1- Duke Kahanamoku.

2- Michael Vick is not associated with surfing in any way.

3- A surfer will never need to masquerade as a college student just to break into the pros.

4- All the steroids in the world wouldn’t make someone a better surfer. Neco Padaratz proved that.

5- Bud Selig is not associated with surfing in any way.

6- After a surfing contest final, you can usually shake hands with the winner.

7- If a surfer were to fall and break a leg during a contest, he or she wouldn’t have to be shot.

8- Viagra doesn’t sponsor any surfers. Yet.

9- There’s never a bad seat at the beach.

10- Bells Beach, Snapper Rocks, Jeffreys Bay, Steamer Lane, Cloud Break, Teahupoo, Trestles, and the North Shore of Oahu are better places than Houston, Baltimore, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Kansas City, Minneapolis, and Orlando pretty much any day of the year.

11- No Astroturf. Ever.

12- Mark Twain and Jack London surfed.

13- Australian surfer girls have sexy accents. Canadian hockey players do not.

14- Don King is not associated with surfing in any way.

15- Surfing: 85 degrees with you and your friends in the morning lineup. Football: a felony charge and your face in a police lineup.

16- Kelly Slater and Layne Beachley.

17- No beer lines.

18- Eddie Aikau.

19- Lisa Andersen.

20- The 1995 Pipeline Masters.

21- Tom Carroll and Tom Curren.

22- In other pro sports, a stadium is obsolete and broken down after 30 years. In surfing, a good spot may have taken a thousand years to form and might be good for another thousand.

23- Surfers will never threaten to move if taxpayers don’t build them a new beach.

24- The NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, and other sports are loaded with spoiled, narcissistic millionaires who live in a world unto themselves. Eddie Aikau died trying to save people.

25- No half-time shows.

26- Greg Long.

27- Gerry Lopez.

28- Pauline Menczer.

29- Hobie Alter.

30- Surfing’s Walk of Fame and Hall of Fame in Huntington Beach is right off the ocean. The NFL Hall of Fame is in Canton, Ohio, right off the freeway.

31- Taxpayers pay for stadiums named by crass corporations. God built surf spots. You get to name them. And you get to surf at them.

32- Bud Browne and Bruce Brown.

33- The North Shore of Oahu.

34- Doc Ball surfed into his 90s. Most athletes, especially football players have a career of five years.

35- Tom Blake.

36- The Dairyland Surf Classic.

37- Ted Williams, while being the greatest hitter in baseball history and an American hero, said hitting a major-league fastball was the most difficult thing in professional sports. No. Riding a piece of foam and fiberglass in the roaring mouth of a 25-foot aqua-blue beast at Teahupoo, with razor sharp coral just inches below the surface, and wearing nothing more than a pair of trunks (or even a bikini) and maybe a rash guard is THE hardest thing to do in professional sports.

38- Maverick’s.

39- Surfing hasn’t changed much since the invention of the foam and fiberglass board 60 years ago. In the same time, football is almost unrecognizable.

40- The only positive thing about hurricanes: hurricane swell.

41- There is no off season for surfing.

42- Surfing can be done in the coldest, most miserable weather imaginable too. New England and Great Lakes surfers prove that every winter.

43- The sound of Occy’s laugh.

44- Shaun Tomson.

45- Despite the 1986 OP Pro, fans routinely riot after World Cups, Superbowls, NBA and NHL Finals. After a major surfing event, a lot of people go out for another surf.

46- Sofia Mulanovich.

47- A kid could grow up surfing in front of his house without ever breaking a neighbor’s window.

48- Robert August.

49- Surfing with a dolphin.

50- Surf camps are run not only to help disabled and impoverished kids, they’ve brought white and black South Africans and Catholic and Protestant Irish kids together.

51- Waimea Bay.

52- It’s more dangerous to play one season of high school football than to surf 20 years at a spot where sharks are sited.

53- Rob Machado.

54- Greg Noll.

55- The only way you can afford to take your family to an NBA, NHL, NFL, or Major League Baseball game is to own a corporation or take out a second mortgage on your house.

56- Listening to Greg Noll tell a story.

57- Great Lakes surfers will drive 100 miles in horrible weather to find a decent spot to surf for a day. IN horrible weather. Nobody ever did that for a golf course.

58- One positive thing about the Vietnam War: good surfing.

59- Jay Moriarty.

60- George Steinbrenner is not associated with surfing in any way.

61- Kennesaw Mountain Landis is not associated with surfing in any way.

62- Scott Boras is not associated with surfing in any way. Yet.

63- Your secret spot.

64- No one in surfing will ever be stupid enough to legally change their last name to “Ocho Cinco.” No one.

65- Leroy Grannis, Art Brewer, Jeff Divine, Tom Servais, Aaron Chang, and Larry “Flame” Moore.

66- U.S. Open of Surfing: bikini bodies as far as the eye can see. NASCAR: rednecks as far as the eye can see.

