Who has history treated more kindly, Tiger or Jordy? | Photo: Surf shot by WSL

Great moments in surf biz: Jordy Smith thumbs nose at Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan and $5 million Nike contract!

In the light of Hurley's implosion and subsequent ripple effect to other surf co's, it's a decision that now seems positively divine.

Two thousand and eight seems a lifetime ago, don’t it.

I was busying myself on a niche magazine, had friends, a functioning hip, children, a wife that was in love with me more or less, cash in the bank and a  dark side which I was careful to only explore while abroad.

Like I said, a lifetime ago.

But it was in the otherwise unremarkable year of 2008 when twenty-year-old Jordy Smith, touted, then, as a world title certainty, made a decision that, in the light of Hurley’s recent implosion and subsequent ripple effect to other surf co’s, seems positively divine,

Do you remember?

Big bidding war.

Everyone wants the kid before his rookie year on tour.

Eventually the suitors slim down to O’Neill and Nike.

Nike offers five-mill, O’Neil two.

Nike pulls in the heavy-hitters.

Tiger Wood calls Jordy. They speak for forty-five minutes.

Michael Jordan sends Jordy an email reflecting on the similarities of their name. Jordan Michael Smith. 

An advertising campaign is planned with the slogan Air Jordy. 

Jordy receives, in the mail, the boot Ronaldo used to kick a goal in a World Cup final.

Another day, he gets a set of Tiger’ clubs.

Jordy is flown to Nike’s US headquarters to meet the company’s co-founder Phil Knight.

“He gave me advice on how he went about it when he was my age, and told me about the company he was with,” Smith will tell The Sydney Morning Herald. “It was kind of baffling in the beginning. You don’t know what to say because he’s such a high-profile guy, but you just cruise with it.”

So what’s Jordy do?

He signs with O’Neill, for three million bucks less, because they’re in the game for the long haul.

A dozen years later, he’s got a beach house at Log Cabins, is successfully enduring marriage, is rated third in the world and, still…

still

He draws honey from the O’Neill teat, long after Nike, and now Hurley, gave up on surf.

A prophet, one might say.


Pete Mel, same innocence and sadness as always, at the Nazaré firing range. | Photo: WSL

Comment Live: The Gender Bias Free Nazaré Tow Surfing Challenge!

Men fight women to the death and no Team USA!

Shortly, ten tow-teams, two of which feature women, will complete in forty-to-fifty-foot waves at Nazaré in Portugal.

The ten teams are built, mostly, around countries of origin.

There’s Team World, Brazil, Great Britain, Australia, Portugal, Europe and France alongside Team Justine (featuring France’s Justine Dupont and a non-surfing driver), Team Atlantic (with South African Grant Baker and Portugal’s Antonio Silva) and Team Young Bulls (Brazilian Lucas Chianca and Hawaiian Kai Lenny).

The two women, Brazil’s Maya Gabeira and Justine Dupont are noted for their bravado even in the face of death, as Maya explained six years ago when she was brought back to life on the beach at Nazaré after snapping her leg and drowning.

Faces. Just people and remembering that I had almost drowned and where I was and a lot of water, water, water. And I was throwing up. It took a long time in my brain to come back and for me to open my eyes but as soon as I did I kinda knew where I was because it was so salty and it was so wet. I just could tell I had just drowned.”

I asked Maya of her first memory after being revived.

Faces. Just people and remembering that I had almost drowned and where I was and a lot of water, water, water. And I was throwing up. It took a long time in my brain to come back and for me to open my eyes but as soon as I did I kinda knew where I was because it was so salty and it was so wet. I just could tell I had just drowned.”

Nazaré is a pretty seaside town and is named after the hometown of Jesus, and what is now called the Arab capital of Israel.

Portugal is deeply Roman Catholic after all.

The contest works like this.

It’s a four-hour expression session. No elimination. Option to run longer if the joint is pumping.

Rotating heat format and priority system that means there’ll always be five teams in the water.

Each team gets two, one-hour heats.

When the contest finishes, “a nominating panel” will dive through the footage of the day and pick the best waves as finalists.

At the awards ceremony, later tonight, the surfers and “a group of expert judges” will watch and vote for Men’s Wave of the Day, Women’s Wave of the Day and Team Champions and The Jogos Santa Casa Commitment Award.

Notable for their absence is Team USA.

Click here in about five hours to watch. 


Question: Did Oprah Winfrey’s right hand just swindle our dear pro surfing like “Professor” Harold Hill swindled the “Iowa Stubborn” people of River City?

We have trouble.

Big promises, no? Big, big promises of understanding, love, passion, pasión and knowledge. Smiles, SUPing, success.Wild, wild, success and has a metaphor ever rang so true as Erik “ELo” Logan swinging into Santa Monica in order to save professional surfing from itself as the old-timey musical The Music Man where a swindler swang into a small midwestern town with a shiny suit and million dollar smile?

The Music Man.

You’ve seen, or are at least aware, and is Erik “ELo” Logan not he?

