For an athlete who really didn’t even learn to start water skiing until she was twenty, Harrison once again excelled with her second career on the water.   Leza is now retired from NASA but she has never eased off the throttle in her pursuit of her sport.

Harrison has won the Correct Craft Ski Nautique Award, given to the skier with the highest overall score in any division at the Water Ski National Championships, five times in her career.  She currently holds two national records–Women 4 jumping (122 feet) and Women 5 slalom (2 buoys at 38 feet off).  At a very youthful 56, Harrison is poised to represent the United States at two international water ski tournaments later this summer.

Not bad for a lady from New Jersey, who never even stepped into a pair of water skis until she was a twenty-year-old college student. 

“I was born in Saddle River, New Jersey.  I came to Florida to go to college at Rollins and I didn’t know anything about water skiing.  It was just a PE course,” Harrison explained.  “I learned really fast and while I didn’t know anything about skiing I found out about three-events; tricks, and jumping and the slalom course.”

Simply put Harrison was a natural and it was a nice break from her studies to spend time on the water.

“It was just very fun to learn.  They asked me if I wanted to ski on the college team pretty quickly and I thought that they were making fun of me [laughter],” Harrison recalled  “But I learned so quickly I was able to do as well as anyone else on the team.  It was so challenging and you always learn something and when I got on the slalom ski team we were doing intercollegiate tournaments.  The competition started and that was kind of addicting.”

Because of her new found love for water skiing, Harrison decided to remain in the Sunshine State and that decision eventually landed her a job at NASA and a very rewarding career spending most of her time working on the electrical systems of the Space Shuttle. 

“I ended up staying in Florida after I graduated and trained with some of my friends and kept competing.  I decided that I wanted to keep skiing, so I primarily looked for jobs in Florida,” Harrison said. “It was like all I did was work and ski.  A lot of the competition I would do, I would take the red eye back and fly in at dawn and drive straight to work.  It was a fulltime thing for a long time.  I was NASA engineer for 26 years and now I’m retired.”

Just how good has Leza become on the water, well, Harrison has won overall titles and gold medals in the sport an amazing 23 times.  At one point in her career she won twelve years in a row.  If you want to talk about hardware, over the course of her incredible career, Leza has won 106 national medals and the Grand Slam five times. 

While a number of her contemporaries have elected to pursue other activities, Harrison still remains a force in the sport.  That has translated to still competiting at a very high level against world class competition.

“Water skiing has age divisions, so you kind of stay within your boundaries.  I couldn’t compete against the open women anymore but I still continue to improve [laughter].  I’m still getting better,” Harrison explained.  “I think it is the satisfaction I get at accomplishing something when I ski.  Even on a daily basis, when I can run certain passes on the slalom course I feel like I’m accomplishing something,” Harrison explained.  “It is a sense of challenge and achievement.  The little rewards I get on a daily basis keep me going.  I think it is healthy.”

Harrison calls Chuluota, Florida home but she will be on the road this summer and fall when she first competes as a member of the U.S. Veteran 2 Water Ski Team at the Pan American Water Ski Championships, July 21-23, in Medellin, Colombia.  After that tournament, Leza will return to Florida to train and then gear up to compete as a member of the U.S. World Senior Trophy Team at the World  Senior Trophy, on September 8-14, in Sesena, Spain.
 
“It is a different kind of competition when you go internationally.  Because all of the sudden you aren’t competing against yourself, or for yourself,” Harrison confided.  “You are part of a team and it actually increases the awards and the satisfaction of it because you are skiing for your country.  Your score makes a difference for the team.  It is a different kind of pressure and I believe a greater sense of accomplishment and achievement.  You can contribute to the team score and help the team win for your country.”

After a lifetime of achievements and winning medals, nevertheless, Harrison takes special pride representing the United States in international competition.

“It takes a lot to get there and when it is all said and done, it makes some of the training and the hard work that you do worth it,” Harrison says.  “Usually the US has such depth that some of the foreign countries have one or two skiers that standout.  But they don’t have the depth that we have.  They take three or four scores because it is a team sport, so one star isn’t going to win the team competition.  It is based more on if you have a few skiers that are able to base high.  There is so much depth and talent in the US that we take that into these tournaments and that’s why we usually do well.”

Perhaps one of the biggest gifts on her long career has been her ability to travel the world while skiing and along the way make countless friends who all share the love of their sport.

“I have been a lot of different places competiting.  I have a lot of good memories and have made a lot of good friends because of the tournaments,” Harrison says with a smile.  “I have been to South America a number of times and I have been to South Africa.  I have also been to Mexico and different places in Europe, including Austria, France, Italy, and Belgium years ago and now Spain is coming up this fall.  I have made friends from all over the world.” 

The question remains what fuels someone to keep competing at the very top of her sport after spending most of their adult life battling it out on the water.  Well, for the beguiling Harrison it turns out she still likes to challenge her most difficult opponent, herself. 

“I like competiting against my own scores rather than competing against another person.  I don’t feel like I’m out there to beat someone else,” Harrison confided.  “I’m out there to challenge my own abilities and if I do well at that then let the chips fall where they may, rather than just trying to beat someone.  That’s what I like about the competition.  If you do train hard and practice usually you perform well in the competition.” 

Photos courtesy of USA Water Ski