67- Most of the time, wiping out is still more fun than getting punched in the face, tackled by a lineman, hit by a fastball, or crashing into a concrete wall.

68- Surfing contests are never held in Las Vegas.

69- Surfboard shaping is an art performed individually by shapers who not only cater to the exact specifications of surfers and locations, but who often form lasting friendships with their customers to help improve their surfing and thus, their stoke. Ever met anybody who makes basketballs?

70- Even your grandpa looks cooler in a pair of boardshorts than anyone ever will in golf pants.

71-Most pro football and basketball players are freaks. Most pro surfers are athletic, but normal-looking human beings.

72- Wetsuits and rash guards are slimming.

73- All basketball courts, football fields, boxing rings, and hockey rinks are identical. Every surf spot on the planet is unique.

74- Much of the modern sports world is lost in statistics. Competitive surfing has hardly any at all.

75- You’ll never have to tap into your 401(k) to buy season tickets to see your local surfers.

76- No corporate suites.

77- The 2009 U.S. Open of Surfing.

78- Announcers will never demand a whole beach be quiet. And they’ll never do it just so you can hear surfers grunt.

79- Watching a surfer fly off a wave is exciting. Watching a race car fly off the track is tragic.

80- Surfing makes you think of summer. Even if you’re watching a webcast of the Pipeline Masters while decorating your house for Christmas. In Finland.

81- Crime statistics prove that violent crime goes up after people watch a major boxing match. When you watch a surf contest, you just want to go out and surf.

82- No designated hitter. Ever.

83- The equivalent of kicking a field goal in surfing would be just paddling out.

84- Nobody except the inbred ever go out for a morning fight with friends. Not even in Hawaii.

85- People don’t have to be kicked out of their homes and neighborhoods to build a surf spot.

86- The 2008 Maverick’s Surf Contest final.

87- Hearing a Bob Marley song for the 500^th time at a surf contest is still better than having to hear “Welcome to the Jungle,” “Rock ‘n’ Roll, Part 2″ or the drum/clap opening of “We Will Rock You” one more time.

88- Rell Sunn.

89- Surfing gives Australia the chance to rule the world for a change.  

90- At the better spots, there’s always a chance you’ll surf along side pros, including some of the best in surfing history. There’s zero chance Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson or Larry Bird will join your pickup game.

91- You’ll never have to join a country club to surf a good spot.

92- Rich Harbour, Dale Velzy, “Flippy” and Walter Hoffman.

93- Whitey Harrison.

94- Basketball was born in a P.E. class. Surfing was born in Hawaii.

95- “The Endless Summer,” “Five Summer Stories” and “Riding Giants.”

96- Surfing is the only athletic activity that has spawned an entire genre of music.

97- Old surfers get skin cancer, but old football players and boxers get Alzheimer’s.

98- O.J. Simpson, Pete Rose, Ty Cobb, Barry Bonds, Bobby Knight, Albert Belle, John Rocker, Mike Tyson, Pacman Jones, Kobe Bryant, Terrell Owens, Bobby Fischer, Randy Moss, John Daly, Latrell Sprewell, Tonya Harding, Diego Maradona, Ray Lewis, Marion Jones, Jayson Williams, Floyd Landis, Roger Clemons, and Dennis Rodman are not associated with surfing in any way.

99- Surfing is essentially an athletic and creative reaction to the natural tidal flow and weather patterns on planet Earth. Football, basketball, hockey, auto racing, wrestling, rugby, boxing, and soccer are reminders of war, riots, traffic jams, Roman bloodsport, and the fight for survival.

100-Surfing is a way of life. Aloha.

Photo ASP

Huge, fast moving swell and extreme tide changes kept conditions big, bumpy and incredibly difficult for surfers to catch. In fact, it made it pretty difficult for fans too. Boards were lost and broken and surfers battered in the water while the morning high tide injured 13 spectators, washed away a medical tent and nearly knocked over the announcer’s tower at Pillar Point. 

All the more interesting was the fact that this year’s contest was the first without pioneering founder Jeff Clark and the first where the 24 invitees voted on when to run the contest. Longtime Mavs surfers Grant Washburn and Matt Ambrose were two who reportedly voted against. 

Nevertheless, Bertish become the second South African and the third surfer from somewhere other than Northern California to win the contest and took home $50,000. 

Reigning Maverick’s and Eddie Aikau champ Greg Long was a shock early elimination, catching only one wave in his first heat before he was kicked off his board and bounced off the seafloor. Other former Mavs champs Darryl “Flea” Virostko and Grant “Twiggy” Baker reached the semifinals and Anthony Tashnick reached the final. 

Once there, conditions had changed notably from morning to afternoon. The 30-foot plus to 40-foot waves and more consistent sets were replaced by waves over 40 feet but with tortuously long lulls that forced judges to extend the already hour-long finale another 15 minutes.  

