Wisconsin has more water ski show teams than anywhere else on the planet. Every summer Dan and Amber Dix help welcome 26 teams from across the state to Red Sands Beach for the Wisconsin State Water Ski Show Championship.
Dan Dix brings the voice as the announcer for the hometown favorite Wisconsin Rapids Aqua Skiers. Amber Dix is the team’s show director. The couple’s decades-long love affair with water skiing has now become a family affair. All three of their children started skiing before the age of two. Faith, Alexis and Colby Dix are all third generation Aqua Skiers.
At the 2023 State Water Ski Tournament, one member of the family did not compete. It was the first time in 21 years Faith Dix missed the championship. She was halfway around the world, showing off her high-flying water skiing skills along Australia’s Gold Coast as a member of the SeaWorld Thunder Lake Stunt Show. Her parents will tell you she’s a show person.
It’s rare for Faith Dix to be home in Wisconsin where her water skiing career began. However, sunrise over Lake Wazeecha is the perfect time to train, carving the glass-like water with bare feet and fierce determination. Mom and Dad are in the boat as she works to perfect a “back flyer”: a move that requires the skier to jump off the dock forward, flip around in the air and land chest first on the water as a ski boat pulls them up into a backwards, barefoot water skiing position. Faith Dix nails it time and time again.
“The falls you take and the punishment your body takes to get up and keep going, it takes a special breed of these kids,” says Amber Dix.
Faith Dix proved she’s part of that special breed when she made the USA Elite Barefoot Team. Out of eight team members, she was the only woman. She’d been competing for just over a year when she qualified for the under-23 world championships.
That competition, in Mulwala, Australia, would put Amber and Dan Dix’s nerves to the test. Amber Dix compares it to watching the Olympics when the camera pans to the family in the crowd.
“You hold your breath, and your stomach is full or butterflies,” says Amber Dix. At one point it got so bad, she couldn’t watch. She had to rely on the crowd noise. If she heard lots of cheering, she would know her daughter did well. What she heard next was the announcer saying Wisconsin’s Faith Dix had just won the 2023 Barefoot World Championship.
Faith Dix went on to medal five more times in the World Championship. The only member of Team USA to make the podium.
Ever humble, Faith Dix says, “I still feel like it’s a small sport. It’s not super crazy, but within the sport it is pretty exciting.” Her parents are beyond proud. They knew their daughter could reach her goals. They just never knew how high those goals would be.
There’s no telling how high Alexis and Colby Dix will go on skis either. Their older sister wants to show them they can do anything they put their mind to. She doesn’t want them feel like they’re ever in her shadow.
“When you see what they can do together in one family, that to me is a huge blessing,” says Amber Dix.
