CLOSE
Sign up to get news on contests, pro events, new products and special offers.
WATERSKI MagazineJim Ware has made it. Feeling a tingle from his bare feet all the way to his gloved fingers, he pumps his fist toward his girlfriend and yells something inaudible under the roar of a Malibu Flightcraft. In his first run in his first figure-eight barefoot tournament, Ware has made it all right. Made it all the way past the starting line.
“I wasn't sure what to expect,” Ware explained later.
He didn't want to end up like Danny from Winter Haven, Florida. Danny was the guy who earlier in the day struck fear into every nervous figure-eight rookie at Footstock Orlando. He fell trying to step off his ski – twice – and was double-eliminated before ever experiencing life on the other side of the starting buoys.
“I usually do deepwater starts; I haven't stepped off in five or 10 years,” explained Danny. “I'll be back next year. I'd like to stay in there a little longer.”
Maybe even long enough to be considered “in” the tournament.
To be in the tournament for the first time, or at least to be in the figure-eight course, is usually worth a burst of ecstasy. There's a fist. A whoop. A relief.
It doesn't last long.
Moments after mugging for his cheering section, Ware's smile springs a leak. Without looking, he knows that directly to his left is another barefooter, behind the same boat, on a separate rope, traveling in sync at 42 mph. It is now a simple game of Uncle: He who falls first loses.
The two guys steal glances at each other, hoping to detect a rubbery thigh or weakening shoulder. Nothing. Through the first wide turn they handle the wakes with the ease of a mountain bike going over a garden hose.
“This is the best challenge there is in skiing,” says Sea World skier and first-time figure-eight competitor Marty Keigher, watching from the shore. “It's the only place you can go one on one, man to man.”
Ware's teeth begin to reappear through the bottom loop of the eight. He isn't smiling, though, and neither is his neighbor on the other side of the wake. Their faces look like they're leaning out windows on opposite sides of a 747 at cruising altitude. The garden hoses in the water now seem to be felled oak trees. The two footers bounce, wobble, grit. And they hang on, unwilling to concede inferior machismo.
I love these good ol' boys,” says Paul Stokes, a national barefoot champion from the old school (i.e., slalom, jump, tricks). In his first figure-eight tournament experience in Crandon, Wisconsin, last summer, Stokes finished seventh. He'd never heard of most of the guys in front of him.
“They're just regular guys from regular lakes trying to outlast each other,” he says.
It's been that simple since the first figure-eight contests were held among friends in northern Wisconsin 25 years ago. The first rule ever created is still the only rule anyone needs to memorize: You fall, you lose. It's the easiest judging job in sports.
What has changed is the contagious turnout at these events over the past five years. At last count there were nine figure-eight barefoot tournaments east of the Mississippi, not including a couple that have sprouted in Australia. The granddaddy – Crandon's Footstock – is expected this year to draw 200 to 250 competitors vying for part of a $10,000 purse. An offspring, the MasterCraft Figure 8 Barefoot Challenge in Granite City, Illinois, has its own following and its own Web site (www.ezl.com/~krbaugh). To all but a handful of the entrants in these tournaments, three-event tournament barefooting holds all the interest of an underarm split end.
“We set up a figure-eight in Minnesota just to get some neighbors involved,” says former Crandon women's champion Sharon Remy.
Guys and girls who have done nothing more spectacular than barefoot like cement pillars around the lake are suddenly tournament contenders. Training for the majority goes something like this: Barefoot down to Mr. Taylor's dock and back twice on Saturday, and make sure the water looks as if it's boiling in a pot.
“That's the great equalizer, rough water,” says Bob Mahnke, a Madison footer in his 25th year of figure-eight competition. “Tournament skiers aren't used to it. The guy who goes out and beats himself up across the lake on weekends has a better chance to win these things.”
The name Chris Barnhart is legendary among figure-eight devotees. Go ahead and call him a weekend warrior. That's what he calls himself. It doesn't mean he won't go out and send you into the lake silt any day of the week.
“The guy is amazing,” says Dave Slemp, a figure-eight Clydesdale himself from Jacksonville, Florida. “He has that crouch and baseball grip, and he just doesn't quit. I've seen him come through the loser's bracket, ski about eight times in one day with long runs, then do two complete eights in the finals. Not many guys in the world can do that.”
Barnhart has a barefooting style named after him, but not a single sponsor. He wouldn't be able to oblige many anyway. All he wears are shorts and a vest. Footing is simple. He has no need for front-to-fronts or a toe harness.
“We just foot,” says the modest machine from Green Bay.
The figure-eight fraternity grows at every tournament. Some strange name will sneak through the winner's bracket into the quarterfinals, setting off a rumbling of the following conversation:
Who is this guy?
Never heard of him.
Where's he from?
I have no idea.
At the Footstock Orlando event, there were two mystery footers bullying through the field. Thomas Hughes, 17, was one of the few who completed a full eight, yet he still refused to call himself an endurance footer. “I'm just a footer,” he said. “It's not like I train for this. Footing on Lake Hamilton, Florida helps because it has a lot of Jet Skis that tear up the water.”
Only Mr. and Mrs. Shulenburger knew who 19-year-old Travis Shulenburger was before organizers had to write his name on a check for finishing fourth.
“Nobody knows who I am,” said Travis, who trains on what amounts to an overgrown spa (High Rock Lake in North Carolina). “I didn't expect to win money.”
Cash. There's a word that will draw barefooters like cats to an open tuna can. When asked the difference between winning a figure-eight tournament and winning a U.S. Nationals title, Peter Fleck says, “About $4,000.”
Fleck would know. He's won the last four Footstock events and is welcomed by his competitors with all the warmth that you'd give a telemarketer who rings up during dinner.
“He makes it look too easy,” says Kevin McGregor of Minneapolis. In other words, “If he'd just take one fall, like everyone else.”
It's not morbid watching – and enjoying – the falls. Most rounds end with one footer windmilling across the water, but rarely is there an injury.
“It's actually safer than tricks or jumping,” says Slemp, who also serves as safety director at the Footstock events. “The falls look worse than any fall there is. But most barefooters learn to tuck their heads, so it doesn't hurt at all.”
It's the feet that take the abuse. Every time Slemp barefoots he's reminded of the 1997 Blairfoot Bonanza in Winter Haven, when he was on the water for five minutes. His heels bruised so badly that he developed blood blisters.
A guy in Crandon two years ago literally burned a hole through the bottom of his foot. In the Footstock Orlando finals, Stokes came around after one-and-a-half eights, and at a time when most would be practically unconscious, he started one-foots.
“That guy is so cocky,” said one spectator.
Cocky, nothing. There was a flame coming off his right foo
t.
“I train for 20-second passes, not this stuff,” Stokes said. He promised that his charbroiled sole would not sideline him for long. “At first I just wanted to win some money, but it's so much fun going head to head, that's why I want to come back.”
In his figure-eight baptism, Jim Ware didn't finish in the money. But he also promised to return.
He might barefoot across his lake a few more times to prepare for the next figure eight contest. It could be in Lacrosse, Wisconsin, or Granite City, Illinois, or back in Orlando. Maybe he'll come out of the loser's bracket and make the finals somewhere. Maybe he'll complete a full figure.
Anything could happen, really. Maybe he'll even look across the wake to see who's pushing him to the brink and see Danny from Winter Haven.