Shane Desmond opened the final a few minutes in, just beating out the spit of a giant barrel for an early lead before things went (comparatively) flat. Bertish made a big drop to seemingly rally against Desmond just as the extension began and shortly before another lull passed through. It wasn’t until there were approximately five minutes left that the other surfers, Tashnick, Carlos Burle, Dave Wassell and longtime contest regular Ken Collins got their first rides. Desmond caught a second wave and Bertish his second and the last of the heat before Bertish was declared the winner.

The contest also struggled with its growing popularity through a Webcast that was either unreachable or unsustainable to many fans and whose commentators were generally panned.

But the contest remained a satisfying experience despite the growing pains and the bitter public divorce between Clark and his former company that now divides much of the local community, with its biggest prize purse yet ($150,000) and the knowledge that what happens at Maverick’s no longer stays there.

Jake Halstead led Team USA with a silver in the Boys Under 16 and Lakey Peterson earned copper for the girls. Yes, we should have won more, but these are hopeful signs. 

Honestly, it was easy to get disappointed about the end result. Expectations were impossibly high after Team USA won their first gold medal in 13 years last summer in Costa Rica at the World Surfing Games. But that was the full pro/am team that featured Cory Lopez, Ben Bourgeois, Sage Erickson and Tony Silvagni. This was the junior team.

New head coach Ian Cairns set a high bar for himself and the team in Costa Rica. He was third in a line of coaches that had been part of a rebuilding effort over the last decade.  Cairns sought the best young talent in the county and worked them hard. But the disappointing finish seemed to expose what has hung around Team USA’s neck for several years: Our development program isn’t as good as Australia’s and it might never be. 

Talented? Yes, without question. And the major rebuilding of the team by former coaches Peter Townend and Joey Buran have helped restored the U.S. to a perennial medal winner. But even Cairns now knows the distance between the gold medal and everything else is big. And that the only thing harder for the U.S. program than winning gold is to keep winning it.

The main difference between the Australian and U.S. programs at this point is that we lack consistently effective young competitors because we simply have more options than the young Aussies ever will.

The Yanks and Aussies have a different rate of development. The famously intense training program for their young surfers and the Australian culture breeds an emphasis of competitive results over everything else. The money and options most young American surfers have tends to result in a longer development period. The 16- and 17-year-old Aussies are competing at a level most American surfers get to at about 21. And there’s more of them.

Right now, the junior team is entirely too dependent on the success of rising star Courtney Conlogue. If she has an off event and fails to medal (this event was her worst finish in two years), there aren’t many surfers ready to step up behind her. Fortunately, Peterson and Halstead gave inspiring performances. Inspirational because they should inspire the rest of the team to work harder and smarter and not let everything rest on Conlogue. Inspirational because they imply the team has more ability than appears on the surface. Especially important for an underachieving boys squad. 

At an industry level, sponsors must remain vigilant in pressing teen surfers on competition. Surfing America must keep the standards high and if their pursuit of an Olympic platform for surfing can motivate young surfers’ desire for fame, so be it. I have no problem with them dangling that carrot. Even if the Olympic thing never happens. 

But if I offer this kudos to Peterson, Halstead and Team USA for another medal-winning performance, it comes with its own qualification: Young surfers of America, nothing glitters like gold.

Photos/Surfing America

Over two months after the opening ceremony, but before the first wave of this winter’s contest is surfed, there are signs of trouble at North America’s biggest surf spot. Jeff Clark’s new lawsuit against Maverick Surf Ventures, Inc. is the latest shot in a battle over what the present and future of the Maverick’s Surf Contest will be. And this week, all of it seems bad.

Clark filed the suit Jan. 19 with the Superior Court of San Francisco County alleging breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duties and fraud. Clark said in a statement, he sought to “Put an end to this mistake of a partnership and … move on with my life.”

The pioneering big wave surfer and founder of the contest lost his position as contest director last June in a scrap with MSV. Depending on who you ask, he was either fired or resigned. And despite both sides claiming they wished to sort things out privately through mediation, the tensions that led to Clark’s departure seem to have only worsened since. Clark said he was “forced” to file suit after repeated attempts at mediation were delayed by MSV.

“I trusted the wrong people,” Clark said. “They have refused to honor the contracts they created and have turned the contest into a corporate circus.”

In response, Maverick Surf Ventures’ CEO Keir J. Beadling called the claims “baseless” and the suit “premature and inappropriate” and “an ill-advised and clumsy ploy to disrupt the contest season and prevent the competitors and the fans from experiencing a contest.”

Beadling also hoped Clark would “recognize the wisdom of keeping this matter private” before claiming that Clark “Earned more money from MSV than anyone until June 2009 when he was terminated for breaching his agreements with the company. Jeff was completely aware of the … outside capital the company has raised, and even now owns more stock in MSV than anyone. He held a seat on the Board of Directors - which gave him power and control over the company’s activities - until he voluntarily resigned that seat shortly after his termination.  Regrettably, this is a situation of Jeff’s own doing.”

First and foremost this has become a distraction from one of the greatest sporting events in the U.S. and one of the greatest surfing contests in the world. And me writing this is part of the distraction. Regardless of whose side you’re on, it should be all about the contest right now, but it’s not.

