Zane Nicholson has been ULM’s Water Ski team coach for four seasons. Nicholson described his time with the team as “a lot of fun.” He expressed his appreciation for the diversity of the team, and how that adds to his experience as their coach.

“We have a lot of students of different nationalities, and it is kind of fun to bring them in and get them to work together,” Nicholson said. “Water skiing is not necessarily a team sport, so it is fun to get them to realize that they must work together and not just their score counts.”

Nicholson believes that this year, you can really see the drive of the team. He voiced his pride for how well they are working together to make sure that different people are down at the lake at different times to ski.

“I saw people train hard to make sure they were hitting their marks in the tournaments and then getting the scores that they needed. It was big work. I think the boat ran just about every day for eight or nine hours a day straight without stopping. That is just how dedicated they were this season.”

Nicholson stated that this season has been the best since he has became the coach. The team placed second at nationals, beating third place by 500 points. Compared to last year when they placed second again but beat third place by only 15 points. Many team members have only met each other once or twice when they joined, and Nicholson described how all their differing personalities meshed well together and created a family.

“They do a lot together. It is always fun to be around the group of them because they are just a lively bunch.”