CIT Coordinator: Harrison Trubitt, Reflects His Past and Present at MBAC

Harrison as a camper

1. How long have you been at The Watersports Camp? I started attending at age seven, and returned each year for four or five weeks of camp. I started with wakeboarding and eventually got into sailing as well, along with doing the afternoon multisport camp. 
2. Do you have any favorite memories or highlights from when you were at camper? I was really into dressing up for the spirited “Thursday Theme Day,” and always had different outfits. One counselor I looked up to who mainly taught me sailing made a nickname for me. It was also pretty awesome to become a CIT (Counselor-in-Training) with five other friends who I met at camp. It’s cool how it’s been a full circle having my camp friends also be CITs and now coworkers. 
3. What were your favorite sports to do while at camp? I remember starting wakeboarding as a young novice and getting a lot of help from my counselors, which improved my skills and motivated me to come back every summer to review what I had learned and to keep getting better. A few summers later I found myself at the other end of the beach by the black flag which represents the highest wakeboarding level. I also started as a beginner in sailing and advanced to lasers. 
4. Why did you want to become a CIT? Going through the sailing experience made me want to become a CIT because the counselors were great encouragements and my role models. I also made many friends that were camp returners as well and we were accustomed to the camp routine so the next step for us was to become CITs and further our place in the MBAC community because it was such a fun and invaluable environment to be in. 
5. How has your time here transitioned into having a position with MBAC? After being a camper for multiple summers and a CIT for one summer, I then became Assistant CIT Coordinator the summer after, then a lead staff member, and am now the CIT Program Coordinator. 
6. After being at MBAC for ten years as a camper and CIT, why did you want to work here? It became a big part of who I was. It was where I learned a lot of the fun skills I still enjoy doing until this day. I learned how to befriend new kids from different backgrounds such as Chile and the Netherlands, which also helped my private education experience. Ultimately, I wanted to give kids the experiences that I had here. 
7. Can you discuss a little bit about how significant your wakeboarding experience was in terms of the sport on a global scale? Yeah definitely. It was pretty cool learning it during that time period because wakeboarding wasn’t as popular as it is now, and The Watersports Camp was the only place in California that offered such close attention and care for kids learning to wakeboard. Now that I reflect on it I feel we contributed to developing a significant following for wakeboarding. 
8. Can you also explain further what life skills you gained at camp? Like I said earlier, it was cool meeting kids from all kinds of different backgrounds. It taught me to accept people regardless of where they’re from, and by working together and encouraging each other to improve in wakeboarding and sailing, we only got better. I still talk to some of my foreign friends to this day. So I would say a lot of people skills and problem solving skills. 
9. Can you sum up everything that Mission Bay Aquatic Center and the Watersports Camp has given you in a few words? Life-long friendships, experience in watersports, and life skills. 
10. Anything else you’d like to share on behalf of your experiences here? I’m so grateful to have joined The Watersports Camp when I did. It allowed me to grow up in the MBAC community, and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. 

Labels: Camp, Youth Activities