The view presented in this is some vague sense of purity versus evolution. Beadling says it’s “a superficial argument that has been concocted to cover up wrongful activity,” but it’s nevertheless relevant because it is what the larger world might see. How can there be a Maverick’s contest without Clark? Or, how can the Maverick’s contest survive without growing?

It might very well all be hogwash but Clark’s lawsuit keeps this basic argument alive and public a little while longer. And rightly or wrongly, it’s now Beadling’s job to dispel it while running the contest.

I’m not taking sides and don’t pretend to know who’s right or more right, but the public sparring between MSV and Clark helps no one and the longer it goes on or more heated it becomes, the more it tarnishes the contest and divides the community. But my advice? Get this dispute back in private and wrap it up fast. Outsiders will forgive and forget pretty fast when there isn’t anything to argue about anymore.

Realistically, the contest has come too far now to just disappear. But what will remain some folks just ain’t gonna like. Accept it. That has been the nature of professional surfing from the very beginning and there’s no reason to think big wave surfing is different.

The Maverick’s Surf Contest needs sponsorship. It takes money - lots of it - to run the contest. To pay the judges and water rescue, to build the scaffolding, to pay for police and of course to reward the winner and invitees. The City of Half Moon Bay has come to embrace the event; after all, the surf spot alone generates millions of dollars for local coffers and the contest packs local hotels, restaurants and bars for two or three days each winter. But don’t expect the city to take ownership of the Maverick’s Surf Contest the way the City of Green Bay owns the Packers. Even if it did, plenty of folk wouldn’t like that either.

Disputes like this only scare away potential sponsors, even the best ones. No company is actually going to court controversy and step into a sponsorship role when the founder of the event and his former company are publically locked in mortal combat. It makes that corporate leadership seriously question what management of the contest has been and will be, and who or what they’ll be doing business with. Look for weak, unstable short-term deals in return.

This legal imbroglio has become a lightening rod between Jeff Clark friends and fans, and those who aren’t. Let us not trouble the waters at Pillar Point with division between surfers. The Mav’s regulars and invitees all know and respect Clark. But they love this contest too. The democratization of the contest since Clark’s departure that gave a consensus role to “the 24″ in shaping parts of the contest has also put them uncomfortably in the middle of disputes like this. Way to go.

And then there are most of the people on the outside, who by and large, only see this iconic contest and the awe it inspires. They will never know the particulars of the dispute and probably wouldn’t give a damn anyway.

In the end, the surfing world will split the difference. Regardless of the outcome, public sentiment will likely go with Clark, the pioneer, the founder, the surfer, the legend. But their attention and dollars will eventually go with the contest.

Both sides should strongly consider how far a public fight might damage the contest they say they love. Even in a personal battle for money and control, never underestimate the collateral damage. Tread carefully and lightly, gentlemen. This was all supposed to be about a passion for surfing.

The 2009 Billabong World Junior Championships wrapped up late last week with Laura Enever and Maxime Huscenot hoisting trophies. While Huscenot took a surprising victory and big step forward for Reunion Island surfers, Australia’s Enever, like Conlogue, has been on the brink a few times before. But apparently, this was her year and not Conlogue’s.

Every January, just around the quarterfinals, it’s like the tide goes out and exposes a brick wall in the middle of the surf zone that the Aussies have all figured out but Americans just slam into. But the current group of young American hopefuls have a couple of things to be positive about.

Americans overall did well enough. Conlogue and Nat Young reached the quarterfinals. Sage Erickson and Cory Arrambide finished just short of them. Dillon Perillo reached round 3. Disappointing yes, but it really could have been worse.

Conlogue and Young reaching the quarterfinals was no fluke. They are the mainland’s finest surfing prospects and each is a national amateur champ. They’ve been stars on the U.S. team for a few years and Conlogue’s already a genuine rising star with her huge victory in August’s U.S. Open and ISA gold medal.

Maybe the most important part of this is that both surfers have primed themselves well for a move up. Typically, winners of Billabong’s WJC event have been 18- and 19-years-old. Young and Conlogue are both 17. Whatever frustration they’re feeling can be put to good use next January.

Even sooner, Conlogue leads the U.S. team in Piha, New Zealand this week in the ISA World Junior Championship and will have to control her fire. The frustration of Narrabeen is still in her system. It is up to her and head coach Ian Cairns to make sure it doesn’t burn her our early, but instead lights the way for a group of young surfers who could follow her example.

Rip Curl’s Bonanza is Parko’s nightmare

Let me start by saying I honestly feel for Joel Parkinson. You have to. This was supposed to be his year. And it was his dream year right up until it became his nightmare. Though Mick Fanning surfed every bit as well, Parko was ultimately defeated more by a fluke ankle injury and than his buddy. His collapse began at Trestles, just days after the injury and ended in Europe. By the time Parkinson got his mojo back in Hawaii, Fanning had already given him no margin for error. 

