiing and wakeboarding didn't use similar equipment
then we would be really hurting.

Right now barefooting isn't the only water sport that's suffering for coverage.  I was hard
pressed this year to find any type of waterskiing on the cable sports channels that I have.  I
did find one Van's Tripple Crown wakeboarding event and some Wakeboarding on the
Extreme Games.  I never did find anything for the Gravity Games.  No Pro Tour stops.  No
American or English masters tournament coverage.  What I did find: Spelling Bee's, Cheer
Leading, LumberJacks, Dog Show's, Billiards and enough Bass Fishing to make me sick.

I remember when I first learned to waterski/barefoot.  I was stationed in Charleston, SC in
the early 90's.  Charleston is Bubba heaven (Bubba = Walley).  Everyone has a boat down
there.  In the summer of 93' a buddy of mine took me skiing and showed me around the
waterways.  I thought skiing/pleasure boating was just a part of life that I had missed out on
because I grew up in Columbus, Ohio where there isn't a lot of navigatable water per capita.  
Until then my idea of boating was to drive 600 miles north to Canada for a week of fishing on
a small lake with a 12' rowboat and a 6HP outboard motor.  Immediately after I went home
from water skiing for the first time I noticed coverage of waterskiing on all of the sports
channels.  I never remembered seeing it before but I knew I couldn't get enough of it.  I was
hooked!  Before I knew it I was barefooting, slaloming, and kneeboarding.  I bought a new
boat etc. etc.  Everywhere I looked I saw watersports and watersports became an everyday
part of my life.  Back then ESPN had a program on Wednesday called Hot Summer Nights
where they had all kinds of water sports events.  I remember watching Kneeboard Nationals,
Barefoot Nationals, Show Ski Nationals, Master's Tournaments and the list goes on.

In the summer of 1995 I got transferred to the USS Seawolf in Groton, CT.  I used the
Eastern Region Tournament Guide to find some barefooters.  It just so happened that
shortly after getting to CT the first Extreme Games was being held in Providence, RI barely
45minutes away.  The Baystate Barefoot Club, whom I'm now a part of put on the whole
event for ESPN.  Now I was in heaven!  I got to meet every big name footer that I had heard
of or seen in the magizines and on TV in one spot.  It seemed like the barefoot community
was enormous that weekend.  All the pro's took the time to mingle with the crowd.  Banana
George was there doing his thing.  Barefooting was at it's peak.  The Baystate Barefoot club
had probably close to active 50 members and the Regionals that year had about 80 skiers.  
Now we are down to 11 active members and regionals surprising had 38 skiers, up from 25
the year before.  Our average local tournament has about 12-15 skiers.

So what happened to our skier base?  Did everyone get too old and broken down to stay
with barefooting?  Did wakeboarding take over?  I know that here in the East competitive
barefooting took a major hit with the death of Hank Butler at the 1996 regionals.  Hank fell
face first into the Jump and died shortly there after of major brain trauma.  This happened in
front of a crowd of several hundred skiers and spectators.  I was judging on #1 jump stand;
my wife and kids were there.  Instantaneously competitive barefooting in the East dropped
by over 50%.  Those who were into footin' for the glamour were gone and many others
drifted towards other less dangerous hobbies.  We are down to bare bones here in the east
with hard core skiers that go to tournaments because they love to Ski, Socialize, and
Compete or some combination of those reasons.  We are getting some new blood into the
sport out here but our attrition rate was much greater for several years.

I could go on and on about my perception of the last 10 years of barefooting but that really
doesn't pose a solution to the problem.  I know that we are going in the right direction with
rule changes and grass-roots programs to boost our numbers.  One thing I have noticed
though is that we already have a large number of footers in the ABC or USA Water Ski, they
just don't care to compete for one reason or another.  They choose to ski quietly in their
own back yard and occasionally take a trip to a ski school or hold a clinic.  There are many
ideas on how to change the format to make it more fun to compete and draw a crowd but
unfortunately it costs a lot of money in many cases to put on these events.  Tournament
fee's are high and the average person doesn't want to pay anywhere from 40 - 100 dollars
for just 4 pulls down the lake, 6 if you happen to jump.  Add in the cost of travel and vacation
time lost from work and you have a very expensive sport for many people to participate in
competitively let alone the cost of owning and operating a boat.  And what for?!?  most
tournaments don't have cash prizes or trophy's and it's getting harder to find a free t-shirt
out of the deal.

Over the years our favorite skiing areas have been getting over-run with Bassholes and
Jetskiers.  This is the great paradox to me.  Fishing has got to be one of the most boring
things in the world to do.  Bass fishermen don't even eat what they catch so every dime they
spend hauling their boats and running all over town to find the perfect bait is a complete
waste.  Jet Skies are the equivalent to riding a big-wheel down a driveway....they are fun for
the first five minutes or so, but after that what's left?  Why?  It's because of the advertising,
media, and consumer base.  Everybody's doin' it,  Seadoo!  So everybody wants to do it.  
Every Saturday morning like clock-work you can browse through the cartoons with your kids
and find bass-fishin' on TV...."Lookie at dat wun...now dat's a feeush!"  People eat this stuff
up and they come back for more.  Down in Charleston when I was there most of the bubba's
would drive up with a 20,000.00 bass boat and a 200HP Merc on the back, all the bells &
whistles but he was towing it with a 70's Ford Pickup truck being held together with bailing
wire.  The skiers drove a 20,000.00 pickup truck and had a 70's model Glastron being held
together by the carpet glue.  You know how many times I heard the phrases "goin' fishin'",
or "whaddia gonna catch whit dat big pole stickin outta da side of yer boat?" in reference to
the boom...and yes I get it up here in Connecticut, not to poke fun of the South.  I would
make reference to modern America as having the "NasCar Syndrome" where people don't
want to be actively involved with a sport other than to drink beer and watch others crash but
I won't.  Barefooters are more outgoing than that.

The best idea I've heard yet came from Scott Coley of the Wisconsin WaterSki Association
is  "An all time All WaterSports Network".  We as barefooters, or wakeboarders, 3-eventers,
kneeboarder's, IceSkaters, Surfer's, SnowBoarders, Snow Skiers etc don't have enough
participation or the season to justify a network by itself, but collectively we do.  If somehow
we could start a Cable or Satellite channel dedicated to water sports (snow and ice
included) then we could get the coverage we need and deserve for the smaller disciplines
with funding coming from the larger ones.  Eventually after the network gets off the ground
the smaller / unrecognized disciplines will take off and it will be a snowball rolling down hill.  
Heck, if golf can have it's own channel I'm sure we can to.

Anyway, I gotta run.  Just some food for thought and I thought I would take the time to
introduce myself.  I like your website and many of it's ideas.


Thanks,

John Skobrak Sr.
P.S.  By the way, we did have some more negative re-enforcement to Hank Butler; back in
1999 Bruce Granger fell before the jump in almost the same way.  He ended up with some
broken bones in his face and shoulder and suffered some permanent nerve and brain
damage.  Needless to say that barefoot jumping here in the east is taken very seriously.  
We have several people that refuse to be present during the jump event because of this.  
Also we found out how poor the tournament insurance coverage really is, but that's another
topic.