SSHoF logoDavid Wassill

Builder (2022)

Adaptive Water–Ski

David WassillWater Skiing is riding the David Wassill wave.

Wassill started water skiing as a youngster 60 years ago when his father Don was involved with the Stoney Lake Boat Club in Humboldt. David said when his entrepreneur Dad pursued business interests, the young guys took over. The Boat Club became the Water Sports Club. Wassill the athlete became a water-skiing coach and official.

In 1980 he launched the first annual Easter Seal summer camp in Canada for adaptive water skiing, meaning people with disabilities.

In 2002 WaterSki Canada added an adaptive water ski program. Wassill was on board, not only as a coach, but as a thinker and doer. He encourages athletes new to the sport. He makes them world class.

Consider Dalmeny’s Ashley Baerg. A paraplegic, Baerg switched from wheelchair basketball to water skiing, when she was 23. At 27, she set a world record in the seated-jump event at the World Disabled Water Ski Championships.

Baerg’s story. Wassill’s coaching.

He has been the coach of the Canadian team at the World Disabled Water Ski Championships, going from France to Italy to the United States to Australia to Norway.

Water skiing is physics. Its speed and thrust, angle and balance, force and tension.

Wassill gets it. He shapes it. Then again, he’s always had a feel for sport.

At College Mathieu High School in Gravelbourg, he did badminton, football, hockey, track & field and volleyball. He was a wrestler and pole vaulter at the University of Saskatchewan. He competed in and coached Olympic-style weightlifting for 34 years. He coached hockey and refereed for almost 40 years.