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Andrew Dicks – Michigan
Serving as our Men’s Captain for not one but two seasons, Andrew Dicks really showed up this season and stood out as an outstanding leader on a team of a lot of seniors. Referred to by some of the underclassmen on out team as coach, that nickname really embodied how he went above and beyond typical captain duties of sending skiers of the dock and helping them with their 3-events. Through coaching 4 people to landing their first jumps this season (we don’t even have a jump to practice at, he would just take them out and pin them on jump skis in our lake, over and over again to get the hang of the skis), to doubling at least 6 of our upperclassmen’s trick scores through his coaching, constant encouragement, and coaching our skiers he really went above and beyond all summer and all season.
He came in 3rd overall at conferences and as a 2 year MVP he led by example. Whether it meant getting in the water with brand new kids and helping them get up on a single ski for the first time or coaching others into their money pass, he was always patiently giving pointers to anyone on our team. At tournaments, he could be seen sending off every single person on our team and getting as excited about their success as if they were his own. All of Michigan’s success this year would never have been possible without Dicks captaining our team.Michigan Waterski!
When we reconvened at the beginning of 2019 summer, there were 3 main goals in mind: land more jumps, improve our trick scores across the board, and lastly (we thought most loftily), qualify for nationals outright, without having to go to the wildcard tournament.
Landing jumps is hard when you don’t have access to a ramp for practice, but by trekking out of Ann Arbor to places like Tivoli, West Shore, and even Swerve, we were able to improve as a team. Obviously, none of this is possible without convincing a few brave souls – both newbies and veterans – to take a leap of faith first. All the hard work came together at Conferences when we landed 4 different girls jumps, which really gave us an idea that maybe this goal could really come true.
In trick, we made sure everyone understood how important it was to practice every day, and this mindset translated to the scorebooks. 6 of our upperclassmen doubled their trick scores from the previous competition season, going from 100-200 point scores to a range of 300-600. Our vastly improved jump and trick teams helped us finish 3rd at Great Lakes Conferences, our highest finish in the past 4 years.
The next weekend at Regionals, we continued to improve steadily across the board, and thanks to a lot of jump PBs (5 in one weekend) and messy PITS slalom sets, we finished in 6th place, our highest Regionals performance of the decade, sending us straight to nationals. Moving up a couple places from the wildcard to the outright qualifiers may not seem like a huge jump, but we got confirmation when all the alumni we knew reached out and told us just how unprecedented it was for this decade of Michigan water ski.
At Nationals, when we had nothing left to lose and far from our full A team, we still showed up and skied very well. As a team, we had 4 had PBs in slalom, 3 PBs in trick and 4 PBs in jump. Through hard work and dedication from both long-time members as well as freshmen, we were able to compete in U-M’s best season in recent history. For that reason, and because of the great depth and team effort that contributed to our success, I think Michigan is very deserving of the Team of the Year.
TLDR
Huge improvements in jump and trick
3rd at Great Lakes Conferences
6th at Regionals, Qualified outright for Nationals (!!!)
Nationals PBs: 4 slalom, 3 trick, 4 jump
We had a lot of fun 🙂Genevieve Kromm- Michigan
It is very rare to see a freshman skiing A team in all 3 events. What’s even rarer is if that freshman has never competitively water skied before, or even been on a ski course, trick ski OR jump at all before the summer, and then is still A team in 3 events on a nationally qualifying team. Genevieve had performances that were competitive with girls and guys on our team that had been skiing for years, and she was just in her first couple of weeks of competing. All of her landed jumps and posted scores in all 3 events all season were enormous for Michigan’s women in taking 5th at regionals and helping our team to qualify for nationals, where she went on to jump 36 feet and also PB in trick. When she wasn’t stomping jumps or shredding Genevieve consistently brought spirit and a lot of positive energy to every ski event all fall!