An ancient wrong gets put right!
Ain’t nothing ever came easy for lil Bondi shredder Pauline Menczer: five two, one hundred pounds, crippled by arthritis, taxi-driver dad murdered, a mama on welfare looking after four kids on her own.
But she shredded.
Won the world amateur title as an eighteen year old, turned pro and hit fifth in her first year on tour.
Four years later, sponsorless (“I don’t have sponsors, because I don’t have big boobs, blonde hair and blue eyes”), the kid spent twenty-five of her thirty gees in prize money that year just to contest the tour.
And, won it.
“Menczer’s 1993 championship remains one of the sport’s great underdog stories, writes Matt Warshaw in his thoroughly indispensable Encyclopedia of Surfing. “Menczer won three of the first 11 events, and had a slender ratings lead going into the 12th and final contest in Hawaii. Two weeks before the event started, the 23-year-old Menczer had an arthritis attack that put her temporarily in a wheelchair; seven days later she began paddling her surfboard in a pool as a warm-up; on the day of the contest—held in windblown eight-foot surf at Sunset Beach—she scraped into the finals, and won the title. “I couldn’t even brush my own hair,” she said of her pre-title attack. “My body just shut down.”
The prize? A busted trophy.
A little over a week ago, surf industry legends Sophie Marshall and Mimi LaMontagne put together a gofundme with the aim of raising twenty-five gees for the champ, now fifty and driving a school bus in Byron Bay.
“Pauline helped pave the way for all women in the surf. So, as a collective group of women in the surf industry – who owe everything to these women – we decided it was time we help pay it forward to Pauline. Let’s come together as an industry, as women, and get Pauline Menczer the financial support that she never received!”
In an episode of Dirty Water last year, the superstar surf journalist Sean Doherty, who is the author of MP: the Life of Michael Peterson and My Brother’s Keeper: the official Bra Boy’s story, described Pauline as his favourite interview.
And swing to a cinema to watch Girls Can’t Surf, “a wild ride of clashing personalities, sexism, adventure and heartbreak, with each woman fighting against the odds to make their dreams of competing a reality.”
Pauline stars.
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See also Silvana Lima
Those girls and women are cool. Just cause someone might be a little hard to be around doesn’t mean they aren’t cool. (I hope that’s true, for my sake.) Their whole trip getting some recognition is cool. If old dudes want to be salty, so be it. They proved years ago that they don’t need ’em. They were legit underdogs in this mess. If some people want to punch down, that’s on them.
What is wrong with having a reliable career as a bus driver , there are actually thousands of them that millions of people rely on for transport.
how the fuck is rasta still sponsored? no social media..
Yeah amazing isn’t it, sponsors don’t care so much about how good you are, it’s how much shit you can sell. Ana Kournikova says hi.
Maybe we should crowdfund for all those olympians in obscure sports who gave up everything to follow their dreams. Why is surfing different?
I went to the go fund me page. Nothing that we didn’t know already but a lot of questions left hanging.
Why $30,000 as a fund me total? The figure is completely arbitrary. Or if it’s not, it should be explained why. What does never had a major sponsor actually mean? It’s a long time ago but I remember her with piping hot decals on her board. I also remember Gary Elkerton with piping hot stickers on his board, so what do they really mean by no major sponsor?
No one was making any real money on the tour until Tom Carroll signed that huge deal with Quiksliver which was a ‘huge’ 200k a year.
Meanwhile Dane Reynolds signed a 5 year 23 million contract with Quiksilver in the glory days.
I remember in “A Bronx Tale” C’s dad was a bus driver. It seemed kinda cool in 1960’s New York. Edgy and engaged in the local community. Now I’m not so sure….
Maybe she just didn’t quite get the right dose of MDMA from Brutus, on his ranch of dreams!?!?!
LOL , it’s the Kandahar Kid , Killer of kids , oath keeper , thought you might have been arrested at the Capitol Hill Gullible fest ?
Dont you know your not allowed to mention the involvement in ecstasy mate.
