WATER SKIING Water Sports in a Brentwood Paradise
	June 2004

by Debbie Badal
Photos by Brad Shifflett

Our address might as well be 1038 Paradise, Brentwood because we've been living in a corner of heaven for the past three years — in a place that hardly anybody knows about.

Greg and I own Badal Construction, running the business out of our home, with just six guys working for us. We'll always be small because at this size we can provide superior service. We know our customers by name; they are not just numbered accounts. We learn what they really want. If customers have any complaint, they know Greg's personal phone number.

We're doing business the way people should do business, in our opinion. At least that's the way Greg thinks he should do his. I'm in charge of the office. Our workflow is just the right size that we can handle it all by ourselves, with our six men working in the field.

Water Skiing for Life
Our lovely home is one of only seven in a gated community, called Diablo Shores Vineyard Estates, each lot having a spacious lake-access, complete with boathouse and dock, plus 10 acres for whatever else each homeowner wants to do. In our case, we want our own wine label so we've planted several acres of Syrah grapes and plan to be bottling our own reserve in several years.

Some people might think that Greg and I are living in a place that is unbelievably idyllic. And, for sure, our little community is a wonderful place to live and raise our three sons.

However, as you grow older you learn that real quality-of-life is a condition more of the mind and heart than simply of acquiring a lot of stuff. You have to go beyond the things you can own in order to find real meaning and content for life. You have to find activities and projects you can be passionate about and especially you have to find people you can share your passions with.

A central axis around which a large part of our lives have been revolving consists of our involvement in water sports, particularly water skiing. We live in a particularly appropriate place for this since our tiny community actually centers on the only tournament quality water ski lake in Contra Costa County.

So Greg, does general contracting for a living, and he's good at it, but water skiing, especially slalom, is his life's passion.

Let's Start at the Very Beginning
Greg got up on a pair of skis behind a boat for the first time when he was only seven years old. He was born and raised in San Jose and his parents used to take him and his brother camping and towed a ski boat up to Coyote Reservoir.

He says that his older brother was much too competitive for Greg's tastes so he just had fun skiing and avoided all competition. However, he would go camping and skiing with his family almost every weekend during the summer.

Greg actually got serious about his water skiing about five years ago through a job he got as general contractor doing a project at the Berkeley Water-ski Club.

He attended one of the club board meetings to offer some free consultation and ended up being invited to be a member of the board. Since he was doing work for them and was a board member, Greg decided he might as well use the facilities.

At first Greg thought he was just having fun and reviving some of the water-ski abilities he had developed as a child. Early on, however, one of the club members told him about a tournament that was about to take place. Even though he still wasn't really interested in competition, Greg entered the tournament as a lark. To everybody's astonishment, especially his own, he ended up doing great.

Competing and Winning
Life changed for Greg completely that weekend; he began to spend all his free time developing his abilities at the end of a towrope.

Greg discovered natural talents that provided a base for an extreme commitment to the sport. He went to Nationals his first year in competition, which was remarkable considering that most competitors take years to get there, and some never make it at all. Ever more remarkable than the fact that Greg was able to compete during his first year, he was actually in first place for five hours.

Greg started out strong but continues to improve. Last year, for example, Greg posted the highest over-all combined average in the nation for all the tournaments he competed in. During the year he posted two of the best scores of his life, as well. Greg won Regionals last year and is now looking forward to competing in the Nationals, which are held in August in Florida.

I'm pretty proud of my husband because last year in Windsor, California, Greg earned the title of champion of the 13 western states Masters 55 kilometer slalom. "Masters" means that the competition consisted of the best competing against the best with no age divisions. Qualifying events for the championship competition essentially extended throughout the entire tournament year as skiers competed against each other for the right to be invited to that championship event.

The season lasts from Memorial Day weekend through the middle of October and Greg typically participates in about 25 competitions during that time, sometimes hitting three tournaments in a single weekend. He has recently been invited to attend an invitation-only pro event in England with the prestigious Prince's Club.

New Home; New Family
We came to Diablo Shores Estates where we now live for a tournament. We fell in love with the community and actually put an offer on our property while we were still at that tournament. I initially resisted because of the commute from Brentwood, but the idea of having a house right on a tournament class lake was too hard to resist. Beside, the commute was only five minutes. Greg especially loved the idea that he could get out of bed on a Saturday morning and be going 34 MPH at the end of a towrope 10 minutes later, if he wanted to (and if he could get me out of bed to drive for him).

Now Greg skis at least once every day, sometimes three times. Each time he makes between six to eight passes down the lake.

It might seem an unexpected benefit, but the sport of water skiing has opened an amazing number of doors in our lives through which we have been able to enter into relationships with many wonderful people, as well as providing an unbelievable number of avenues for helping and serving others.

