THE RIVER RAT REMEMBERS Episode 17 The Rebirth of American Barefooting

[Guest]

Episode 17 The Rebirth of American Barefooting

As the junior executive at AWSA, one thing was clear to me: If we were going to grow the organization in a significant way, we had to look outside of regular three-event competition. Tournament water skiing was alive and well, but there were other forms of water skiing that were being ignored. As a case in point, I saw the potential in collegiate competition, but when I reached out to a few college teams, the skiers were so miffed at AWSA’s lack of interest that they seemed determined to go it alone. I did my best to offer an olive branch and I kept the lines of communication open in the hopes that collegiate competition would eventually come under the AWSA umbrella where it belonged. Ski show competition had some growth potential and seemed to be expanding outside of the Wisconsin-Minnesota-Illinois hotbed. Kneeboarding was new at the time and any potential for organization of that activity remained to be seen, and wakeboarding was just a concept. I never considered water ski racing as an avenue for growth. Interest in it was local and I blanched at the liability issues. The one area that seemed ripe for development was barefooting.

Barefooting got its start in the US, of course, but the story of how it started changed soon after I came to AWSA. One day, Tom Harman received a letter from former AWSA President and now Hall-of-Famer Chuck Sligh. Sligh told how in 1945 he had come on vacation from Michigan to Lake Howard in Winter Haven with something new to try: shoe skis. A local teenager by the name of A.G. Hancock did so well on the stubby skis that Sligh suggested to the young man that it might be possible for him to ski on his bare feet. After a few tries, Hancock succeeded. The prevailing narrative, repeated by announcers several times each day at the Cypress Gardens ski shows, was that Dick Pope, Jr. was the first person to barefoot. Given that this storyline was central to the Cypress Gardens mystique, the myth died hard and it took a long time for Hancock to get the recognition he deserved. However, Dick Pope Jr. certainly deserves credit for being the person most responsible for popularizing the new sport as pictures and movies of him skiing on his bare feet circulated around the world. Many new barefoot maneuvers were first performed by Cypress Gardens show skiers and by other Florida skiers.

When I came to AWSA, barefooting in the United States was still largely a show stunt. AWSA’s main involvement at the time was the “AWSA Barefoot Club,” which was not a real club but rather a sort of merit badge. If an AWSA judge testified that you had barefooted for a minute or more, you received a triangular patch in recognition of your efforts. Most barefoot competitions in those days were endurance contests. At one such contest at Cypress Gardens, I met a contestant whom I had heard about, an eccentric little man from New Jersey named George Blair whose trademark shtick was handing out bananas to competitors and officials. He showed me crates of Chiquita Bananas that he had hidden under the stands. All of the other barefooters adored him. Meanwhile, the Australians, who always seemed to be pushing the envelope in adventure sports, were innovating Down Under. Americans were astonished when they saw photos of Aussie barefooters jumping over mini-ramps and Australian Vaughn Bullivant on the cover of The Water Skier, barefooting with rope on toe. (The Vaughn Bullivant story is fascinating. He had a narrow brush with death when he collided with the photo pier at Cypress Gardens while back barefooting and immediately sank. As was typical in those days, he was not wearing a wetsuit or PFD. He was under water far longer than anyone thought survivable, so his recovery was miraculous. What I didn’t realize, until now, was that Bullivant went on to build a multi-million-dollar vitamin and nutritional supplement brand in Australia and develop a tourist resort on his own island. Still living, he is apparently facing health and financial challenges.)

Although there were early efforts to introduce Australia-style barefooting in the US, it did not catch fire. While I was still living in Pennsylvania, Australian expatriate Don Law produced an Americanized version of the Australian rules and in 1973 Cypress Gardens hosted what was billed as the first international barefoot tournament with “Barefoot” Stew McDonald as Chief Judge. Australians Grant Torrens, Garry Barton, John Hacker, Peter Trimm and Mary McMillan squared off against Americans John Gillette, Bill Price, Chas St. Cyr, Mike Botti and Jenny McDonald. The tournament was a Sputnik moment as it became clear how far behind the Americans were. With no tournament infrastructure in the US, it was going to be hard for the Americans to catch up.

As I was pondering how best to bring barefooters into the AWSA fold, I got a visit one day from Bill Price and John Hacker. The Cypress Gardens tournament happened before I came to AWSA, so I didn’t know either of them from Adam. They explained that they were on a mission to promote the First World Barefoot Championships, scheduled for the following season in Canberra, Australia. Price was indignant that AWSA seemed to be missing out on the international surge in interest in competitive barefooting. However, he was delighted to learn that barefooting had become my top priority. On the spot, Price and I agreed to cooperate—and the course of US barefooting changed forever.

