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Jose Luis Tejada- Purdue
A lot of people put in a lot of hard work to make strides for themselves and for their teams. But at the end of the day it’s still the numbers that speak volumes and qualify you and your team for the national tournament. Jose is incredibly dedicated- just like a lot of us, but on the water, Jose is a force to be reckoned with and performing at levels a lot of us only dream of. “Jose from Purdue” is a name that everyone knows and is the best overall skier in the Midwest. Jose put up scores of 2.5 bouys @ 35′ off in slalom, 140 ft in jump (at 31.7!) and 2570 in trick, leaving him ranked first in the region in jump, trick and overall.
(Written by Mallin and a bit by Joey for NCWSA Awards… I just couldn’t have said it better!)
2019 was a huge year for the Bearcats. I’ve been around for 4 years now, and seeing the incredible individual and team growth that UC put together this season was unbelievable. Our 2018 season ended abruptly and disappointingly, but it truly set a fire under our feet to come back better and stronger the next year. We accomplished quite a bit in such a quick turn-around.
The annual alumni banquet in February successfully raised thousands of dollars from our generously donated auction items. The team returned to Lucky Lowe’s Ski School for spring break training for the first time in years. Multiple skiers competed in and helped officiate the Spring Fest tournament at Swerve. In April, the team walked the Nippert Stadium track for hours to raise money for the American Cancer Society in UC’s Relay for Life. We volunteered at the Flying Pig Marathon with the relay teams.
Two skiers, Austin Bolger and Clare Knecht, represented UC and Team Midwest at All-Stars, where Clare set a new school jump record at 71 feet! We transitioned to a new full-time home lake this year, Skier’s Runway in Harrison, Ohio and practiced all summer. We hosted a youth adaptive ski clinic in conjunction with Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and On The Edge foundation for the first time and plan to make it a tradition. Many Bearcats also traveled up to Columbus to help run the Ampuski event hosted at White Sulfur in Ostrander, Ohio. In August, we held our annual alumni tournament and introduced another auction with items donated thanks to the crafty, artsy Allie Steele. We also had members participate in AWSA sanctioned three event tournaments all throughout the summer.
Once the collegiate season kicked off, UC skiers were at the forefront of supporting tournaments. At our first tournament, the Southern Ohio Challenge, UC and its alumni were the main sources of judges, scorers, safeties, drivers and dock starters throughout the weekend. As the season continued, UC kept on supporting tournaments as officials, announcers, and boat cleanup at the end of each weekend. Cruises Creek in Walton, Kentucky hosted regular fall practices as well, thanks to the alumni Rouse Family.
Once tournament season rolled around, we boosted some impressive scores and had skiers in the top ten every tournament. Allie became the second ever female Bearcat to join the shortline club, just 2 buoys away from breaking the school record. Curtis Kolb joined shortline as well, making him the first new male addition in years. The team nailed 5th place at Great Lakes Conference Where Curtis tied for 2nd in slalom. Braving tornado winds in Decatur, the team managed 7th place at Midwest Regionals. Mallin Blaxall took 3rd in jump, 3rd in slalom, and 2nd in Women’s overall and Curtis took 3rd in slalom at regionals. Sneaking into the last wildcard spot sent us on our way to Nationals.
This was our 11th Nationals in 12 years, following a straight decade from 2008-2017. 11 Bearcats took off for Rio Linda, bringing our small but mighty team that carried us all year to Nationals and took home 8th in DII, ahead of our seed. Curtis placed 3rd in slalom, missing 1st by only a single buoy. Every single jumper PB-ed or matched their PB, including a monster 74’ jump on a wakeboard for Brayden Patton. In early November, we officially wrapped up our season when we helped pull the jump out and tie up loose ends at the lake for the winter. Now we are transitioning into focusing on academics and resting up for next season. GO CATS
Call me biased, but Le Rouse was the reason that Cincinnati had the opportunity to go back to nationals this year. In a pinch for lake time during the week, him, his dad and their lake owner generously offered for us to ski at their exclusive lake in Walton, KY. Le and his dad pulled us and coached us from the second we skipped our last class until the second we got yelled at for being out past dark. Le isn’t the most patient person in the world but every second he spent coaching our team made it seem like he had all the time in the world to give us to make sure his alma mater, and friends succeeded.
Not only did Le tow boats all over Cincinnati, drive an hour to his own lake and other lakes- so we could have a driver- and constantly go over strengths and weaknesses with me to make the roster and practice plans for the week, he was at our tournaments cheering us on too.
Le drove and judged at all of our college tournaments for what seemed like all day- something we constantly saw from so many of our alumni. At the end of the day he was always the last one in the boat making sure the last skier got their time on the water and then helping trailer and clean the boats off too.
All the teams from around knew that Le was a person they could go to for advice, coaching and to be their friends; and a walk down the lake never ended because everyone always wanted to stop and chat with him, say hey and rope him into helping out with something else. Even when he couldn’t make it to regionals, he was still on the phone before every skier telling me what his last bit of encouraging words and coaching were for them.
Le was a tremendous asset for being able to be a walking history book for UC waterski, for always making sure to use the Libby VanTreese ‘coaching sandwich’ so people wanted to come back, for giving us all his time- not like I gave him choice- and for being a coach and driver for us in such a year of change, transitions, graduations and our return to the national tournament. You can ask anyone, nationals wasn’t much more than a wild dream this year for Cincinnati, one that only a few people were really hungry for and Le was definitely the captain of the boat that got us there.