The addictive quality about water skiing, as with so many hobbies, I think, is that all us people from Northern California are like a family. People, for sure, "want to go where everybody knows your name." All of us in our club cheer each other on and support one another. Also, it is a wonderful sport for families. Our club is very family oriented. Water skiing is very much a family affair around the Badal household.

We are so involved with supporting the activities of the club that I was named Woman of the Year a couple years ago. I don't compete, but I'm one of the official club scorers and was the Club Treasurer for three years. We work at every tournament the club participates in. Greg is a rated driver, rated judge, and rated safety-coordinator.

I think with a lot of sports like water-skiing you have to get involved big-time in order to derive maximum pleasure from the sport. Greg and I are not ski-and-run people. That's our term for the guys who show up at the competitions, make their runs, load their boats back on their trailers and they are gone. They don't realize it, but they are missing out on some of the best parts of the sport because the more involved we are, the more satisfying the sport becomes.

Learning, Teaching, and Encouraging
His pursuit of excellence led Greg to go on trips to Mexico in order to take lessons from a six-time national champion at a place appropriately named Ski Paradise. It wasn't long before the champion invited Greg to go back there in order to teach other learners lessons in the sport that he was so quickly becoming adept at.

So Greg now goes to Mexico three times a year, each time for up to two weeks in order to conduct classes. Besides these sessions in Mexico he conducts a number of classes for children and adults, as well as providing clinics where people can come and test out new equipment. He even gives private lessons to people, as the opportunity arises to do so.

Of course, Greg and I have always encouraged our sons to have fun with us and, as a result, all three of our boys love water sports.

Sometimes the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, as they say. Our youngest boy went to Houston, Texas, to a place called Largo Santa Fe, to compete in the Nationals himself. He and his dad both competed.

We're trying to promote the sport of water skiing every way we can. Greg's involvement goes beyond practicing, tournaments, and teaching. He tests and promotes ski equipment from HO Sports Company and is also a member of the MasterCraft promo boat program.

His association with MasterCraft is a great thing for both the company and Greg, I think. He doesn't actually get paid anything, but the company helps cover some of the costs for some of his clinics.

It's nice to have some help with Greg's expenses because he puts in a lot of time promoting the sport in many ways, perhaps putting on a clinic for kids, one week, conducting an equipment demo the next, and participating in factory R & D testing the week after that. All of that involves a lot of out-of-pocket expense, so the help he gets from MasterCraft is very welcome.

At Play in a Toy Factory
The thing with this sport that a lot of people couldn't imagine is that the technology for water skiing grows and changes every year. So as reward for his unpaid devotion to the sport, Greg gets to play with all the new toys. Greg has a great time teaching classes to kids and adults alike because he's basically a people-person. However, conducting demos and factory R & D testing for MasterCraft and HO gives him a whole different kind of rush.

People always make cracks about "boys and their toys." Assigning Greg to do things like trying out all this wonderful new equipment and showing other people how well it works is like turning a kid loose in a toy factory and telling him to test the toys and show other people how to have fun with them. No wonder he does this for free.

Of course Greg gets to keep a lot of the best stuff he tries out and demonstrates, since it is "used" by the time the demos are over.

Most especially Greg can work out his relationship with MasterCraft as one of their spokesmen to get a good deal on a new boat every year. One of these boats retails for almost $40,000, if you don't put too many upgrades.

A new boat every year is not simply a luxury for a person like Greg. The technology advances so much that last year's models are outdated this year. Of course, a ski boat doesn't become obsolete in a year; they are like cars. If you take care of it, a ten-year-old boat is just fine for a person who loves water skiing.

But just as with cars, if you want to stay on the leading edge, like Greg has to, you have to get a new boat every year. Some years manufacturers make important changes to the configuration of the hull and other physical changes that improve the boat's handling capabilities. But every year the manufacturers make important changes and upgrades in the electronics.

Boat Driving as a Computer Operation
Casual observers watching a water-ski boat make a turn at the end of a run and get set for the next pass couldn't imagine how much of that maneuver is conducted at the guidance of — and to some extent, even under the control of — a complex computer system.

For all competition boats, onboard electronics and control systems are all part of a major computer system, called Perfect Pass Cruise Control. The system can maintain a boat speed to within 100th of a mile per hour.

Before making a run someone inputs into the system all the appropriate variables, including combined weight of the crew, how hard you want to pull, how fast you want to get to speed from a dead stop, which direction the wind is blowing, and how strong it is blowing.

Tolerances are exact for the entire run from start to finish. Magnets in each of the buoys on the course notify sensors in the computer when the skier passes each buoy in order to create an automatic record of time and distance.

Three judges are required for an official contest, called a record tournament. They work with data from the computers on board each ski-boat as well as with three video cameras to record scores that are more than correct, they are almost infallibly precise.