On the other hand, quietly worrying about being able to afford the bonuses of two world champions at the same time is a good problem for Rip Curl to have. Even during a recession. Between Fanning’s exploits and the third consecutive title of Stephanie Gilmore the marketing opportunities keep on coming.

Gilmore is creating something special with her championship run. She’s the first surfer to win three world titles in the first three years on the World Tour. As she’s become more steady and dominant over the women’s World Tour, she’s put her own personal trademark on it, the way Lisa Andersen and Layne Beachley did before her. This is the Gilmore era for however long it lasts. Barely out of her teens, the tall Aussie with a big smile and lethal combination of power and grace is setting the new standard for women’s surfing. 

The Kelly Tour threat pushes the ASP to action

Griping about the ASP has been the second occupation of pro surfers for as long as the ASP has been in existence. So when Kelly Slater does it, like he did in the February issue of ESPN magazine, it’s raised to a new level. By July, a whole new rival tour was proposed by Slater, his manager Terry Hardy and former boxing promoter Matt Tinley, and a summer of discontent, tension and confusion was off and running.

It was just the kind of turmoil and threat the ASP needed, turns out. The shiny Champions Surf Tour idea was enough to push surfers, ASP officials and the brands to get together on the most significant changes in the World Tour in decades. The changes included a single “unified” tour, increased prize money, and health insurance.

Though the new deal at ASP effectively killed the so-called “Kelly Tour,” rumors keep it alive. Last week, GoldCoast.com.au reported Taj Burrow, Andy Irons, Jordy Smith and Dane Reynolds have all threatened to sue Hardy and/or Tinley for continuing to link them to the CST.

Team USA wins gold and the world meets Courtney Conlogue

A new coach drops in at the last minute and look what happens. The USA Surf Team won its first gold medal at the ISA World Surfing Games in 13 years.

 The new coach was really an old hand at competition, Ian Cairns. A former pro, transplanted Australian and founder of the ASP, Cairns worked his way back from exile by coaching individuals and just two weeks earlier his students Courtney Conlogue and Brett Simpson won the U.S. Open of Surfing. Conlogue continued her incredible summer and marked her arrival in the sport with a women’s gold medal at the games.

Best U.S. Open ever 

Speaking of the U.S. Open, for those of you who missed it, it was just the best one yet. It was surfing history. The strongest field of surfers, great waves, a pair of locals win the contest for the first time and took home the biggest prize money in contest history, plus it was all presented in classic style by Hurley and IMG. 

Greg Long wins the Eddie

 American big wave surfing got a shot in the arm when San Clemente’s Greg Long beat Kelly Slater at Waimea Bay to win the Quiksilver In Memory of Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational. He’s the first surfer to win both the Eddie and Mavericks. Also the first surfer to get perfect rides in both. Long’s victory - in just the eighth running of the contest in 25 years - along with the eventual invite list smoothed over controversy surrounding Quiksilver’s decision to partially open up the invite process to a public online vote.

Odds and ends and goodbyes

Cairns comeback heads the list of odds and ends items worth mentioning this year. It was the kind of vindication rarely seen or opportunity rarely given in professional surfing.

The other big little story was board experimentation, it seems every pro was fooling around with something in their quiver. Slater courted a quad, Burrow and others  played with Firewire and Reynolds rode a Dumpster Diver to the finals at Trestles. Well, OK, some of it started before ‘09, but it’s probably the healthiest thing the sport could wish for because it will only lead to more explosive and innovative surfing. 

A quartet of Orange County kids made the World Tour and hold out the promise of a return to greatness for California surfing. If you don’t know Patrick and Tanner Gudauskas, Nathan Yeomans and Brett Simpson yet, you soon will. And though it was Californians reaching the World Tour in December, it was the Australians who swept the world titles, the men’s and women’s Triple Crowns and the World Qualifying Series. We gotta fix that. 

Finally, a lot of us said goodbye to our friend Dick Baker this year. Though he was the businessman who helped Ocean Pacific and the surf industry reach new heights, most of us will remember him as an extremely bright and decent guy who you could always reach and always talk to. He signed a teenaged Greg Long to a contract at OP and gushed to me when Long won his first Billabong XXL Global Big Wave Award that “This is what you sign a young athlete for.” Though OP was eventually bought out and the surf team disbanded, Baker remained Long’s biggest fan. To see Long reach the summit of big wave surfing at Waimea Bay would have made Baker proud as a papa. He understood business was about money, but knew life was about people. His friends will miss him.

Photos A.J. Neste/Surfing America

Under the sunny Hawaiian skies, we - meaning us Americans (Hawaiians included) - got our butts handed to us. While us yanks were standing around just kind of slack jawed, we watched the Aussies win the men and women’s world titles, the men and women’s Triple Crown, Pipeline Masters and the World Qualifying Series. The Antipodeans ended up filling out the top four of the 2009 Men’s World Tour too, just to rub it in. So, for those of you who have already taken your aspirin, here’s the quick review:

Back on Nov. 28, Stephanie Gilmore finished third in the Gidget Pro final, behind Carissa Moore and Sally Fitzgibbons to win her third consecutive world title. A couple of weeks later, she won the Billabong Pro Maui to conquer another Triple Crown as well. Remember, she’s still at the start of her career. 

