Date: 6/18/03
Author: Josh Cantor

Melissa Marquardt (pic: Ricky Ephrom)

It seems that over the last couple of weeks you could not turn on Sportscenter without seeing some comparison of women to men in sports. With Annika Sorenstam raising the discussion on women in sports, I have turned to our own sport to analyze how women stand amongst the men. This is an issue that many guys will simply not care about, but, hopefully, this article will be able to demonstrate why they should. I care about the sport of wakeboarding and want to see it continue to grow at the rapid rate we have seen so far. With this is mind, and the current ratio of male wakeboarders to female wakeboarders standing at around 9 to 1, why should wakeboarding alienate half of their potential audience?

For me, I usually fill the boat with a good friend or two and then the rest with ladies. This ratio is something that is found throughout the wakeboarding community. These girls all like to ride as well, and their money spends the same at the local pro shop. If this is the case, why are our videos and magazines so male dominated? Granted, the men are doing more technical and bigger tricks, but this does not mean that people do not want to see what the girls are doing as well.

Cheryl Newton (Pic: David Williams)

During the past two years, the Pro Tour cut many of the stops for the women. The women went from having six or seven events to the present number of two. There used to be a Women's Pro Tour Champion, but they stopped awarding that in 2001.

You would think that with only having two stops, the magazines would want to cover those two stops well. However, this is not the case. Wake Boarding Magazine said nothing about the women at the Orlando tour stop. This doesn't mean Wake Boarding Magazine is anti-girl. It was probably just an oversight on their part, but one that would never be made with the guys.

Last year, the Pro Tour added wakeskating. I love wakeskating and think that the growth of wakeskating is great for the entire industry. However, I believe that there is more interest in watching girls ride than there is in wakeskating. Everyone who has tried to wakeskate knows that with it comes many falls and, for Joe Shmoe who has never tried it and doesn't understand how hard it is to go wake to wake, watching these pros is not that interesting. Wakeskating is a very technical sport and, like many other sports, technical is not necessarily what the public wants to see. However, that same uneducated person, especially if it is Joanne Shmoe instead of Joe, would be much more attracted to watching a girl going big.

Gretchen Hammarberg (pic: David Williams)

Look at how many little kids love Froggy Soven. It is because they can relate to him because he, too, is a little (well, not so much anymore) kid. I just don't want to see girls losing interest in our sport because there aren't any visible pro women with whom they can relate. The saying "to each his own" is very applicable here. Ricky Gonzales and Randy Harris portray the bad boy "gangsta" image, which draws many people to them, while Shaun Murray and Danny Harf attract a completely different audience. With the fading out of the females from the spotlight, I fear that we will also fade out our female audience as well. Even the pro guys will agree that losing their female audience would definitely be a bad thing.

Melissa Marquardt (pic: David Williams)

I recently had the opportunity to spend a weekend on the Colorado River with three of wakeboarding's top women: Melissa Marquardt, Cheryl Newton and Gretchen Hammarberg. I have been around wakeboarding since the beginning and have seen many great riders. There is really no substitute for the guy riders. I can still remember the first time I rode in the boat and watched Daniel Watkins throw down a double front. However, there is also something special about watching a 5'3" girl, who weighs 100 lbs. soaking wet, go show you up.

It was not just me that was paying attention when these girls hit the water. When Gretchen rode, the lagoon on which we were riding on a busy Saturday afternoon seemed to stop. All the boats were just parked watching her blow it up. Everyone in the lagoon was impressed by her grace on the water - something that the guys just can't duplicate. It's not like they're doing simple rolls and grabs either. These girls are doing tricks that 95% of guy wakeboarders can't even get close to doing. Melissa is spinning like crazy, throwing down heelside and toeside 540's, while Cheryl is stomping a wrapped roll to blind and Gretchen is incorporating whirlybirds into her run.

Cheryl Newton (pic: David Williams)

While I was out in the boat with these girls, I kept having Blue Crush flashbacks. I could easily see wakeboards and a boat instead of the surfboards and the beach. It worked with surfing, why not with wakeboarding as well? We don't need to have some lame love story in our videos, but the general public liked watching female surfers doing what has, in the past, been left up to the men. Look how many 15-year-old girls went out and purchased boards and now want to surf. Don't you think the surf industry loved that?

We need to continue to promote these girls so that the big girls' sponsors continue to pump money into our sport. Look how much Roxy has done with surfing. It is not as if we need to create an audience for these girls. It's already there. It just may not be the most vocal audience. Similar to what was said in the cornfield in Field of Dreams, if you show them (pro girls) they will come (new girls). I can safely say that more girls would be welcomed in our sport.

Gretchen Hammarberg (pic: David Williams)

Our magazines and videos do not need to bend over backwards for every girl that can throw a roll. They are not doing that bad of a job exposing the women so far. I'm simply saying that both men and women want to see the girls on the water. The pro women could probably get more exposure if they pushed it a little harder by going out and doing more photo shoots. The magazines will run any good photos they get. They just aren't beating down the girls doors to get them. A real easy way to mix up the monotony of a wakeboard video, where guy after guy does a lot of the same tricks, is to throw a couple females in the mix. I think it will be the best thing for all of us in the long run.

The more people that wakeboard, the more power we have at our local lakes. More people means more money for everyone from the boat manufacturers to the board manufacturers. This equates to more money spent on research and development, which equals better boards and boats. With a larger sport, maybe we can get more coverage on TV so we can see more wakeboarding and less street luge and deep sea fishing. Really, that's all any of us want - more wakeboarding.

 Return To WakeWorld Article Archives