Speaking of people you didn’t pay nearly enough, how did you Aussie fucks let Tym Guitars go out of business?
Nah, Just closed the shop.
Rent was too high, ergo: Brisbane needed to buy more Orange half stacks, and failed.
It’s no wonder that women are on the rise when you read that tissue fest below the Medina story.
Harden the fuck up,fellas
Not all of us just buy in trapped wives from abroad Bex.
I’ve read in his posts that he met and married in the UK.
But maybe you should consider it grumpy bum.
Yawn
This is cool, Good on ya Pauline
Better late than never!
That one on the left was fucking great in the Occumentary.
Tbh, I’m unsponsored for the same reasons, except I also suck at surfing.
How much are you putting in Derek ?
What about you Chas ?
Any others ?
Aren’t plumbers etc rolling in cash ?
Maybe BG should put in a grand (seeing as you brought it to our attention) and those of us with a spare hundy could do that, and a tenner for some others etc.
P.S.
Perhaps Natasha Ziff could donate too (if she considers herself an integral woman surfer)…
Pam Burridge had boobs, blonde hair and blue eyes and was hardly sponsored… At one point Pam had a sticker on her board of a car wrecking company from the Northern beaches of Sydney… Revisionist history is all the rage 😂 Woke is the new Coke!
Ok, can we go with they all got a pretty raw deal then? maybe even some more than others if we dare Chuck?
Does that mean all the male pros who were pros before the money was there should get a freebie as well? The problem here might have more to do with the available money being limited as opposed to some sort or conspiracy to keep her down. Sure, women who had more appeal physically might have had more opportunities but that’s life.
No. Yeah, there was a bunch of people that had to work their arses off to get to the top of the heap and yeah the money pot was small, even smaller for Woman.
Pauline certainly didn’t ask for any of this and I think its lazy to just throw “well what about this person and that person they struggled too”
If you or anyone else is worried about some Male or even another Females pro struggles in the 80’s they’re welcome to start up a go-fund me up.
Not worried at all just pointing out that she wasn’t the only one who struggled due to a lack of funding for the sport. The statement “I don’t have sponsors, because I don’t have big boobs, blonde hair and blue eyes” is a bit of a “whoa is me” statement in my opinion. Good for her to be getting some help from people who care, whether she asked for it or not. But there are plenty of other people in the world who had to work through not being the prettiest person in the bunch, that’s all.
From memory the comment was made back when she was competing … but don’t let your narrow mindedness get in the way of facts chucky boy
‘The comment was made when she was competing’ yeah exactly that would be a fact… so what is your point? Nothing.
It’s hardly revisionist history than is it?
Why don’t you take a bex and lie down?
2021 is the date so yeah it’s revisionist history. Silly Billy
I think he’s saying that Pam Burridge had blue eyes and blonde hair and also had to scrimp for sponsors. Which is pretty obvious when at the time hardly any women surfed and the surf brands didn’t even make women’s surfwear. Cheetah was probably the biggest female label there was (at the time), and they didn’t sponsor any female surfers at all.
Of course Cheetah went broke as soon as the surf labels realised they could chuck their own label on a bikini and they’d walk out the door.
Cheers Bugs.
I get that and don’t have a comment on it … it is what it was.
What I don’t get is how has history been revised? Pauline made the comment, the article quoted the comment. Where’s the rewriting of history?
Maybe I’m being too literal?
No one cared about women’s surfing until Lisa Anderson came around. Well there was brief interest when Wendy Botha posed nude. Sex sells. Should be obvious.
Amazing story about the arthritis!
To be fair, she deserves a lot more. If I was an over-monied sponno done good, I’d pay her mortgage off or something like that.
A few hurluley stickers for her board? Gorilla marketing stick a few on the school bus to get the groms in….
Ya, agreed, what she needs is a cheap condo paid off somewhere for security in life or use the money for a down payment on one.
Any of the current womens CT kicking in big?
You can see the donor names on the gofundme page. The only one I recognised was that photographer rambo estrada for 50 bucks.