Then things sped up a bit. On Dec. 6, Daniel Ross finishes in the semi-finals at Sunset and makes official what seemed inevitable for weeks, winning the 2009 WQS. On Dec. 12, Mick Fanning won his second world title when good buddy Joel Parkinson was eliminated by Hawaii’s Gavin Gillete at Pipeline. If there was a consolation prize for Parko, it was winning his second Triple Crown title three days later, when California’s Dane Reynolds knocked off C.J. Hobgood in the quarterfinals.

Later that day, Taj Burrow knocked off Kelly Slater pretty easily in the Pipeline final. A nice bit of defensive surfing in the last minute by Burrow sealed Slater’s fate. 

It seems pointless to get too analytical about it. We didn’t surf well enough and the Aussies did. But it doesn’t change the fact that it just kind of hurts all over. The worst part is all of them are capable of winning several and taking the Hawaiian leg of the tour away from the Hawaiians and mainlanders for an unbearably long time.

The bright spots were first and foremost Greg Long. The Californian won the 25^th Quiksilver In Memory of Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational at Waimea last week in sensational style without an Aussie in sight. There’s still reason to smile about that. The only other guys standing on the podium with him were Slater, Sunny Garcia and Bruce Irons. Slater once again made an excellent showing on the islands, even if he didn’t end up holding a trophy. Garcia looked reborn and Irons nearly won back to back Eddies.

Other bright spots? Well, it might only be slight, but the men’s top ten looks much friendlier after Fanning, Parkinson, Bede Durbidge and Burrow. If you count transplanted Brazilian Adriano de Souza (now living in California), the rest of the top ten is mainlanders, including Slater, the Hobgoods, Bobby Martinez and Reynolds.

Plus four more Americans enter the tour next year, hoping to improve California’s recent fortunes on tour and there’s no reason to believe they can’t. The Guduaskas brothers, Nathan Yeomans and Brett Simpson all have something to prove.

But until they do, the Aussies are the ones out celebrating and its time for us to knock back a few more aspirin.

Greg Long

That’s a statement I’ve made several times before, but only because it’s true. When I started saying it a few years ago, people in the surfing world undoubtedly took it with a grain of sea salt.

But hey, I’ve moved beyond that now. I’m beginning to think he’s the best big wave surfer in the world. Yeah, period. But in order for you to believe that, we’ll all have to begin redefining what a big wave surfer is. Then again, Greg Long is already doing that for us. 

Long became the first surfer in history to win both the Quiksilver In Memory of Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational and the Maverick’s Surf Contest with a come-from-behind victory over none other than Kelly Slater Tuesday at Waimea Bay, Oahu before an estimated crowd of 30,000 people. It was just the eighth running of the Eddie in 25 years. The $55,000 check will keep his well-traveled van in new tires forever, but what he achieved at the bay also essentially changed big wave surfing. Trust me.

Add those victories to the Red Bull Big Wave Africa when he was just 19 and Billabong’s Pico Alto Invitational in July, plus five Billabong XXL Global Big Wave Awards and there’s just no debating this anymore. Maybe next year he’ll win the Nelscott Reef contest and they’ll have to create some kind of “Grand Slam” thing just for him. 

Long jumped from 24^th place to first after a terrible morning heat with long lulls and some of the worst waves of the day. He got all four of his top scores in the afternoon capped by a perfect 100-point ride with about 20 minutes left in the contest. Waiting another half second might have cost more than the ride. The last-second plunge down the face of one of the best waves of the day — at 40-plus feet — left him dangerously under the heaving lip of the monster. It was an amazing drop to the bottom as the wave barreled behind him, but he still couldn’t stay ahead of the exploding whitewash for long and it swallowed him.

The announcers were actually a little concerned before Long popped right up and paddled back. He still needed one more ride, after all. He got it with less than 10 minutes left, on another steep drop but an escape from the breaking wave. It quickly overshadowed how well a practically reborn Sunny Garcia and defending event champ Bruce Irons were doing in the heat up to that point.

Long’s studious approach paid off again. He arrived in Hawaii last week, methodically working with a few different boards and spent enough time surfing the building swell at Waimea to note how it would crap out at midday (like his first heat) and bring near perfect sets just before sunset (like his afternoon heat). The structure of the Eddie rewards patience and Long was the definition of it. He was barely on the radar until the perfect score - his third of a maximum four rides allowed in a heat - made the risky strategy look like genius. But it was also him simply making best use of the heat draw dealt to him.

The Beatles didn’t choose their time. It was chosen for them. But they brought the right things at the right time and changed pop culture in their image. We are witnessing that now with Greg Long and big wave surfing’s age of chivalry.

