Unplugged: September
From Phone Books to Footin' Phenom
By Patty Bonnstetter
Most workdays, New Orleans native William Farrell is a mild-mannered advertising salesman for major phone directories in Sacramento. That is, until he ducks into a Superman-like phone booth to emerge as “West Coast Willie,” world-class barefoot water ski phenom.
Having learned the sport on the Louisiana bayous while in high school, Farrell, 51, has risen to the top of this style of water skiing known as footin’, and he is nowhere close to giving up yet. He’s the only one in the world to have qualified to compete in every one of the biennial Barefoot World Championships held in locales such as Australia, Europe, New Zealand and South Africa, as well as the United States.
Water skiing without the benefit of a ski requires the skier to start from a dock or in the water, then skim the water’s surface, forward, backward or both, while in tow from a rope affixed to a ski boat’s pylon. The sport’s devotees range from 5-year-olds to 91-year-old “Banana” George Blair of Florida.
The history of barefooting is somewhat sketchy, but Farrell says it was promoted at the Cypress Gardens theme park in Florida as “the ultimate challenge” in 1955. Thereafter, adventurous teenagers and young adults began to improvise, define and refine techniques. Using foot and toe holds, for instance, allowed hands-free skiing.
Adventurous Australians started a club around 1966 and became the world’s leaders in the sport. In 1976, Australian John Hacker hosted a three-day barefoot clinic in Louisiana. “Hacker taught us to ski backwards and do tricks,” Farrell recounts. “We built a jump and competed at the first four-event barefoot competition in North America.” The American Barefoot Club was born.
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