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Genetics and Water Skiing

lpskier

By lpskier
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lpskier Grand Master

lpskier

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Scot and Marion's upcoming wedding made me think: There have been some great water ski unions. Andy and Deena, Ricky McCormick and Suzie Graham, Bruce and Toni Neville, Jaret and Britta Llewellyn , Kris and Jennifer LaPoint, Ryan and Brianne, Dodd (the latter two being relatively recent marriages of reasonably short duration), etc. I can't think of one, though, that has produced a great second generation skier.

 

On the other hand, many single (famous) skier families have produced lots of great second and third generation skiers: J.D., Mike and Poochie Morgan and her sister, Drew and Neilly Ross, the McClintocks, the Rinis, Lucky and Chase Lowe, Cory and Adam Pickos, Brenda Baldwin and her girls (sorry Mike, not famous enough), Jennifer Leachman LaPoint and Taylor Woolsey (currently 13th and 8th on the open womens list respectively, how cool is that?), Jack and John Travers (okay, as a skier Jack is obscure outside of the eastern region, but everyone knows him as a great coach), Jody and Stephen Seal (Jody gets a Jack Tracers exemption, too). There must be plenty of other examples. By the way, this list doesn't preclude the other parent being a skier, just not a famous skier/coach/driver.

 

Who am I missing, and if no one, why do you suppose that the "two great skier families" aren't regenerating skiers? Too big a combined shadow to live under? If these kids were race horses, we'd be getting fortunes for their offspring and you can bet (literally) they would be running in a oval.

Lpskier

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A_B Grand Master

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I think this younger generation likes to go on their own path. Following mom and dad's footsteps is probably not all that attractive. Also, mom and dad probably have said if you want to make money with a sport, pick a different one!

 

My son is 6'2", very lean and strong, super athletic, runs a 4.40 40-yard dash, and jumps out of the gym, but do you think he would take advantage of a private ski lake? He got up on skis his first ever try, has wake boarded a little but pretty much just goes fishing. He has the perfect slalom build... Oh well, at least I ski with my daughter, and her boyfriend who is a slalom addict now.

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lpskier Grand Master

lpskier

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My dad was a skier, and I wanted nothing to do with water skiing until I met a young gal whose brothers liked to ski, so I had to participate if I wanted to hang around her house. And her parents had a cook, so there were plenty of reasons to want to hang around. My daughter hated skiing, until she got to college. Now she is all in.

 

But the observation is that the two famous skier families (that I can think of) have no famous skier offspring, while the one famous skier families do. Why?

Lpskier

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A_B Grand Master

A_B

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I should have followed my dad's lead. He was a river rat skiing behind a Crosby with a big Merc. He tossed me in the water around 13-14 years old and said its about time you ski. You can't get back in the boat until you get up. He couldn't keep me out of the water after that.
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jcamp Mentor

jcamp

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Congrats @horton

 

@lpskier Dorien Llewellyn is the reigning Junior Master overall champion and the son of Jaret and Britta Grebe Llewellyn (multiple worlds medalist in jump and overall). He might be the closest thing to what you are talking about.

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otisg Enthusiast

otisg

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I thought this might be a good time to consult Mendel’s Chart:

Law of Independent Assortment (The "Second Law")

 

The Law of Independent Assortment, also known as "Inheritance Law", states that separate genes for separate traits are passed independently of one another from parents to offspring. That is, the biological selection of a particular gene in the gene pair for one trait to be passed to the offspring has nothing to do with the selection of the gene for any other trait. More precisely, the law states that alleles of different genes assort independently of one another during gamete formation. While Mendel's experiments with mixing one trait always resulted in a 3:1 ratio (Fig. 1) between dominant and recessive phenotypes, his experiments with mixing two traits (dihybrid cross) showed 9:3:3:1 ratios (Fig. 2). But the 9:3:3:1 table shows that each of the two genes is independently inherited with a 3:1 phenotypic ratio. Mendel concluded that different traits are inherited independently of each other, so that there is no relation, for example, between a cat's color and tail length. This is actually only true for genes that are not linked to each other.

 

See Chart here://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dihybrid_cross.svg#filelinks

 

Figure 2 Dihybrid cross. The phenotypes of two independent traits show a 9:3:3:1 ratio in the F2generation. In this example, coat color is indicated by B(brown, dominant) or b (white), while tail length is indicated by S (short, dominant) or s (long). When parents are homozygous for each trait (SSbb andssBB), their children in the F1 generation are heterozygous at both loci and only show the dominant phenotypes. If the children mate with each other, in the F2 generation all combinations of coat color and tail length occur: 9 are brown/short (purple boxes), 3 are white/short (pink boxes), 3 are brown/long (blue boxes) and 1 is white/long (green box)…..

Thanks: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendelian_inheritance

 

I hope that this clears things up…

 

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Chef23 Grand Master

Chef23

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@Horton congratulations.

 

@lpskier I think someone mentioned Dorien Llewellyn already who is also a very good high school hockey player at a prep school in Mass. Jennifer Lapoint's daughter is Taylor Woosley a pretty good slalom skier who skis with Kris a lot even if he isn't her genetic father.

 

Not all kids have the drive the parents have. You see this same thing in all kinds of other sports. It is more rare when the kids are as good as the parents than the reverse.

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Chef23 Grand Master

Chef23

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@Horton I do understand that and I am familiar with Jennifer's accomplishments. My only point was that she does get additional coaching from Kris so while she doesn't have genetics from both she does get coaching from both. I obviously wasn't clear in my post is what happens when I try to post while half paying attention to a conference call.
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eleeski Grand Master

eleeski

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Brett Muhlitner won his first Regional title as a tricker! Oh yes, he later went on to become an Open slalomer but that was an offshoot of his tricking base. I don't know if genetics factor into his tricking as I have never seen Rob trick so the relevance to this thread is marginal.

 

Eric

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Zman Veteran

Zman

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What about Brett Wing and nephew and niece Joel and Amber. Some crazy cool and accomplished skiers. Many other family members too. Brett inspired me to try and mimic his barefoot start from a helicopter landing gear. But, won't go there....
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