The name calling has been fierce!
The Zeke Lau and John John Florence affair is old news now, already picked over by the best in the game. In case you were camping in the woods and missed, Zeke Lau surfed against John John Florence in an early round heat at Bells and paddled very aggressively, throwing John John off his game and winning. Commentary was instant and harshly against Zeke. “Fuck that guy…” “rude” “no place for that in surfing…” etc.
An amateur sociologist could have observed before easily declaring, “Well, surfers are racist. Any time a person of brown skin (Zeke, Brazilians) pushes back the establishment (blonde, blue) reacts by reminding the offender he isn’t altogether welcome.” But surfers are too vacuous to be racist. So what? Why the near unanimous derision of Zeke Lau?
For answers we must travel back to Torquay where ancient grudge breaks to new mutiny. And what is this ancient grudge? Jocks vs. surfers of course! Nearly every comment I’ve read this week mirror this one here from Storm Boy. “Zeke is the worst kind of bully, an over-swole knucklehead jock without the guts to intimidate off his own back, instead paying a grown man to tell him who is weak enough to push (paddle) over.”
Over-swole knucklehead jock.
Jocks vs. surfers, fighting in the Garden of Eden, fighting in olde Egypt, fighting during the Industrial Revolution and fighting at Bells. Where did the enmity first begin? Who knows but it is certainly eternal. The jock with his organization and team muscle head. The surfer with his uniqueness and individuality and lack of roolz.
All fine and good but I am still confused. The viciousness directed toward Zeke Lau for surfing like a jock, for being a jock, seemed… uninformed. Hasn’t the World Surf League been pushing and pushing and pushing “surfing” into “sport” since its most recent remake? Don’t more and more and more professional surfers see themselves as “athletes?”
All Zeke did was complete the circle and then you drew and quartered him.
So which do you want? Is professional surfing a sport or is it a gentleman’s game?