Best Insurance

Hey I am with the Kstate wake team and currently we have a very poor insurance plan. what insurance are other teams using, is it through the wwa? also what does it cost, thanks and expect a tourny in late aug early october!!!!

If you affiliate your club as a USAWaterski Club you get the USA Waterski Insurance. I don't know if WWA has the same set-up, I would assume they should. The drawback to this is EVERY member must join USAWaterski in order to participate. I would recommend partnering with your outstanding Waterski Team since they have the same insurance. If there is bad blood like at KU thats just sad, sorry, but you're all trying to achieve the same thing. Where will your tournament be? Tuttle? If you use Super Lake you'll have to have USA Ski insurance anyway. Good luck.

Definately go with the USA WaterSki insurance, it is pretty good, but it will take more hurdles to jump then others when it comes to tournament times. If you've got any questions, IM me, I've set up about 10 K-State tournaments, 4 of them had wakeboarding events. We never had much bad blood when I was there.

What's the bad blood at KU? They always got along pretty good when I was at State, and I've got good friends on that team and never hear them say anything negative.

(Message edited by kstateskier on March 14, 2007)

Nick, if you don't know I am Matt's little brother and took over when he graduated... Everyone Matt knew on the ski team has also moved on.
Because the ski team here at KU has always refused to give us any money we broke off and formed our own club so we could start getting financial help from the school. Now the ski team hates us because they lost over six thousand dollars a year from the school because we left. So now neither of us are getting near the amount of money as we could if we would have worked together...
The lesson is always share boys and girls...

Zach, that sucks. I know we had the same issues at K-State, though when I was there the wakeboard group didn't really want to pull much weight, so they got very little help from us, though we did host some wakeboard tournaments on our own. Collegiate wakeboarding was in the very early stages then as well.

Yeah, for sure. I really wanted to make something work between waterskiing and wakeboarding because the combined team would pull much more weight with the university, and the joined events were always cool. But man, for 4 years everything was always just such a battle with them on the $ side, breaking off was just what had to be done.

I had some good friends from the waterski team. Honestly, the problem is not with the kids, it is with the way the administration (Jason Krone) runs club sports. He's a pain in the ass and creates a totally negative, cut-throat environment that breeds this kind of animosity.

My advice to other clubs out there is to do what you can to work together on a joint waterski/wakeboard team, but if it doesn't work out, don't let yourselves get screwed - jump through the hoops and get your own stuff set up. But definetly, this trash-talking crap is way off base. If someone else enjoys three-event more than wakeboarding, that's cool with me. Anyone talking trash for real on the opposite discipline needs to grow up and open their eyes.

Can we look at it realistically. The sports are a just a little too different in the day to day works. 3-event holds practice, they ARE more disciplined in that aspect. They more than likely practice multiple events and try to better the team. I'm sure there may be a few riders that would do that, but not the majority. How many wakeboarders want to compete in the trick event at a tourney? How many will try the other events? My take, 3 event is a true competitive group of people wanting to further their team. Wakeboard is a club of people wanting to go hang on the lake, ride, and tell someone they went on a boat that day. Thats why Clinton is a fun place to go now.

Side note: Did you hear about the alligator being pulled out of Lake Shawnee?!?

Different, for sure. But that aside, neither club is getting as much money seperate as they would if they were combined. "Practice" wise, the only difference is that the skiiers hang out on the dock until their set to keep the wake small, and the wakeboarders all pile into the boat. Yeah, right now collegiate 3 event is way more structured, but I think most of the kid's main focus is still boat races after the tournament.

Alligator in Shawnee? Must have been a pet that got too big. So what did they do with it?

That's a little freaky about the Shawnee thing.

I agree with Aaron that 3 event is more like an actual college sports team. Travelling and practices are much more structured. Wakeboarders like to go out and have more fun, just like the skiers do away from the ski team. That's just my view from K-State when I was there and don't want to say that's the way it was everywhere. At K-State, the ski team was trying to be the best in the region and one of the best programs in the country, where the wakeboarders were mainly just looking for pulls. Either way, everyone was looking for a good time.

My only gripe that the wakeboarders never understood, it takes a lot more money to move 16 people to 6+ events across the country then to get 20 people out behind a wakeboard boat 20 minutes from campus every day. I am glad to see wakeboarding getting a little more structured on the national scene and more competitions, which to me makes it more legit to get the same $$.

The best skiers are always the best boat racers....

They took the gator out and it's at some habitat place, it was small and def someones released pet. Just wish I could have been there to see all those old Park Rangers faces freaking out on a such a little one. http://49abcnews.com/news/2007/mar/29/lions_and_tigers_and_gators_kansas/

Good luck with everything, and just keep pushing. In the long run getting as many people involved and going to competitions will get you where you want to go, it will just take a bit. Maybe get the INT involved, or copy Pizzou and do a cable comp. Which by the way IU will be representin at.
What up Nick! Hope all is well.

I attend Missouri State Univeristy and this is what I see as far as wakeboarding vs the water ski part. I think more people would be more inclined to wakeboard in the comps if you were given a fair shot. You can hardly pull of anything with the 30 seconds or whatever they give you in tourney's. Maybe college tourney's should add a whole another aspect to the tournament and include wakeboarding.

David,

I am slowly working on that in the MidWest. Look for a wakeboard only comp in Indiana this fall, and after that things may change.

David, we have been through countless meetings in the Midwest, and wakeboarding will never be added as a fourth event, just for the fact that time will not allow it with so many pulls. Wakeboarding also doesn't fit in the trick event. In my opinion you need to have wakeboard only comps like Aaron is putting together.

Weeks, how you been? If you get something together, let me know. I'm living in Illinois now, so I'm not too far from Indiana.

Things are good. Dropped the boat in and rode all last week, had to pull it back out last night and winterize again. I'm helping out the IU ski/wake team, real good group of people. Hope to have a good comp put together in the fall right before it starts getting cold. Nice lake (public though), and B-town can get down at night, so we have high hopes. Keep ya updated.

Sounds good, either way I'll probably catch up with you at Regionals in DuQuoin, it's right down the road from my house.