Spencer Fisch Bio

Spencer Fisch, a Senior here at Sierra Nevada College majoring in Outdoor Adventure Leadership as well as Creative Writing, was one of the few who decided to join the water ski team and make it a point to ski as much as he possibly could.  With only eight days of skiing under his belt this year, Spencer has already skied in three tournaments and learned how to jump up to 46 ft.

Prior to SNC, Spencer had only been water skiing one or two times with his family and never through a course or off of a jump, mainly just free skiing around and seeing how long you can stay up.  Spencer told us, “I had always wanted to learn to wakeboard and truly conquer water skiing, however I had never had the chance to get out on a lake more than a couple of times as a child.  Due to a busy weekend schedule I could not join the team in the fall of 2014 but was able to join this spring, 2015, with a more lenient weekend schedule,” said Spencer.  After coming down to the San Diego Thanksgiving tournament, Spencer realized how fun it would be to join the team, I mean who doesn’t want the school to send us on all these trips down to SoCal to go camp out on a private lake? 

The next semester Spencer decided to join the team even though we had lost our ability to ski on the private lake we had been training on, due to them raising the amount of memberships aloud and not having enough time.  With the ASU Spring Opener coming up and Spencer not even skiing yet, Spencer, Cory, and myself went to Sacramento to meet up with Ralph, a family friend of Cory’s who has a boat on a lake with a slalom course.  Spencer got up on the slalom ski after a few try’s and road it out for a bit but then got up on the wake board and started getting some good carves and side slides.

The next weekend it was time to head south for the first tournament of the semester in Newberry Springs, CA.  Spencer was off to a good start when in trick he scored 100 points his second time ever on a wakeboard putting him in 24th place, and then fell on his first time hitting the jump, came back around for his second and third and stomped them both getting 27 ft. putting him in 19th place.  “The water ski community was one of the most welcoming sports I had been a part of.  Instead of being extremely competitive with each team, everyone is supportive of making sure each person does their best and improves in each category while keeping spirits high,” said Spencer

The next weekend we were all pretty stoked to get back on the lake and get some practice in before the next tournament but we still didn’t have anywhere to ski in Tahoe.  Then we thought of an idea, Chico isn’t to far and were pretty good friends with their team so why not go ski with them.  We called our friend Carl who’s the coach of the team and owner of the lake and he said it was fine to come down so Spencer, Cannon, and I hopped in the “Fisch Tank” (Spencer’s Suburban) and drove over to Chico for the weekend.  Spencer went on to say, “I couldn’t believe how open the Chico team was and how hospitable Carl’s family was to allow us to use their lake and boat for practice and also stay the night.  After helping them with yard and lake work, we were able to practice and I finally got comfortable on the slalom ski and wakeboard with the help of our team members and Carl’s tips.”  Spencer got back up on the slalom ski and got a few passes back and forth down the lake looking a lot more comfortable on the ski and then learned some new slides on the wakeboard as well.

Once again getting one day of practice in before the tournament we hopped back in the car and sent it south, down to Arvin, Ca.  Spencer received 80 points for his trick run and jumped 40ft., 13 ft past his last jump, not to mention he painted his entire body green to be an elf for the LARPing or Live Action Role Play party.  Then at the last tournament at Bel Aqua in Sacramento Spencer beat his personal best again in jump going 46 ft. tying for 18th place out of 41 people and making him the third farthest jumper on the team for the semester after three days total of doing it.  “Although graduation is exciting, I am very disappointed I could not have been a part of the water ski community longer.  We have made quite an impression with our small team at the tournaments and especially the social aspect and Saturday night dinners and parties.  When we meet new people and tell them we are from Sierra Nevada College they often respond with, ‘Oh you’re from SNSKI’.  I hope the team will continue to exist and set a good example and create the reputation we have built in just two semesters,” said Spencer.