The SIU Water Ski Club recently achieved a big milestone and made its mark on the collegiate water ski community; for the first time in its over 40-year history, the club qualified for Syndicate Nationals, the national championship tournament for collegiate water ski teams from all across the country. 

Alex Graves is a member of the Water Ski Club who dedicates his summers to waterskiing. “Everyone did great and continued to improve. It’s crazy that this is even real,” Graves said. 

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“This is the first time this is happening in school history, so I’m really excited about it.” 

Water skiing is composed of three events: jump, trick and slalom. In the jump event, skiers must try to travel the longest distance. The trick event requires skiers to perform stylish tricks, while also not repeating the same tricks. In the slalom event, skiers must complete a multi-buoy course, and be as agile as possible. 

SIU’s team is not large, with only about 15 consistent members. While many other schools have around 20-25 skiers and can often have members specialize in specific events, the SIU water skiers compete in all events, due to a struggle to recruit members.

Sean Freitag, the previous president of the team who returned this season as a graduate student, knows all about these recruiting struggles.

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“The states like Michigan and Wisconsin or Kansas, where water skiing is super popular… Everybody grew up on a lake or has a cottage or a cabin of some sort, whereas, I feel like a lot of our students come from Chicago or St. Louis,” Freitag said. 

A linchpin for the success of the team has been their return to the Du Quoin State Fairgrounds, which historically has been a world-class site for water skiing. The fairgrounds hosted numerous national championship events in the 1970s and 80s, and has recently become home to the SIU club again. 

“Throughout the club’s history, we’ve had a lot of really good guy skiers, but it takes both the women’s and a men’s team. So this year, everyone was just playing their role,” Graves said. “The girls did a great job. The guys did a great job. With that together, we were able to accomplish going to nationals.” 

The team worked extremely hard to achieve their goal of making it to Nationals. Everyone got to watch their teammates develop and improve their skills. 

Sammy Varness, who serves as the secretary of the club, is one of the members of the women’s team who has greatly improved and become a big-time scorer for the team.

 “I think to see how much work that all of my teammates have put into qualifying just makes it so much more satisfying that we get to go and it’s something that we’ve never done. It’s our first time in university history going to finals and it’s not an easy thing,” Varness said. 

A major part of being able to qualify has been the growth of the team’s abilities.

“We’ve got two jumpers that jump over 100 feet on our men’s team and at regionals, we’ve had two of our girls land their jumps, which is huge for our points. Starting to get recognized for the talent on our team is the most satisfying thing,” Varness said. 

Recognition for the club began 3 years ago, when SIU qualified for midwest regionals off a technicality. The team continued their rise from there, steadily becoming more known for fielding a strong team and culminating in their placing seventh at regionals in 2024 and earning a wild card berth to nationals.

Several members made the most of the opportunity. Graves placed in the top 10 after scoring a 1310 in men’s trick, Freitag an 800, and Varness a 570 in women’s trick, which earned her fourth place. In the men’s jump, Freitag placed third after jumping 116 feet and Graves placed fifth after jumping 107 feet. Varness also placed fourth in women’s overall.

Anyone is welcome to join the club as no experience is required. Those who are interested can contact the club on Instagram @siuwaterski or visit the club’s page on Presence to learn more.

“I feel like people are scared to come out because they don’t know how to do it or they never did it growing up, but I want people to know that that’s actually the case with the majority of the people on the team,” Varness said. “They had no idea this existed and they just tried it and loved it. So I want to encourage people to step out of your comfort zone and you’ll probably end up finding something you love.”

Sports reporter Joslyn Cole can be reached at [email protected]. To stay up to date on all your southern Illinois news, be sure to follow The Daily Egyptian on Facebook and on X @dailyegyptian.

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