To dang hell with sport.
I am not, and never have been, an
“I-told-you-so” bro, but dang hell, if I have not been telling
anyone who will listen, anyone who would grace me with a bent ear
(buy
here), over my entire run that surfing is not a sport
than I am not a surf journalist.
Again, for the difficult of hearing, SURFING IS NOT A SPORT!
It is the Pastime of Kings, the Iconic Waste of Time, Ultra Hard
Candy, Anti-Depressive.
Etc.
It is, utterly, beautifully, meaningless. A perpetual revolt
against structure, jock culture, and thereby the monolithic state,
but not a sport much less organized.
Or as famous surf historian Matt Warshaw puts it even better, in
the introduction to the best-selling nominated book Cocaine +
Surfing:
Surfing is pointless. It is joyful and gorgeous and exciting
and more, absolutely, in spades, and not pointless in the
nihilistic way that drugs are pointless. But pointless
enough.
i.e. not organizable material and, gorgeously, antithetical to
it.
But here we have professional surfing’s owner and co-Waterperson
of the Year Dirk Ziff purchasing the Association of Surfing
Professionals then transitioning it to the World Surf League in
order to create a recognizable sport on par with the National
Football League and here we have the International Surfing
Association’s Fernando Aguerre driving surfing into the Olympics as
an understandable, governed, well-ordered body on par with
gymnastics but what has gymnastics gifted us?
Larry Nasser.
The sex-offending U.S. National Team’s doctor.
And so many more disgraced creeps intent on cementing, then
using, institutional power to further abuse.
Organized sport forever a problem just like it is, today, in the
very middle of giant mess over its “attack on trans rights,” epic
soccer star Megan Rapinoe
recently lighting into United States lawmakers seeking
to bar young transgendered individuals from participating in sports
and team sports that match their gender identity.
Many issues, more potential disagreements, but also much nuance
disappeared because the individual, and the individual’s opinion on
such matters, no longer matters when rolled into the
institution.
That damned thing rules by fiat and now more than ever. There is
no discussion, no debate, no personal decision-making, personal
decision-having.
Just rule and concede.
As much flak as surfing catches for not being inclusive, we are
a rat pack of individuals done wrong by being rolled into a decided
upon narrative.
We are anti-depressive, each of us, just waiting for a chance to
hash it out one-on-one in lineups from Malibu to Newcastle.
WE ARE NOT A SPORT!
To dang hell with sport.