As Price beat the bushes to drum up support from barefooters around the country, I worked to create the administrative framework for an American barefooter’s organization. I appealed to Bill Clifford to let me work on creating a membership category for barefooters. He let me do it but he insisted that the barefooters pay their own way. Thus, barefooters paid a few bucks extra in addition to their AWSA dues to become a member of the group. Price suggested that we call it the American Barefoot Club; he liked the acronym “ABC.” Although I thought there might be some confusion with the old AWSA Barefoot Club, I went with it. I started an ABC newsletter as the primary means of communication. Barefooters now had their own forum. Hacker had given me a copy of his instruction book “Step-By-Step Barefoot Water Skiing” with permission to reproduce it in the US if the proceeds were used to advance barefooting. Price later had copies made and offered them for sale with the proceeds going to ABC.

I set up the organizational framework of ABC with officers and a representative council. Starting with Price’s contacts, I drew from hidden pockets of “Australian-style” barefooters around the country, although at first it was hard to find willing volunteers in some regions. Bill Price became President, John Gillette Vice President and Edward Finley Secretary-Treasurer. I was able to get the following people to serve as representatives on the first ABC council: John Cornish, East; Chas St. Cyr, South; Dick Matthesin, Midwest; Gus Campbell, South Central, and Royce Andes, West. Over the course of the next several years, we put together the necessary underpinnings of barefoot competition, including a system for certifying judges and drivers. This brought Stew McDonald and his sidekick Harry Robb out of “retirement.” They had pretty much given up hope that American barefooting would ever get its act together.

Once ABC launched, manufacturers were quick to see the coming wave. Correct Craft hurriedly produced a cut-down version of its Martinique pleasure cruiser, put a big block engine in it and called it the Barefoot Nautique. Mastercraft marketed its outboard model as a barefoot boat and other boat builders soon introduced barefoot-specific boats. (The barefooters I talked to privately preferred outboards due to their quicker RPM response, but inboards soon dominated the market.) Wetsuit and towrope manufacturers jumped on the wagon.

Bill Price immediately began organizing the first National Barefoot Championships at Waco, Texas. With no time for a separate Team Trials, it was agreed that the results of the Nationals would be used as the basis for selecting the US Barefoot Team that would compete in Canberra. I got to know the top barefooters in the country. A teenager named Ron Scarpa, one of the top prospects for a spot on the team, lived about a mile from me. (His equipment consisted of a Johnson-powered Glastron and a well-used Garry Barton barefoot wetsuit. Ron taught me how to do a tumbleturn, a deepwater start and flying-dock start.) When I arrived in Waco, Bill Price was scurrying around, making last minute preparations. At one point he yelled over to a kid to get his truck and pull a boat out of the water. I thought, is that kid even old enough to drive? That “kid” was Mike Seipel, who, along with Scarpa, became the first superstars of American barefooting. The Waco Nationals showed the depth of enthusiasm for this sort of barefooting in the US. Barefooters came out of the woodwork, ecstatic that they finally had a home.

A selection committee named the first US Barefoot Team. I cannot find anything on the Internet to confirm it, but I think the team consisted of William Farrell, Ron Scarpa, Mike Seipel, Mike Botti, Rob Bemman, John Gillette, Randy Filter and Jean Matthisen. (Anyone who can confirm or correct, please do.)

We had a team, but no money to outfit them or send them to Australia. There were some hard feelings when the parents, who would otherwise be footing (pun intended) the bill, discovered that AWSEF could not fund the team. The barefoot team was too new. There was no time for a fundraising campaign. The foundation helped get some manufacturer donations for uniforms and accessories, but it could not fund travel expenses. Enter the funny little man from New Jersey. Banana George Blair stepped forward and privately funded the team. Of course, the Australians dominated the competition, but the presence of the Americans put the world on notice that the Yanks would be a force to be reckoned with. The second World Barefoot Championships was held at Marine World in Redwood City, California, bolstering the visibility of American barefooting. The third World Championships was held at Acapulco, Mexico. That tournament was nearly a disaster when the sponsors were unable to provide a suitable barefoot towboat. Bill Price flew home to Houston and trailered his personal boat all the way to Acapulco. That lone boat pulled the entire tournament. It took a few more tries, but the Americans finally beat the Australians at their own game and established the US as the barefoot powerhouse of the world. Barefooting had become the hottest growth market in US water skiing.

[BKistler]

At the World Water Ski Show Tournament I bumped into a couple of barefooters that I hadn’t seen in forty years: John Cornish and, from Germany, Franz Kirsch. John is working on a web site to document the history of barefooting. According to him, others who were on the first US Team as members or alternates included John Cornish, Bill Cooke and James Matthison.