Surf rage: NSSA Junior attacks Italian greyhound-loving accountant at Salt Creek!

"He lost it! He threw eight haymakers! Stabbed board at me!"

Oh to be a gorgeous Millennial. Acres of perfect skin. Soft hair. Delicate gestures. A voice like a cooing Siamese cat.

Of course, anyone born in the last twenty years has also lived without criticism (medals for everyone! You’re unique!) or rejection (everybody picked for the team!) thereby making any sort of conflict a total mind-fuck.

An accountant from Aliso Viejo, Kevin Woolwine, who is thirty nine years old and who enjoys the company of his Italian greyhound when not surfing, experienced a mind-fucked kid during the NSSA’s National Interscholastic Championships at Salt Creek in June. 

A little scene setting.

The surf is two foot. The NSSA contest eats up the point. There’s a black ball at the north end. The weekend horde is squeezed into the middle.

“I got two young kids. I only surf on weekends so I need to get out even if it’s complete dog shit,” says Woolwine. “I need that two hours of sanity away from screaming kids. I don’t care what it looks like.”

He got the screaming kid anyway.

I could see this kid on the inside but it was a garbage little wave, a crap closeout, and I wanted to go home. He absolutely lost it. He gets in my face and screams, ‘What the fuck are you doing? Get the fuck out of here?’

“After about an hour-and-a-half of catching nothing I had to get out of there. So I take off on this fucking two-foot closeout. I could see this kid on the inside but it was a garbage little wave, a crap closeout, and I wanted to go home. He absolutely lost it. He gets in my face and screams, ‘What the fuck are you doing? Get the fuck out of here?’

“I was leaving but I wasn’t going to let this kid send me in. So he steps in front of me and at this point we’re pushing forehead to forehead. Just foreheads. And I’m looking at this kid and I say, ‘There’s no way in hell I can fight you but, dude, you can hit me if you want. I can handle your punches (Kevin was a collegiate wrestler). He threw seven or eight wild-ass haymakers. All I had to do was hold my hands up with my elbows. He clipped me behind the ear once, but it was no consequence. While he’s punching me a wave picks up my board and cracks him in the head.

“I feel bad. I mean, he’s a kid. We’re in waist-deep water and he starts screaming, ‘You just broke my jaw! You can’t hit a minor! You’re going to jail! I’m going to sue you!’

He threw seven or eight wild-ass haymakers. All I had to do was hold my hands up with my elbows. He clipped me behind the ear once, but it was no consequence. While he’s punching me a wave picks up my board and cracks him in the head.

Let me provide a brief detour from the narrative here. Do we live in a brave new era of lame surf assaults? And do you remember the case of Montgomery vs Burdett in Virginia Beach, the current title holder for World’s Lamest Surf Assault?

Click here for that. 

Or the time one surf editor went after another and detectives were summonsed in Goggans vs Smith?

Click here for that. 

Anyway.

“He’s playing the victim and then he throws his board, fins first, at my head. After he missed with that he tackled me and tried to hold me underwater. I got out of his grip (wrestler, y’see) and I wanted to let loose, but, he’s kid, so I let him go. Another wave came and after we came back up he started jabbing me with the nose of his board. It was unbelievable.

“And then we get to the beach. And his dad has fire in his eyes. The lifeguard steps in and says he saw the whole thing. That I didn’t touch the kid once. Another bystander came in and said I didn’t hit him. Meanwhile, the dad and the kid were trying to turn mob on me and I was thinking, what am I going to deal with in the parking lot? One of the crew from the sponsors who was at least 260 pounds and covered in tatts told me, ‘You better get the fuck out of here now. The thing is, I understand their position. If I was over there and someone told me that someone much older had hit my kid I’d have the same reaction. But it was all based on bullshit.

“All my friends are making fun of me, having a fight with a sixteen year old but, dude, the amount of restraint I practised.”

Woolwine appeals to anyone who was on the beach filming to come forth with the footage, if only to share the laughs.

“I’m telling you, it’s internet gold,” he says.

As a sweetener, BeachGrit will pay $500 for any vision.