By Christina Scannapiego
San Clemente Times
San Clemente High School surf team earns a trip to first-ever National Surf League High School Cup championship
It certainly wasn’t a typical surf contest last Sunday down at the San Clemente Pier. Two high school surf teams wearing jerseys with numbers on them? Out in the lineup with their teammates at the same time? Earning points while surfing in quarters? With time-outs? As San Clemente High School’s surf team scored a victory over rivals Huntington Beach in the semifinal round of the inaugural National Surf League High School Cup, the somewhat new format of surf contest seemed to take center stage.
Conceived a few years ago by former World Championship Tour (WCT) surfer Brad Gerlach and his dad, The Game was created to offer a different sort of format for professional and amateur competitive surfers that would appeal to a team sport sensibility rather than the individual surfer. One game is a four-quarter event running over about three hours, with 16 to 20 surfers per team. Two teams surf against each other in one game with four surfers from one team surfing together each quarter. Each surfer contributes one best-wave score—with live judging. Scores are then added together and the team with the highest point score wins.
The Game began as a competition between professional surfers grouped together by county or region, but with the recent High School Cup, the National Surf League has for the first time brought this contest format to a high school level, which is only natural due to the abundance of young surf superstars these days. “We’ve been wanting to bring The Game to high schools for a while now,” says National Surf League CEO Jeff Cutler, “but we needed to create awareness among the high school students and create something the kids could strive for.” Until now, the NSL’s main series was the California Cup, which features mostly professional surfers and some top high school amateurs including SCHS’s Tanner Gudauskas.
“The beauty of [the event] is that it teaches kids the core values of high school sports like conduct, showmanship and teamwork,” says Cutler. The Game’s high school format also attracts school support from faculty and students as they come out to support the school. Here, surfers aren’t just surfing for their sponsors or themselves, but they’re representing their entire community as well.
SCHS surf team coach, John Dowell, saw that concept come to life this past weekend at the pier. “A lot of my kids who were leaning toward not competing anymore are now suddenly back into it,” he says. “It brought my team a lot closer and got them excited again.” Plus, Dowell believes that the man-on-man format of competitive surfing calls for competitive tactics like keeping opposing surfers off waves, while the format of The Game allows his surfers to be judged solely on their surfing ability. And while SCHS had a definite homebreak advantage and solid south swell on their side, combined with each team member’s sheer talent, they had no problem disposing of Newport Harbor High and Huntington Beach.
Competition comes to a head this weekend at the finals, in which the Tritons will meet Carlsbad High at the Huntington Beach Pier at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning. The winners will bring home the very first National Surf League High School Cup, but The Game doesn’t end there. Open only to boy’s shortboard right now, hopes are that eventually other members of high school surf teams, including girls, longboarders and bodyboarders will be able to participate as well.
“We’re so happy with how well it’s been embraced by the high school athletes, the coaches and the community,” says Cutler. “But the most gratifying thing for us is seeing the faces on all the kids and how into it they are.”
Hot Links
www.nslgame.com
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