Rubbing Shoulders with Greatness
You meet the nicest people on water-skis! The world champion slalom skier once spent a month at our home while making a video. The name Andy Mapple doesn't mean much to most people, perhaps, but he is one of the "gods among us" to fans of the sport. He is a professional who is the world slalom record holder.

I should try to make clear how great this guy is. He is co-holder of the slalom skiing world record, which is 43 off 75. If you aren't familiar with the sport, here's how that works: The standard towrope is 75 feet. With every successful pass down the course, the rope is shortened until it gets so short that the skier finally falls or else fails successfully to go around one of the buoys.

So the numbers "43 off 75" means that Andy made a successful pass down a course while connected to the ski-boat by a rope that was only 32 feet long. This is almost the shortest length possible, since the distance from the middle of the boat to each buoy is actually longer than this. Andy had to extend his body five feet beyond the end of the rope just to get his ski to go around the buoy.

So it was an honor to become friends with a person who could actually do that. Besides that, Andy is just a great guy! He and Greg became wonderful friends.

Greg actually got onto the video that Andy was making because of an extreme wipeout. He fell in a turn and actually performed a triple flip before finally getting into the water. It was a marvelous tumble, especially in slo-mo! Greg is pretty proud of that one.

Our Backyard Water-ski Tournament
The most exciting time of the year for us are those days when we conduct the Diablo Shores Estates Open, which is a Water-ski tournament that takes place on our own, private Brentwood lake.

This year the tournament is scheduled for September 24-26. Qualifying rounds take place Friday and Saturday, with head-to-head competition on Sunday. We are planning on 75 skiers showing up and have competition at all three levels, pro, amateur, and kids. Andy Mapple, himself, will compete in this tournament.

There is no bottom age limit. We've seen four-year-old kids skiing like they really knew what they were doing. The age divisions for boys and girls are 1-9, 10-13, and 14-16. Men's and Women's 1 starts at 17. By the way, the main difference between pro and amateur skiing is that pros ski at 36 MPH, amateurs at 34.

This is our second year to host this event. Last year we had a great time! Skiers and fans showed up to have fun in the sun with us. Manufacturers came to show off their new equipment. The tournament is completely non-profit; all the money brought in is paid directly back to the skiers.

Greg is the tournament chairman for this event. He competes, but expects to do poorly because it takes hundreds of hours for us to get ready for this, which doesn't provide enough time for him to have even ten minutes practice.

The tournament is a big burden for me, as well, of course, but it is one that I'm glad to bear. "You get out of life what you put into it" is more than simply a saying. Greg and I get a lot out of our little tournament, just like we get a lot out of the sport itself, because we put a lot into it. We put our lives into it.

If You Want to try this....
Water skiing is a great recreation, especially for people living in East County, with all the water around us, most all of it accessible to ski boats. You only have to get some equipment and pick out a half-mile stretch on one of the lakes or from our 1,500 miles of Delta water to have the greatest fun you can imagine.

We've known people to go skiing one weekend for the first time with some friends and end up buying a ski-boat with all the equipment before the next weekend. That's how much fun this sport is for some people.

If you want to stick your toe in the water before buying anything, you can find local clinics where dealers provide the boats and all the required equipment for you to try out. In this way you can experiment with various combinations, test things out, and make a decision about whether you really want to get into the sport. If you get a green light, these people will help you get started.

There are a lot of proshops in the area that will sell you your basic equipment. I think that Herman & Helen's even rents ski boats. The rentals are not professional ski boats, of course — they are simple, family boats. But even that is lots of fun for beginning skiers.

Speaking of family boats, we know that many families buy ski boats even if they don't do much skiing. The boats are light, easy to load, easy to drive, maneuverable, and forgiving. They come with great swim platforms. They have low sides are easy to climb over. They are just a lot of fun for people who enjoy boating.

You can buy a good ski boat for $35,000. Of course, you can trick these out with all kinds of things and pay twice as much, or more.

What Are You Waiting for?
If you are really interested in becoming involved in water skiing, you can do the same thing Greg and I did. You can join a club, meet some great people, and learn about the sport from the inside out. Water-skiers all tend to be friendly, generous people, who will be glad to help you in many ways. It was the quality of the people we met that got Greg and me really motivated in the sport.

If nothing else, contact us and we'll tell you how you can attend one of our clinics, where Greg gives lessons. If you are shy and money is no object, he'll even give you private lessons. Our friend gave her husband six private lessons for his birthday. What a great gift for the man who has everything!

The 2004 ski season is going to be a great year! The water in our little lake hit 70 degrees before the end of March for the first time since records were kept. It was 73 by the middle of the month.

It's going to be a warm and wonderful year. We can't wait for Memorial Day to get here so we can jump back into the fun that the sport of water skiing provides.

Come on and have some fun with us!
Greg & Debbie Badal
skibadal@aol.com
925-634-6442