Year after year, Hanover's Collin Frucci brings his best to the national water ski scene
To water skier Collin Frucci, the national stage is nothing new.
Dashing along high-speed currents, you may expect some nerves or angst to show.
Not for this 19-year-old from Hanover, who does so daily.
“He was born in December and by March, he was in a boat,” said Frucci's mother, Diana.
A 2021 Hanover High graduate and incoming sophomore at Florida Southern College, Frucci finished sixth in the slalom event and fifth in the jump category with a 138-foot landing at 80th annual GOODE Water Ski National Championship in Kansas over the weekend. Frucci is contending against nationwide competition for the eighth consecutive year, and has been since he was 11.
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“Honestly, I just loved it,” Collin Frucci said, recalling the early days. “I just loved being out on the lake. It’s a different sport – when you go to practice, my mom’s driving, my dad’s coaching me and my little brother is in the boat. It’s just different than a lot of other sports in a good way, I think.”
Collin Frucci didn't just cling onto his skis in high school. He played football and soccer, on top of being an accomplished rugby player: as a senior, he was a Patriot Ledger All-Scholastic, Patriot Rugby Conference All-Star and captained a Hanover team that landed in the Division 2 semifinals.
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His love for water skiing overpowered all, though. His parents, Diana and Jay, were both collegiate water skiers at the University of Kentucky, met on campus and three sons later, they introduced the sport to each. (They still compete to this day). Their oldest son, Cade, is an offensive lineman on the Hobart College football team and the youngest, Robbie, is an incoming freshman at Hanover High.
Collin, who stands 6-foot-4, is the only one – as of yet – to have big water ski dreams. In seventh grade, he attended the Jack Travers International Water Ski School in Groveland, Florida, and completed his academics virtually.
“We knew this opportunity could open some avenues for him down the road,” said Diana Frucci. “It all kind of played out the way we hoped it would. It was definitely a leap of faith.”
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College recruiters came knocking soon after.
“I think (that) was exciting, if anything,” Collin Frucci remembered. “I never thought competitive waterskiing to be that great of a sport like lacrosse, basketball and football. I didn't know the same recruiting process could come for water skiing. I think it was just really exciting that I could do this at the collegiate level."
“That’s when he really got the bug, where he was like ‘OK, I’m going to be good at this,” added Diana Frucci. “He’s always had his goals in his mind of what he wanted to achieve.”
Those goals mostly reside in the continued desire to place at renowned events. In June, he took third place in the slalom and fourth in the jump at the Junior U.S. Open in Rio Linda, California.
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“The water is dyed blue there, that’s how perfect it is,” Collin Frucci described the California lakes. The courses he competed on are man-made.
He has a history of attending events that span the country. As a freshman, Collin Frucci pitched in on the Florida Southern College slalom and jump teams that each finished third at the 2021 Collegiate Nationals held in Zachary, Louisiana.
“It’s one of the best parts of the sport," Collin Frucci said. "You get to go to different places that you wouldn’t go otherwise if you didn’t have a reason like this."
Day in the Life
Whether it was spending time at his grandparents' New Hampshire home near Lake Winnipesaukee or going through the coursework of a semester at Florida Southern, water skiing usually finds a way into Collin Frucci's daily itinerary.
This summer, he would typically wake up around 7 a.m. and hit a slalom set.
He'd then head to work at a nearby restaurant from, approximately, 10-4.
He returns home afterwards to stretch out again, and back to the course he goes for more slalom and jump sets. A typical day offers enough time for Frucci to water ski three times per day – a commitment he set in order to place at these national competitions.
“When I tell people I water ski for Florida Southern, they don’t really grasp what that means. They think I just go around the lake on two skis waving to everyone, but it’s a highly intense sport," Collin Frucci said. "Professional water skiers are top of the notch athletes, world athletes. They could play any other sport and be at the same level. It’s not much different, that’s what I would say as far as athletics go.”
Diana Frucci also credits mentors Skip Hommel from Pembroke and Dave Allen, the head of the Massachusetts Water Ski Federation, as well as the Travers family, for helping guide her son to his accomplishments thus far.
“He’s got his goals set and we’re going to help him meet them," Diana Frucci said. "And every goal he sets that he’s able to meet, we’re just so happy for him.”
This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Hanover's Collin Frucci driven to see all the water ski success he can
