“Keep your tips up or you’re going to be drinking a lot of water,” Reid Postle says as a little piece of advice for those interested in water skiing.
Postle, a senior from Columbus, Ohio studying marketing knows a lot about the extreme water sport. In fact, he is the current President of the Miami University Waterski Team.
“I started skiing when I was really little because I grew up along a river. My dad had skied all his life and thought that I should take it up as well. It wasn’t until I got to Miami that I started competitively skiing,” Postle says. “It’s relaxing and gets my mind off of everything that is going on with school and life. Plus it’s a great workout.”
Postle was elected president last winter and since has been responsible for managing the team.
“As president I try and orchestrate the madness. Our season comes and goes really [quickly] so it’s a lot of time and work trying to get the team prepared for tournaments and getting all the forms in so that we are eligible to ski,” Postle says. “Thanks to my great exec board it is all manageable!”
The team practices for 30 minutes everyday (one set a day) on a private lake in Harrison, Ohio with a 2011 MasterCraft ProStar competition boat.
“The type of skiing that we do is called three event skiing–meaning that there are three events. Slalom (one ski), trick (basically a single fat ski doing spins and flips) and jump (going off a ramp and see how far you can go),” Postle says.
Though the team is considered a club sport at Miami, they often compete against varsity teams as well. The team competes every weekend all around Ohio for approximately one month, starting the second weekend after classes begin in the fall semester. If the team makes it to regionals they will travel to Decatur, Illinois, and if they qualify for nationals they will be making a trip down to Zachary, Louisiana in October.
“My goal is to make it back down to Louisiana for nationals and place in better than we did last year, which was 8th,” Postle says.
Reid’s favorite memory of being on the team so far is from nationals last year and going to California. “I had never been to California, and people are not kidding when they say that that state is on a different planet” he says.
Hopefully Postle likes the heat down in the southern boot!
Her Campus would like to wish Postle and the Miami Waterski Team the best of luck in their season and in making it to nationals. You can keep up with the team’s progress by checking out their website or by liking the Miami University Waterski Team Facebook page.