SISTER LAKES — Bill Boston had the idea of a lake games-esque competition in Sister Lakes years ago, when he saw ESPN crown a Hawaiian waterman.

“He can do all these things on the ocean,” Boston said. “That is the highest honor in Hawaii.”

Now Boston and University of Michigan senior Walker O’Brien are on a quest to find their ‘waterman’ of southwest Michigan by creating Lake Games. Lake Games runs through the website, thelakegames.com and was created to bring teams of riders, skiers and boaters of lakes in southwest Michigan together in competition with people from other lakes in the area.

The Lake Games website was created and designed by O’Brien, who studies computer science. Last year, Boston, who is the owner of the Boarder Line, 94166 County Road 690, Dowagiac, reached out to O’Brien with the idea. O’Brien had previously worked at The Boarder Line in 2014. Boarder Line has been in Sister Lakes since 1991 and celebrated its 21st year this season.

For the next eight months, the pair spent time putting the website and logistics together. Both, who have been coming to the Sister Lakes area since they were born, have noticed an unspoken rivalry among the individual lakes in Sister Lakes. Through the website, the pair wanted to facilitate some friendly competition.

“It’s bragging rights, but nothing crazy,” Boston said. “O’Brien and some of his computer science friends have gotten this thing to version one.”

The website launched after the Fourth of July, but struggled to reach the wide audience of the lake community.

“There is not really a clear channel to reach people who are up here just for the weekend,” Boston said. “That’s been the biggest obstacle. How do we reach out to the different lakes?”

To date, Boston said the site has over 100 accounts created. The website works by users creating an account. Once an account is created, users can view and upload their own videos of them doing their sports: water ski, wakeboard, barefoot or slalom ski.

Right now, O’Brien is looking to add meshing capabilities and make the website a community where people can interact and go waterskiing or wakeboarding together.

“This is kind of a beta version and is the first go around, where its open to the public,” O’Brien said. “I took a web development class last year, so it’s been a lot of learning stuff on my own this summer.”

Boston had hoped for more users and has since noticed, through interactions with customers who attend lessons, that there is some hesitancy. Therefore, the pair is putting less emphasis on the competition and more on the community.

“If I am a 17-year-old kid, and I jump on lake games, and I see who has first, second and third place right now, and I know I can’t beat that, I may be not so prone to use it,” Boston said. “I think we want to get away from that and more so go toward full participation. I’d rather know that there’s 200 people on Magician lake that are slalom skiing rather than who the best solemn skier is.”

Boston is behind the idea of people participating and learning from each other. His own father taught him how to solemn ski when he was 7. Now, with Boston being a wakeboarder, he can teach his own father how to wakeboard.

“I’m just pro-skill sports,” Boston said. “We want people to fully enjoy the lake, every sport you can possibly learn, every way you can enjoy being behind your boat. That’s really what this is about and the fun of inner lake competition. It’s kind of the motivation to want people to come and do it.”

Boston also said he thinks the website could encourage more interaction within the lakes themselves. Despite the lakes being geographically close, things are still separate, as there is little to no crossover, he said.

Every year, the Boarder Line hosts an annual wakeboard contest, and Boston notices how kids of similar ages will express how they have never skied or gone wakeboarding on any of the other lakes.

When Boston was growing up in Sister Lakes, he said it was normal to ride on one friend’s lake for a day and at his lake another day.

“I want to encourage that kind of thing,” Boston said. “People see people out boating and skiing and say, ‘that was awesome. I just saw you ski by. You are really good. I’d like to ski with you. I’d like you to help me, show me and teach me. Let’s ride together. That’d be fun.’”

In just a few weeks, Labor Day will be a finale for the Sister Lakes area, as the pier starts coming in and boats will start getting put away. This maybe the perfect finale for Lake Games, too, as Boston and O’Brien plan to announce the winners from Lake Games over Labor Day weekend. While the competition is skill based, teams with more people participating and uploading clips have been leading the winner’s scoreboard, Boston said.

The pair sees potential for an expansion as people from other neighboring southwest Michigan Lakes hear about the website. On the site, there is an option for competitors to write in their lake if it is not listed.

“As we see those lakes pop up, it gives us an idea of how wide this thing is going,” Boston said. “It would be exciting to have it spread out as widely as it needs to go.”

Overall, Lake Games’ goal is to link people together, while they participate in water sports.

“The bigger deal is people are out enjoying the lake,” Boston said. “That’s good for the lake and good for the community.”