SkiWithWade

A Chat with "The Golden Girl", Camille Duvall

September 02, 2022 Wade Cox Season 2 Episode 24
SkiWithWade
A Chat with "The Golden Girl", Camille Duvall
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Show Notes Transcript

If you want to meet a woman who has done it all, then Camille Duvall is Exhibit A. The 15-time National Champion, named to Sports Illustrated’s Top 100 Greatest Female Athletes of the 20th Century, joins Host Wade Cox on this lively episode of The Ski with Wade Podcast. They are taking us back to the peak performance 1980s, when a deep bench of talent dominated the competitive water skiing landscape domestically and around the world. Camille, who today lives in the Lake Tahoe area and sells homes for Sotheby's Real Estate in the Sierras, shares memories of her early match-ups, her advocacy for young female athletes through the Women's Sports Foundation and what it was like to find out she was pregnant while on a global tour (she kept skiing another five months!). If this episode doesn’t make you nostalgic for days gone by, nothing will! But you’ll also get a glimpse of the up-and-comers Camille sees sparkling on the competitive horizon today!

 

You can keep up with Camille @Instagram! Or check out her book: "Camille Duvall's Instructional Guide to Water Skiing."


And click here check out previous episodes of Ski With Wade.

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Wade’s Bio:

Wade Cox’s legendary professional ski career includes multiple Pro titles and tours. Throughout the 1990’s he was on top as the HO Skis and Pro Tour poster boy. More recently he is spreading his waterski knowledge as a coach, via SkiWithWade tours and through his podcast, “Ski with Wade.”

Links for merchandise, schedules and more about Wade:

Website:www.skiwithwade.com

@Instagram

@Facebook

YouTube Channel

Email: skiwithwade@gmail.com

Ho Sports Shop:https://skiwithwade.com/ho-sports-shop/

If you want to meet a woman who has done it all, then Camille Duvall is Exhibit A. The 15-time National Champion, named to Sports Illustrated’s Top 100 Greatest Female Athletes of the 20th Century, joins Host Wade Cox on this lively episode of The Ski with Wade Podcast. They are taking us back to the peak performance 1980s, when a deep bench of talent dominated the competitive water skiing landscape domestically and around the world. Camille, who today lives in the Lake Tahoe area and sells homes for Sotheby's Real Estate in the Sierras, shares memories of her early match-ups, her advocacy for young female athletes through the Women's Sports Foundation and what it was like to find out she was pregnant while on a global tour (she kept skiing another five months!). If this episode doesn’t make you nostalgic for days gone by, nothing will! But you’ll also get a glimpse of the up-and-comers Camille sees sparkling on the competitive horizon today!

 

You can keep up with Camille @Instagram! Or check out her book: "Camille Duvall's Instructional Guide to Water Skiing."

 

And click here check out previous episodes of Ski With Wade.

 

 

 

BLOG:

 

What could possibly be more fun than traveling back to the 1980s with one of the stand-out powerhouse female competitors of all-time? Camille Duvall is a five-time World champion with 14 National titles and a place in the American Water Ski Hall of Fame. In 2000, she was named among Sports Illustrated’s Top 100 Greatest Female Athletes of the 20th Century. If that wasn’t enough, she went on to advance equal access for women in sports through her advocacy on the board of the Women's Sports Foundation. Throw in raising two kids in New York City, where she launched her career as a top-producing realtor and hosted a high-flying show for ESPN … well, you get the idea. This is a woman who hasn’t stop performing at the top of her game, decade after decade.

 

Tune into the latest episode of Ski With Wade to hear us reminisce about the brutal competition and super-fun camaraderie Camille and I experienced on the U.S. circuit back in the day. It’s also fun to think back on the influence she had on my own personal style to competition. She just always came out to do her best but also to be herself and have fun – an approach I adopted. And there was plenty of it (fun, that is) to be had! I’m still fondly remembering the dance I got to have with Camille when I was a 16-year-old pup who probably shouldn’t have been allowed at the post-tournament disco at all! 

 

Today, after a long break, Camille is out on Lake Tahoe doing what she and her younger brother, champion skier Sammy Duvall, have been doing since they were tiny kids in their hometown of Greenville, S.C. (Click here to listen to the pod I recorded a few months ago with Sammy.) They grew up challenging each other to perform at their full potential, which couldn’t have happened without their parents. So a shout-out to Camille’s folks and all the Moms and Dads (my own included) who are making championship dreams happen for their young water ski enthusiasts!

 

Now working for Sotheby's Real Estate in the Sierras in the gorgeous Lake Tahoe, where she’s been since 2018, Camille has fun thinking back on her stellar water ski career. But life is full and today all those trophies and ribbons are just nice-to-have’s for this woman for all seasons. Hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. To find it, just visit The Ski With Wade Podcast.

 

You can keep up with Camille @Instagram! Or check out her book: "Camille Duvall's Instructional Guide to Water Skiing."

 

And don’t forget to this website to see HO’s latest or find out about my tour dates and merch at the @Ski With Wade website.

 

 

 

TOPICS COVERED: 

·       Sports Illustrated honored Camille in 2000 as one of the greatest female athletes of the 20th century! 

·       Ticking off the list of all Camille’s titles and distinctions, which takes a few!

·       Attention young female water skiers (and athletes generally): The world is your oyster, so find a mentor and take advantage of all the (equal) opportunities. They didn’t always exist!

