Our Experience of  Getting to the
2006 Barefoot Waterski
National Championships

We, like most other footers have real jobs that pay the bills, and we us the money we make on BFC to fund the sponsorships and trips to all the events we attend.  And like everyone else, we only have so many vacation days to play with.

We knew we'd be at Footstock in 2006 because those guys have their act together and usually have a deal worked out with us before we leave town at the end of each year's event.  I really enjoy working with Gary Meuller and his crew.  Gary runs an ad agency and really understands marketing and goes out of his way to make sure he keeps the sponsors and skiers happy.

We also have the Racing Cup Series.  It's a huge time commitment that starts in mid September and runs throughout the year.  Throw in Jan's Fans, ThinkTank, YMCA Camp, our trip to Australia & New Zealand and you eat up all those valuable vacation days real fast.

We're not the only ones in the boat.  Sanger, Eagle, US Gear, and BI all have the same issues to contend with.   The difference is, we represent all those manufacturers and people just expect us to be at the major events.  Unfortunately, we would have to make some pretty tough decisions not to attend some of them.

We knew we were committed to Footstock and the Racing Cup Series.  YMCA camp was close so we could squeeze that one in, we had committed 2 years earlier to go to Australia, so there was no way we could back out of that one.  Plus we were flat out excited about skiing with the Aussies and Kiwis.  ThinkTank was over the winter so that was doable, but we had to make a tough call to Jan's Fans to let them know we could not make their event this year.

The final decision would have to be between US Nationals and Worlds.  Due to the fact that the ABC scheduled the Nationals to be in Florida and the Worlds in Washington, it would be logistically infeasible to go to both events, not to mention the expense of shipping product all over the country.  All this traveling is what gave us the idea for the Championships Tour T-shirt.  Click Here

Now you'd think that as a major sponsor of the last 5 Nationals, we would get a call from the ABC inviting us to the 2006 Nationals.  But as of July 15, we had not even heard a word from them.  We didn't even know where the Nationals would be held.  One week it was rumored to be in Wisconsin and the next in Florida.  And we weren't the only ones left in the dark.  Sanger, Eagle, BI, Intensity and every other prominent sponsor had not been contacted.  We did however receive many calls from Doug Jordon, who's organizing the Worlds.  So Sanger and ourselves made a commitment to help him out and decided that if the ABC wasn't interested in inviting us, we just wouldn't budget any funds towards the Nationals.  So as of July 1, I informed my team that we could not go to every event and when it comes down to a decision, you go where you're wanted.

That must of set some wheels in motion for Mike Salber.  He's from the Southern Region, and though the Southern Region was not responsible for putting on the Nationals, they were sitting in a prime position to be blamed for it if the ABC Board failed to pull the event off.  You see, the ABC Board had decided not to have a local club host the Nationals.  When a LOC (Local Organizing Club) hosts the Nationals, that club gets to keep whatever profits are made.  The ABC has seen such a drop in tournament participation and new members, they decided to host the event themselves at the Waterski Hall of Fame, which had agreed to let them use the lake for free.  It was a great chance for them to make some big profits and help fund the US teams trip to Worlds.  The only problem was they forgot to call the sponsors.  So we had budgeted our funds to go elsewhere.

Mike Salber, Mike Holt, Chris Wakefield, Bob LaRue and several other skiers in the Southern Region got wind that things were going a rye, so they took it upon themselves to start making calls.  Being that Mike was on our Promo Team, he called me to ask if I'd come.  I told him I had no plans to be on-site since we had no idea what the layout would be or what it would cost.  Instead, I had been working with Sanger, Eagle, and Keith St. Onge to host an off-site Friday night skier's party.  The party would have nothing to do with the tournament and we were planning to hold it off-site at Keith's new house and ski school location.  I had visited Keith earlier in the year and during my visit, he had asked me what my thoughts were on his new place and what he had to do to make it a world class location for students to come and train.  So we spent a day walking the property discussing everything from landscape ideas to remodeling to completely gutting an outside building that would eventually become his pro shop.  I made a promise to Keith that if he would complete the list by Aug 1, I would come to Florida and convince Sanger & Eagle to partner with BFC to once again throw a great Friday Night Skiers Party at his site.  So I had to inform Mike that all the funds were allocated to the party.  We had budgeted over $3000 just for the party.

Mike was relentless and continued to ask for me to be on site.  He had found out that both Ron Scarpa and Lane Bowers had both decided not to have a presence on-site at the Nationals even though it was practically in their back yards.  That really surprised me.  I wondered what they knew that I didn't know.  Why would the two top pros from that area have no desire to be on-site selling gear at one of the biggest tournaments of the year?  It's too easy when you're that close. 

Mike kept stressing that if we didn't come, there'd be no vendors on site.  I had not planned to come to the Nationals until Thursday night and then spend all day Friday helping Keith set up for the party.  The tournament was to begin on Tues.  I told Mike that if he'd find us help for Tues & Wed, I'd ship a skid load of inventory in and assuming he could locate us an RV to rent, we'd set up the VIP RV again.  But I didn't have the time to do it myself and he'd have to make all that happen before I would commit.  I figured he decide it wasn't worth the effort and I'd continue as planned.  But to my surprise, Mike went out and did all the leg work.  He rented the RV, went and got it, picked a huge skid of equipment we had shipped in, brought his cargo trailor to the site, went to Home Depot and bought materials to build racks for all the gear, located tables, chairs, etc...  His comment to me was "I'm not going to let our Region be embarrassed or get blamed for not having a good Nationals.  We have a lot of great skiers in this region that still care about the skiers and we'll do whatever it takes to get you here."  And with that comment, I was in.  I rallied our team together and we focused on what we could do on short notice.  And to this day, we still have not gotten a sponsorship packet from the ABC inviting us to the Nationals.

When the ABC heard about the party we would be throwing Friday night, they asked if they could make it the official Friday Night Party.  It would save them a bunch of money.  So I agreed to that as well.

So we went from not planning to attend to being the only vendor on-site and the host of the Friday Night Party.  We even got Dr.Pepper/7UP to ship us some great games for kids to play on-site (Football Pop-a-Shots) and some other items for the silent auction (tail-gate barbeque grills and an electronic miniature MIni Copper car for the kids to ride in. (shown below).  We had Sunkist shirts to give away as prizes for the kids and provided plenty of snacks and drinks for BFC members who visited our VIP Members Only air conditioned RV.

While out at the sight one day, Mike and I came up with an idea of how to raise money for the US Team.  We announced that anybody that was over 14 and was able to through a football to come up and line up in front of the Football Toss games.  I put a line on the ground and announced that everyone would get one (1) throw.  If the ball goes through the hole, I would donate $25 to the US Team.  If the person was willing to put down $10 of their own money and the ball goes through, I'd pay $50.  As more and more people took the shot, we upped the stakes.  If they stepped back to about 20 feet and put down $50, I'd pay $500 if it went through.  If they stepped back to about 40 feet and put up $100, I'd pay $1000.  It got very exciting with the crowd raised $100 and picked Bill Brzoza to make the shot.  I played a little Monte Hall "Let's Make a Deal" with Bill and the crowd, and when it came down to the shot, Bill was so nervous he missed the target all together.  It was quite exciting.  At the end of the contest, we had raised over $600 for the team.