TODAYS COLUMN IN THE OC REGISTER U.S. SURFING CHAMPIONSHIPS then and now. By Corky Carroll It’s that time of year again when the U.S. Open of Surfing sets up it’s mega surf extravaganza at the Huntington Beach Pier. This year’s dates are now set for July 26 thru August 3 with the expectations being for the biggest turn out possibly in the history of surfing. The line up of competing surfers includes the best in the world, including 11 times World Professional Champion Kelly Slater and two time Women’s World Champ Carrisa Moore, who will also be defending her U.S. Open crown. I love to go to this each year and see how the top surfers have progressed; it truly inspires me and boggles my mind at how the sport has progressed so far. The biggest problem for me is fielding the same old questions that I get every year. “Do you miss being out there?” “How do you think you would do against these guys if you were competing today?” Honestly, I really have to laugh that people actually ask me this stuff when the answers are so obvious and yet so not fun for me to have to repeat over and over. Of course I miss it, who wouldn’t? And of course there would be no way for anybody from my era to compete with anybody from this era, the sport has come way too far. We were the dinosaurs. Pioneers maybe. The whole scene was different back when I was one of the ones out there. Let me give you some insight into what it was like. I competed in the event; it was the United States Championship then, from the years 1959 to 1972. The event was held completely in two days, usually the last weekend in September. There was no waiting period. It ran no matter what. Big surf, tiny surf, wind, rain, sleet, monster giant squid crawling over the pier, whatever. Record crowds would show up each year and for the most part it was covered by ABC televisions “Wide World of Sports.” In its glory years there could be zillions of entries as it was open to anybody who sent in the entry form and fee. A typical heat could be as short as 12 minutes long. Winners were determined on best 5 rides. There were 6 surfers in each heat. Today ten times the amount of spectators show up, probably more. It steams live around the world. Heats are 30 minutes and run with only 4 and then 2 surfers in each heat as the contest goes on. Winners are based on best 2 rides. In my day how fast you could paddle was as important as how good you could surf, you had to go full tilt all the time just to get in your wave count. Today they can pay more attention to the quality of wave they take and their surfing and not so much just getting in the required amount of waves. I can remember being of the mind set that if I could get at least three high scores and then fill in the other two with anything better than a 2 or 3 I would be good to go thru the heats, maybe up to the semi finals. Then the quality of the competition was greater so there was more pressure to get five solid scores. Most of the time the final was 20 minutes long. Also, one huge difference between then and now was that we were competing for trophies and today they are competing for some healthy prize money. They did give out the biggest and best trophies though. I remember that they had this giant perpetual trophy for the “All Around Champion.” It was the Duke Kahanamoku trophy. If you won that you got a nice smaller trophy with a bronzed Dukes head on it and you got your name on the big one. I won that five times, from 1966 to 1970. When I won it for the third time they announced that if I won it five times they would give me the big one. Well, actually getting the big one was not so easy after the five wins. Years later I did finally get it though and then the real problem was “where do you put that thing?” You do not have that kind of problem which a big fat check like they are getting now. I strongly recommend you going down there and watching some of the event if you can. It is truly amazing to see the best in the sport live and in color right up close and personal. I always come away from it happy I went yet totally green with envy.
Posted on: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 16:31:12 +0000
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