As the sport rapidly evolves, a competitive element grows no matter how great the sense of camaraderie remains among the world’s hierarchy of riders. Rest ye, oh true believers of Aloha. It is not dead, nor is anyone forgetting Greg Noll’s original conquering of Waimea in 1957, certainly not Long. But as the competition side of big wave evolves along side its Arthurian quest for an oceanic Holy Grail, the almost knightly young figure of Long is now looming large over both. He’s not only in almost every significant big session each year; he’s the guy collecting all the trophies. And perhaps no one could be accomplishing this with less bravado and more introspection.

I’m willing to make this declaration because at just 26 years old, he’s already accomplished a career’s worth. It’s already more than his duly respected and accomplished elders have over twice the span of time. When Long first became a professional surfer in this decade, big wave surfing was still mostly a seat-of-your-boardshorts realm of wild adventure tale. The big wave ride was the epitome of “talking story” and as well told as anything Jack London could pen and as open to legend and mythology as the Trojan War.

On one hand, it’s sad to think that part of big wave surfing  is gone because it’s a part of surfing’s roots. At the same time,  big wave has passed through a quantitative threshold where results matter, mortgages can be paid and credit can finally be given where it’s due.

As Long was coming of age in the sleepy seaside town of San Clemente, there was a surfer like Mike Parsons who lived just a few blocks away already taking a more cerebral approach to the sport with results to match. Long hardly invented the idea of big wave surfers being brainy in their approach or training like athletes. He’s just utilized it the best. And the earliest in his career.

Pro surfer Fred Pattachia gushed at the end of the day-long webcast, “What an ambassador for surfing” Long was. And said he “Almost shed a tear” after Long’s perfect ride. 

Let us prepare ourselves. True greatness starts somewhere and at just 26, Long could offer us these moments of wonder for another 20 years or more.  It’s for guys like me to point it out where we find it. It’s for a guy like Greg Long to just follow his heart.  And his head.

Photo Kelly Cestari/ASP Images

The first thing you can see is that the future is now. The schedule was released in November, just a few weeks after the tumultuous changes at ASP were voted in. That’s kind of a new one. Years past have seen schedules announced in December or even January. Are they as eager to look ahead as many of us are? To put this year behind them as soon as possible and get on with, well, whatever it is we’re trying to get on with? The connection cannot be purely coincidental.

The ASP needs to show that. And in fact, after all the work and worry than went into keeping the World Tour together, it’s in the seemingly bland little things like the schedule that some statements can be made. The implication here is the ASP will be more proactive next year. Whether you agree is up to you. 

The other two basic conclusions you can draw from the schedule is that 2010 will be a better year for women and longboarders (or at least I can say that right now) and that August and September should be a white knuckle ride for ASP officials and surfers alike as they sort out the debut of the new unified World Tour.

For the women, they get their first World Tour event in New Zealand. That’s an expansion, not a return to some failed previous site. It’s good for all of surfing, and good the women’s tour gets to go there first. 

The juniors tour appears better organized overall - part of a larger, ongoing plan at ASP - but also has more girls events. Another important development here: If you’re going to build a ladder to the World Tour for world champions, there MUST be a virtually identical path for women. 

The ASP’s partnership with the Professional Longboard Assn. continues to expand and that means more longboard contests and the first thing resembling a respectable longboard tour in years. The PLA contests will feed into three Oxbow-sponsored World Longboard Tour events. One more than last year. Unfortunately, the women still only have one World Longboard Tour event and it’s in Biarritz. Cleveland would be more fun. 

And if the plan is to begin the unified tour in the middle of the season, will it be Teahupoo or Trestles? Trestles is the better choice, since it’s the performance wave. Teahupoo will just get some green, hot surfer of the moment killed. But the flurry of 5- and 6-star QS events from South Africa to Huntington Beach will be the most intense mid-summer surfing in a long, long time. It’ll be fun to watch, but annoying to hear all the inevitable complaining that will spill forth as bugs are worked out in the new system.

Yeah, it’s just a schedule, but at the end of such a damnable year like this, we all need to look ahead. Start now.

The single most important element to this winter’s big wave surfing season is the El Nino. And if you don’t know what that is, it’s a weather pattern that forms every three to six years as equatorial trade winds slack off in the Pacific and create a kind of weather imbalance that leads to drought and fire in Australia and Brazil, but whopper storms and flooding along the U.S. west coast, Central America and the northern tip of South America. There is typically less hurricane activity in the Atlantic as well. 

The announcement of a developing El Nino pattern over the summer set the pulses of many in the big wave world racing in anticipation of once-in-a-lifetime waves at spots like Maverick’s and Cortes Bank, off the California coast.

“All indications are in place for an epic winter. Based on how good it’s been already, it’s not just on paper, but in the ocean,” says Bill Sharp, founder and keeper of the Billabong XXL Global Big Wave Awards, now in its tenth year.

And by the time the awards are handed out in March, there could be a handful of record-breaking rides to choose from.