Not a modern-ish version of “Professor” Harold Hill promising to change fortunes while being clueless?

To whit, I’ve been covering professional surfing, as a lifestyle, for fifteen years.

Fifteen years.

Never in any one of those have I seen such an absolute dearth of content as I have in the past year plus.

Crickets for days. For weeks.

Years?

Not one bit one content outside the surf contest worth clicking on. Worth investing in.

It is exactly what Harold Logan was brought in to do. Exactly what he promised.

A whole universe of coverage. Learned from the lap of Oprah Winfrey herself.

Except… crickets.

No content. No fun. No stories. No nothing.

Silence.

Silence even though wall-to-wall fun was promised.

Mr. Plate Lunch Ashton Goggans, we turn our lonely eyes to you.

Here we are now. Entertain us.

(Also, dear Ash, try the poke bowl! We need you and I worry about cholesterol etc.)


Vigilantly “anti-surfer” Hillary Clinton disrespects Hawaiian congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard in the lineup, catches “cracks” and gets “all buss up” as response!

Her açai bowl went flying.

But have you been following along with the “post-“political ride of onetime United States of America presidential candidate and resident of upstate New York Hillary Rodham Clinton and how she hates surfers with every ounce of her being?

Every fiber of her body?

How she actively seeks to destroy Bernie Bros while dropping in on Hawaiian congresswoman, and Ain’t That Swell guest, Tulsi Gabbard who also happens to be running for president of the United States of America?

Upstate New York, amiright?

But if you are not fully caught up let me explain.

Hillary Clinton hates surfers and, in trying to undermine, called Hawaiian surfer Tulsi Gabbard a “Russian Asset” weeks ago.

Well, shreddah Tulsi didn’t like that and tried to crack Clinton with a $50 million dollar lawsuit that might have been a $50 billion dollar lawsuit.

Many açai bowls.

Clinton dodged the first couple swings, like a real mainland chicken, her lawyers too, but as anyone who has ever messed with a Hawaiian knows, eventually got slapped and let us read about the sting then speculate.

Tulsi Gabbard (D., Hawaii) explained her decision to sue 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, saying in a statement Thursday that “Hillary Clinton and her allies want you to know that if you dare to cross them, they will destroy your reputation as well.”

Gabbard, who sued Clinton for defamation on Wednesday after the former secretary of state suggested she was a “Russian asset” in October, stated that her lawsuit was on the behalf of other “patriotic Americans.”

“If Hillary Clinton and her allies can successfully destroy my reputation — even though I’m a war veteran and a sitting member of Congress — then they can do it to anybody,” Gabbard said. “I will not allow this blatant effort to intimidate me and other patriotic Americans into silence go unchallenged.”

I feel we can accurately read “war veteran” and “patriotic American” as “surfer” which brings us around to what a surfer would do with a fresh $50 million dollars.

What would you do?

Backyard Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch?

Backyard Kelly Slater?

Presidential run?

Other?

Much to ponder.


Great White shark (picture) being waterboarded for answers.
Great White shark (picture) being waterboarded for answers.

Breaking: Great White Shark cluster off the Carolinas grows “more intense and mysterious” baffling researchers and panicking coastal residents!

Are sharks "exhibiting a sixth sense of something bad in the making?"

A cluster of Great White sharks, directly off of North Carolina, has grown more intense and mysterious over the last few weeks. Researchers and scientists first began noticing this convergence of “man-eating” beasts toward the end of January but the gathering was spread out across hundreds of miles. Now they are gathering together, bunched and close, off of Wilmington exactly like they are bunching by the hundreds, possibly thousands, off Aukland.

Researchers and scientists have tried to find a connection between the two towns, tried to discover what the apex predators are up to, but so far nothing and let us turn to the Raleigh News & Observer for booties on the ground coverage.

OCEARCH says the tagged sharks, ranging in size from 8 feet to nearly 13 feet, represent a tiny sampling of what is actually off the coast, meaning waters could be full of great white sharks.

Experts have not offered a clear explanation for what is happening off the Carolinas, though researchers believe the sharks could have been driven north by warmer weather in Florida.

The coast off the Carolinas is known as a shark foraging area, but the animals typically feed as they travel along the coast to the Gulf of Mexico.

Social media users have speculated on what might be causing the sharks to cluster. Ideas include the possibility that sharks are chasing a sudden wealth of food or following the noise of beach renourishment projects along the coast.

Some people have even wondered if the sharks are exhibiting a sixth sense of something bad in the making.

“Maybe the recent earthquakes in (Puerto Rico) and other Caribbean locations? They might just know what we don’t about the future,” posted Karen Lavigna.

“Sensing bad weather?” Jenifer Parker wrote.

Sensing bad weather? Earthquakes?

I don’t want to unduly panic the brave Tarheels but… the unique vinegar foundation of Carolina bbq sauce is known to pickle people up “nice n tasty” from the inside out, according to food critics and epicureans.

Might the Great Whites be collecting for a good ol’ fashioned fry?