By Chris Mauro
San Clemente Times
The link between pro surfing and San Clemente goes far beyond Trestles
The professional surfing world will converge on San Clemente this week for the Boost Mobile Pro presented by Hurley, the seventh stop on the Association of Surfing Professional’s World Tour. Reigning world champion Mick Fanning, California’s rookie sensation Dane Reynolds and, of course, current ratings leader and eight-time world champion Kelly Slater will be among those doing battle in front of local crowds at Trestles, a break that’s seen plenty of epic showdowns.
It’s worth noting that today’s World Tour surfers are bona fide celebrity athletes, complete with high six- and seven-figure contracts, agents, managers, publicists and, yes, even entourages. They appear regularly on television, in movies and grace the covers of magazines like those ones born in San Clemente. It’s a charmed life, for sure, as their jobs require that they travel to places like Tahiti, Fiji, Australia, Africa, Europe and Hawaii to battle for precious ratings points in some of the world’s best waves. While endless security checks and baggage claim hassles can be a grind for the travelers, the average surfing fan would trade his mother in for a shot at such a dream life.
That such careers came to exist at all is something even the most optimistic surfing enthusiast thought impossible 20 or 30 years ago. Just ask Bob Mignogna, who was publisher of the fledgling San Clemente–based Surfing magazine starting back in the mid-’70s. “The entire surfing industry, worldwide, was maybe doing $50 million in revenue back in 1975. Today it’s a $16 billion one,” says Mignogna. “Had you told surfers back then that it would ever be this size today they certainly would have asked you for some of what you were smoking.”
Though Surfing was already 10 years old in 1975, it was still struggling to survive in the dismal ’70s economic climate. Among its biggest challenge was playing second fiddle to stiff competition from Surfer magazine, the original surf publication that was also San Clemente–based at the time. Surfer was already the “Bible of the sport” and was primarily responsible for shaping the attitudes of the day—attitudes that were decidedly anti-establishment in the wake of Watergate and Vietnam. “California surfers had gone pretty underground,” says Mignogna. “They’d dropped off of the international radar at the time. Localism was really rampant and pretty violent, and most Californians had their eyes on Hawaii because that’s where the best waves and surfers were at the time. The equipment, the styles, both in the water and out, it was all emanating out of Hawaii in the early ’70s because the Hawaiians ruled the surfing world, and Surfer had a lock on working with the best guys.”
Dave Gilovich, who worked side by side with Mignogna as the editor of Surfing, recalls that time. “Our photographers couldn’t get close to them. Surfer’s photographers were really good friends with the Hawaiians like Gerry Lopez and Rory Russell, who were the household names.”
Additionally, Surfing couldn’t get the advertising dollars out of them either. “Lopez was a partner in Lightning Bolt, which was one of the biggest brands of the day,” says Mignogna. “We couldn’t get them to advertise no matter how hard we tried because he and Steve Pezman, who ran Surfer, were really close. They advertised on the back cover of Surfer every month, which is the most expensive page.” All those impenetrable walls nearly put Surfing out of business.
But in the winter of 1975, events were transpiring on the North Shore of Hawaii that would change the course of surfing history, and the two San Clemente–based surf magazines. That was when an international contingent of Australian and South African surfers invaded the North Shore of Hawaii with brash new attitudes, aggressive new surfing approaches and one very focused mission: to get noticed. To accomplish that goal they first had to earn invites to the prestigious Hawaiian surfing competitions of the day, the same very exclusive affairs reserved almost entirely for the dominant Hawaiians. When all but one of the internationals was denied access, the only recourse the rest of them had was to charge headlong into the huge Hawaiian surf with reckless abandon in front of the many cameras on the beach, including those hired by Surfing.
“Their surfing was so new and exciting that we immediately identified them as the future of the sport,” says Gilovich. “And because they needed attention they were really willing to work with us.” While both magazines ended up with the new international stars on the front covers and inside pages, it was the tones that began to set them apart.
“They were running all the same photos, but Surfer’s coverage usually included a more cynical counterpoint,” says Sam George, who worked for both publications in his 25 years in surf-enthusiast media. “For example, in the same issue that featured [South African] Shaun Tomson on the cover, they featured a long editorial by North Shore veteran Kimo Hollinger deriding the new professional events.”
Pezman, who today publishes The Surfer’s Journal, admits he was always pretty offended by Australian surfer Peter Townend. “He was shrink wrapping himself in pink to get noticed,” says Pezman. “But that’s what happens with all revolutions, the people on the front of it can be pretty obnoxious.”
By the time Bill Delaney’s movie Free Ride, which characterized the movement and the era, was released, Surfer gave it only a standard review, but Surfing, made the making of the movie a huge feature.
Meanwhile, the crew at Surfing offered the new stars soapboxes. “We gave the Australians like Peter Townend their own columns, like ‘Notes From the Tour,’” says Mignogna. “They were getting their message out through our magazine, which was the best of both worlds from a business standpoint because suddenly Dave could have his cake and I could eat it. We started getting some traction.”
“Surfing was more comfortable embracing our movement,” says Tomson, the South African star whose surfing techniques redefined how waves were ridden in 1976. “But when we did get our opportunities with Surfer, those pieces really caused an uproar.”
Such was the case with “Bustin Down the Door,” a story written by Australian Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew for Surfer, which today is the inspiration behind Tomson’s newly released documentary of the same name. The movie, which chronicles this pivotal and turbulent era in surfing history, will be playing at the San Clemente Pier Thursday, September 11 at 6 p.m. It’s already received rave reviews in mainstream press, including Vanity Fair and The New York Times.
The story delves into the incredible backstory and fallout of this huge cultural shift in surfing, which, in the case of these pro-surfing pioneers, was marked by mass beatings and even death threats. “That whole Free Ride era permanently fractionalized North Shore surfing,” says George. “From that point on Hawaii was no longer a gathering place, it was a battlefield.”
Even Californian surfers were forced to choose sides, which, in many ways, was the first real schism the surfing community ever faced. The divide between the surfing progressives and traditionalists impacted many of the breaks and coastal towns up and down the coast, just as the battles between skiers and snowboarders affected mountain communities in the 1990s. With both leading surf publications being locally based, international stars frequented the San Clemente surfing community. Not surprisingly, it was one of the first to adopt the more progressive mindset, which is why it has remained a surfing hotbed since the early 1980s.
Years later, the eventual widespread acceptance of this new movement led to a huge economic boom within the surfing industry, as new equipment and fashions created a fresh round of endorsement marketing, thanks to the more entrepreneurial surfers. “I can still recall Jeff Hakman and Bob McKnight walking into our magazine with the first pair of Quiksilver trunks,” says Mignogna. “They were showing us the fasteners and the open legs. It was like, ‘Hey, looks cool. Good luck with that, guys.’ At the time, we were just happy they decided to advertise with us. Nobody imagined Quiksilver becoming the $2 billion publicly traded company it is today.”
Ironically, many of today’s brightest and wealthiest surf stars are too young to grasp how this history has made their livelihoods possible. Undoubtedly some will be in attendance Thursday, and they’ll likely have a whole new appreciation for their predecessors.
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