·       Camille takes us back to her childhood in Greenville, South Carolina, where her folks got her up on skis at the tender age of four. She learned quickly that stubbornness wasn’t going to serve her well!

·       Recollecting the first time Camille faced down her rivals to win a national title at age 14!

·       If she can’t be on the water all the time, Camille is at least close to it! After years of selling real estate in New York, she moved to Sotheby's Real Estate in the Sierras on Lake Tahoe in 2018.

·       Camille fondly remembers the late Liz Allan, who was not only legendary but also generous with her mentorship and guidance to the younger water skiing.

·       Burnout and a knee injury inspired a two-year break when Camille was 18; time away that shaped her mentally and physically going forward.

·       Remembering the hotly competitive vibe Camille and her cohort experienced at the peak of her career. Better yet? She’s seeing a similar intensity emerge among today’s crop of female water skiers.

·       Dialing back to 1985: Wade remembers the first time he got to hang out with Camille – a very memorable dance for a 16-year-old! 

·       Fast forward 1987 World’s – a peak of water skiing and near brawl for Camille when a British coach tried to sabotage her brother Sammy’s concentration down on the dock.

·       Making Bank: Camille was the first female water skier ever to make $100,000, which was a LOT of money at that time. 

·       At the end of the day, what most impressed Wade about Camille was how authentically she just stuck to who she was and knew with confidence what worked best for her.

·       About a memorable Costacos Brothers poster depicting the badass “untouchables” of the 1980s. Fun memories!

·       The Women’s Sports Foundation has been a central focus for Camille, who wound up in New York City, where she raised two kids, attended NYU’s broadcasting program and got into real estate. She also had the opportunity to co-host a show at ESPN!

·       Pregnancy and Touring: Camille didn’t slowing down after she found out she was pregnant while on tour in Europe. She kept on skiing until her fifth month. 

·       Camille reminisces about her pals (and rivals) on the U.S. team, including Deena Mapple, Bob LaPoint and of course her younger brother, Sammy.

·       Ready for Retirement: At 33, with a new baby and still firing on all cylinders (hitting ever more career highs and ranked in the top 3 nationally for slalom and jump) a mini-stroke sidelined Camille permanently.  

·       Looking back on a life with so many accomplishments, including being a mom, advocate for women in sports and a top producing realtor, Camille loves that she was a world-class water skier but that it’s not the apex and be-all-end-all of her life story.

·       Props and gratitude to the ride-or-die team that surrounded Camille at the peak of her career.

·       Sports She’s Loving Today: Winter sports, summer sports. Life in Tahoe is great for an avid athlete like Camille, who returned to water skiing in 2014 after a long break

 

 

QUOTES:

·       “I wouldn’t be where I am without my mother, my dad and my brother. Family makes it work for you.” (Camille)

·       “I was lucky enough to ski with all of the greats.” (Camille)

·       “Huge shout-out to my dad, who said I needed to go ski against the best of the best and, yeah, I was super, super-fortunate.” (Wade)

·       “The level of women’s sport and the depth of the bench that came up in the 80s was crazy. Props to all of those girls, because everybody raised the bar there.” (Camille)

·       “This was towering giants out there skiing against each other. You’re pushing the edge … It was a great learning experience and I treasure those times because these are the people who were the tip of the spear in leading the sport.” (Camille)

·       “You want to give back to your sport in whatever way you can, so whether that was television or teaching skiing or coming up with our own tour.” (Camille)

·       “You were dancing like literally four or five skiers before you went on and I thought: She is having a blast. She is going to go into beast mode or whatever mode you want to call it when she gets on the water, but right now she’s being Camille.” (Wade)

·       “Some people need to concentrate on what they’re doing and all that, but for me it was better just to relax my mind. I tend to be an overthinker.” (Camille)

·       “(Sammy and I) grew up skiing together from Day 1. He made me better than I am every single day of my life. I think I said that in my Hall of Fame speech and it’s true.” (Camille)

·       “We grew up in the south and manners are very important. Our parents instilled a certain humbleness in us as well.” (Camille) 

·       “I’m not really chasing buoys but my goal (today) is that each summer you do a hundred really good turns. Fifty and rest and fifty and rest. Gets you in pretty good shape!”

 

 

AUDIOGRAM CLIP:

(04:42-05:16) “Young female athletes! Be yourself. You have so many opportunities right now that I didn’t have growing up. Thank you Title IX and Billie Jean King. Those things are really important to women’s sports across the board. You have opportunities in all kinds of things, whether it’s snowboarding, snow skiing, water skiing, you name it, it’s available to you. I love to mentor young girls in anything I do, whether it’s real estate – my career now – or water skiing or horseback riding. So find a mentor and the world is your oyster!” (Camille)

 

 

Wade’s Bio:

Wade Cox’s legendary professional ski career includes multiple Pro titles and tours. Throughout the 1990’s he was on top as the HO Skis and Pro Tour poster boy. More recently he is spreading his waterski knowledge as a coach, via SkiWithWade tours and through his podcast, “Ski with Wade.”

 

Links for merchandise, schedules and more about Wade:

Website:www.skiwithwade.com

@Instagram

@Facebook

@YouTube Channel

Email: skiwithwade@gmail.com

Ho Sports Shop:https://skiwithwade.com/ho-sports-shop/