By John Gregg Watsonville, CA. (April 27, 2007) — Some people seemingly have the gift of flight. Zack Worden just happens to be one of them. Now don’t get me wrong, he doesn’t go around levitating himself for the fun and amusement of the inhabitants of Bizzarro World. However, the sixteen-year-old water skier on occasion seems to have the ability to defy gravity for long periods of time.
Worden is ranked number-one in the world in Junior Men’s jumping and overall on the International Water Ski Federation’s world rankings list. For people who put lists together, well, that is a very impressive one to be the top dude. Worden also happens to be only the second U.S. junior water ski athlete other than Regina Jaquess, to be ranked number one in overall at the end of their second junior season.
The fact that he did it at age 15 is, well, remarkable. Last season Worden captured jumping titles at the Junior U.S. Open, Junior Worlds and Pan American Championships. Factor in his fourth-place finish overall at the Junior Worlds last summer, followed by winning the overall gold medal at the Pan American Championships, which just happened to be the first major overall title of his career. So by now you know that the guy is flat out good.
“Being 15 it was really big for me. There were a couple of other people that were 15 when they were number-one in the world but the fact that the division goes up to 17-year-old was really big for me,” Worden says. “I was beating out a couple of guys older than me. It really hit home and gave me a lot of confidence and it made me eager to go out there and get more.”
An Honors class student in high school in Deltona, Florida, Worden moved to Sunset Lakes in central Florida, where he is living and working at Jack Travers Ski School. That has allowed the talented athlete to focus on his skiing but he now finds himself continuing his education online.
“In January I opted to go to Florida Virtual Schools, which is basically all online schooling. I have teachers online and teachers on call,” Worden explained. “So I have been doing my work in my off hours and my lunch break and after dinner, after I have been skiing really hard during the day.”
So, just how academically challenging is it going to school online?
“I still have my Honors classes and it still is pretty demanding. I do have to set away a number of hours each week to focus on some classes,” Worden confided. “It hasn’t been too bad but I do have some trouble in some subjects but I just call the teacher and there’s also tutors to help me out. We also have tutors that come out and that helps. It is just like going to school but I have the ability to walk out the classroom and go ski.”
Worden closed out last season with a jump of 180 feet, which was a personal best and also a 15 foot improvement over the previous year. Along the way, Worden also skied 4 buoys at 38 feet off in slalom and scored 6,600 points in tricks. In 2007, the sixteen-year-old athlete is gunning for a jumping mark of 189 feet, which is the current Boys 3 national record. Worden is also hoping to run 38 off and reaching 7,500 points in tricks. However, just like teenagers everywhere, he also has to hit the books.
“I would probably say that English and History class are not my strong subjects. I’m more of a Math and a Science guy,” Worden explained. ‘A tutor comes out just about daily because we have two other people Lauren Morgan and Jonathon Travers, who are both fulltime home school and they worked with them and they also work with me.”
The balancing act of skiing and working fulltime is a challenge, however, Worden seems to be able to focus his energy not only on athletics but also on getting his schoolwork accomplished.
“At first it was a little confusing because usually you would go to a lecture but you read the lecture. However, it really isn’t too different because there is still student-teacher contact,” Worden says. “I haven’t taken a Math class yet but that should be interesting. I usually go home for finals and I will study up on the last few chapters and prepare for it just like any other final. It is a protected test and you can’t get in without a password. You can’t minimize so it is a solid test of your knowledge”
What Zach might be missing out on is the social contact that comes with going to high school everyday. However, he still feels that his main emphasis is his sport and to be candid, well, he still lives to ski.
“It does a little. I was in school halfway through my 10 th grade year, so I think I’ve got the social thing down pat,” Worden confided. “A lot of my social life is through water skiing, even when I was in high school people would ask, ‘do you want to go to a party?’ I would always say, ‘nope, sorry I’m going over to water ski.’ So my social life is based around water skiing, so it isn’t a huge thing for me.”
The upside to the entire experience for the gifted young skier is great coaching from Jack Travers. However, Worden also spends a fair amount of his time with beginning skiers at the school.
 “I’m over in Lake County and we have students come in weekly and monthly and then some people stay for the whole summer. We work on the boats and work around the ski school to try and pay for some ski rides and that kind of offsets the price,” Worden explained. “We have a lot of families come and we have seven houses that people rent and people come from all over. We just had a big group of people from France that were here for a month. They lived in a house and skied daily, so there’s a lot of families and a lot of beginners at Jack Travers Ski School.”
In the past Worden has had a tendency to go out too hard and too fast and physically it has taken a bit of a toll. He has spent a little over a month this spring coming off a back injury following a tough crash during a slalom run that kept him out of the water for more than four weeks. The other side of that equation, however, is that Worden has placed a greater effort in becoming more consistent and also on protecting his body.
“I make sure that I’m well stretched and [Jack] doesn’t want me take it too hard and take any big hits. I was probably pushing myself too hard back in February and I had to ease off the water for a short time,” Worden explained. “It happened to me a couple of years before because I was push, push, push and then I had my peak in mid-March and then my April I kind of died down. So he has me working just on consistency and really working on technique and honing certain skills.”
So what is all the hard work and practice leading up to, well, when you are a flyer like Zach the ultimate goal everytime is winning gold medals.
“We have a Masters qualifying tournament the weekend before the big Junior Masters and those are going to be one of my two big tournaments this year. A lot of the pros are going to be at the tournament the week before the Masters, so I hope to make a name for myself and show the pros to watch out; here I come,” Worden confided. “The Junior Masters is a really big tournament for me because it is the following weekend. I ski overall there and last year I crashed during jump in the final round. So I got third place and I was kind of bummed out. I really hope to redeem myself and get the gold overall and in jump.”
To achieve those lofty goals and also to make an even bigger name for himself, Worden has doubled his efforts in improving both his jumping and in the slalom.
“I work on speed and consistency. A lot of people will go out there and they will turn one place for the ramp and then on their next jump they will be all over the place. I really try to be consistent on how far I’m jumping. If I jump 180’ in the first one I would like to jump 180’ in the second one, so I’m not peaking all over the place. I really work on maintaining my edge and getting as much speed that I possibly can and go as far as I possibly can. Earlier in the season I started riding on some new equipment for my ski and that really improved a lot. Jack was there to kind of push me and help me out and get all my stuff figured out. Really just working on being consistent in slalom like having nice rhythm, getting some easier passes but really working on my technique and doing back-to-backs and striving for consistency.”
 There are a number of truly outstanding American pros in Worden’s sport but if you pin him down the guy that he really admires is a Canadian athlete.
“I have always looked up to Jaret Llewellyn. We have a similar style and I have analyzed him on tape and he has been a role model for me,” Worden says. “He is an amazing jumper but also he is an amazing overall skier. That’s really big for me because a lot of guys will go out there and be great in one event and you look at the other two events and it’s not so good. Jaret is amazing in all three events, so I really aspire to be just like him and be an overall skier not just a jumper or just slalom.”
So how can you be so driven and focused at a young age, well, in Worden’s case, he simply knows what he wants.
“My motivation is being number-one. I thrive on being number-one,” Worden says. “We will be throwing the football and if I could throw the ball farther that’s just motivation that goes around. In skiing we have a lot of kids who come out that are at my skill level but I always try to be number-one at that. I apply that to everything I do.”
At 16, Zack Worden all ready, knows where he’s going and perhaps most remarkably he’s fully aware of what type of sacrifice that journey ultimately requires. Gravity, well, that's something the rest of us still have to deal with. |
