WaterSki Magazine

WATERSKI Magazine
2001-06-14 15:00:00 | 34 views |
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Jeff Rodgers can hardly believe that just months ago he was ready to send his slalom gear to the attic and retire from pro skiing. Just two years removed from a promising second-place finish on the pro tour, Rodgers had become a non-factor. The frustration of not being able to run even 35 off bubbled over last June.

“I really thought it was time to do something else,” says Rodgers, who was close to joining his family's well-drilling business full-time. “Melinda [Rodgers' wife] and I said something has to change.”

As a last-gasp measure, Rodgers drove from his home in Greenwood, South Carolina, to West Palm Beach, Florida, to ski under the watchful eye of instructor Mike Ferraro.

“He was beyond desperate,” Ferraro says. “He had changed everything, so we looked at ESPN footage from [1994] and changed everything back.”

In the next three months, Rodgers went ballistic. At the U.S. Nationals he got into 41 off for the first time in two years. Over his next 14 rounds, Rodgers posted two at 41 or better an incredible 12 times. Included was a pending U.S. record of four at 41. So dramatic has Rodgers' turnaround been that he's being mentioned in the same breath as Wade Cox and Andy Mapple going into 1997.

“It's unheard of,” says Ferraro. “I don't think anyone has ever turned it around as fast as he has.”