“I’m pretty certain that we’re going to be breaking new ground with the waves we ride this winter,” says Greg Long (pictured), probably the best young big wave surfer in the world.  “Last El Nino, tow-surfing was in its infant stages and we weren’t really prepared to ride the biggest swells.”  

But the presence of an El Nino is not a guarantee of big perfect swell. Sharp and Long, as well as Mavericks regular Peter Mel have all chosen to set their perspective at cautious optimism.

“I heard all the hype, and I’d be the first one to be a little pessimistic,” Mel says. “But I’ve started to see the first couple of storms and now I’m getting sucked into the hype too.”

Sharp says it is always a roll of the dice, El Nino or no El Nino.  “You’re talking about six to ten days over the winter where everything comes together.” 

Meanwhile, the world’s two most prestigious big wave contests have their own drama to contend with.

The Maverick’s Surf Contest has been run by committee since the resignation of contest founder and Mavs discoverer, Jeff Clark. The Quiksilver In Memory of Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational took the controversial and risky move of opening up the invitation process to public voting.

Clark’s resignation after squabbles with business partners became too much, Mel says forced the Mavs crew of respected surfers into a tough situation. “Do we want the competition? Yes. Do we want it without Jeff? Not really.” But collectively, the group decided to carry on.  Clark played the good soldier at last week’s opening ceremony where he was an honorary invitee. He chose to smile and basically keep mum for reasons that all the guys understood.  “That’s what was so great about him being there. He knows this is about the wave. We’re all there because we love it.”

Sharp says Clark is critical to the spirit of the event. “The mechanics of running a contest are pretty simple, but it’s valuable to have somebody who’s the face of an event. In the same way, George Downing has been that for the Eddie.” 

And while it gets a boost from the possibilities an El Nino raises, the Mavs contest faced other hurdles along the way this year. New restrictions placed on the use of personal watercraft - or jetskis - in the environmentally sensitive Mavericks surf zone presented a major threat to how the contest could be run. Though it’s a paddle-in contest, jetskis are used to ferry surfers out to the break and also to fish them out after a wipeout.

PWCs could be used during the previous contest window of December through February, but organizers realized the waiting period was routinely missing key swell activity in November and moved the window forward a month. That meant organizers then had to get an exemption permit from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the government agency that guides and protects the use of coastal resources. 

Even before that, community opposition to the contest had grown the last few years as the event attracted more people to the small town of Half Moon Bay. In fact, it had become the key element in how or even if the contest would be run again. During the spring and summer, the town weighed environmental, traffic and safety issues as well as taxpayer cost. But as the recession wore on, the town concluded the Mavericks Surf Contest did far more good. Mel was relieved. 

“All of a sudden the community was on board and that was a big part of it,” Mel says.  “They agreed, ‘Yeah, we need this.’ “

But management by committee and the struggle to reach consensus on issues like what day to actually run the event continue to be a new adventure for all involved, only raising respect for what Clark did for years.

“We’re still wondering if it’s going off,” Mel says wryly. “We got off to a good start with the opening ceremony.  Now we’ll have everyone chime in and vote the day.”

As surfers and event organizers wait to find out what this El Nino holds, speculation over whether this will be the biggest system since the modern era of big wave surfing began is stirring.

As Long said, big wave surfing, especially tow-in surfing was just beginning in the El Nino winter of 1997-1998. It was then on January 28, 1998, also known as Biggest Wednesday, that a Condition Black was declared on the North Shore of Oahu. Beach homes were evacuated and the Eddie was called off when waves actually got too big and were smashing through Waimea Bay.

Defying the ocean closure, Dan Moore towed Ken Bradshaw into a near 70-foot high wave - a record breaker at the time - at Outside Log Cabins just east of Waimea and about two miles off the coast. A day later, Mavericks was spectacular but Darryl “Flea” Virostko nearly drowned when he was slammed into the rocks. The Jaws crew, led by Laird Hamilton and Dave Kalama also got their fill of historic rides.

To predict where primo swell is going to hit this winter is impossible, but the key places to watch should be Jaws, off the coast of Maui and Cortes Bank off the Southern California coast. Uniquely able to handle huge swell, if records are broken, it will likely be those spots. Jaws activity has dropped significantly in recent years and it’s overdue for an epic winter. But Sharp says “Cortes Bank is the Holy Grail.”

Mavericks could have their biggest swell yet for a contest, but Waimea requires a precise swell angle that might never roll through, so it’s only reasonable to presume that El Nino will bring more chances for the right swell to arrive. Baja’s Todos Santos should get plenty of good swell, simply because it always does. And to scramble things completely, El Ninos can occasionally bring gigantic swell to Northern Europe. Irish and Scottish surfers take note, this could be your year.

Advice here is to manage your expectations carefully. There are so many variables; a logical mind simply has to factor those in as much this winter as every other. If cautious optimism works for the insiders, it should be good enough for everyone else. But we can dream, can’t we?

 Photo Edwin Morales/BillabongXXL.com