Hitting sweet jumps is an important part of the UW water ski team.

For more than a year now, the team has been hitting them around Washington and around the country, going as far as North Carolina.

Some success has followed the players, but with only nine members committed to the club, the team is not able to send a full squad to tournaments.

"We'd like a have at least 30 people on the team," said senior Jacqueline Stocks, captain of the water ski team.

She also added that if they could send a full team to all these tournaments, UW would have a very good chance of qualifying for nationals.

The main events at a water ski tournament consist of slalom, tricks and jumping for both men and women. Last month at the UC Davis Fall Tournament, Stocks took first place in the women's slalom event.

Her teammate and team president junior Sara Vannortwick finished third out of a total of 33 women. Junior Matt Johnson led the men's team with a sixth place finish in slalom.

While the UW's team can boast the talents of a few very successful and skilled skiers, the importance is emphatically placed on having a good time.

"You don't have to be an amazing water skier to have a great time," said Stocks. "There is so much more than just the competition."

A tournament weekend for the water ski team sometimes includes 12-hour dance-party road-trips in a rented motor home, sponsored parties on Saturday nights and entertaining engagements of all sorts.

"It's just the most fun you're going to have that is school-sponsored," Johnson said. "You really don't have to have a lot of experience, it's all about going down to California, hanging out and having fun."

Back in the year 2000, the captain of the UW water ski team left the UW. When no one else was willing to assume leadership of the team, it was forced to close down.

Then in the fall of 2004, Stocks, Vannortwick and Johnson worked together to start the team back up again. Extremely self-sufficient, the team organizes its own practices at Winlock Waters -- a group of man-made lakes one hour south of Seattle --seeks out sponsors, mans a booth on the HUB lawn, and also coordinates its own travel arrangements.

But the club needs more members to operate at full force and since the UW provides no financial help, due to restraints in what it can provide to the club, members are on their own.

"Hopefully, we will get more people out," said Vannortwick. "We probably have the best team, but we don't have a lot of depth."

The city of Seattle has a permanent place in water ski history. Seattle native and Roosevelt High School graduate Don Ibsen is recognized as being one of the co-founders of water skiing in 1928.

On campus, the UW water ski team is carrying on his legacy. They have advanced from tennis shoes screwed onto cedar board, to weaving through buoys at speeds of 36 miles per hour and flying off six-foot jumps as far as possible.

Fall season is over for the team, but once spring arrives they will be on the water doing some tricks.