Y2K John John Florence.

Two-time world surfing champion John John Florence’s masterly “cheat” brings charity founder to tears as donations surge, “You have no idea how huge this is. He’s saving lives!”

Boys to Men Mentoring charity en route to record fundraising year thanks to ol Johnny Bones Florence… 

On Sunday, John John Florence alerted his 1.4 million social followers to his participation in the @100WaveChallenge.

In his initial post Florence wrote, “I need some help from kids around the world to reach the wave count!”

Clearly, this is cheating by old-school 100 Wave Challenge standards.

John is recruiting wave catchers to can his 100-wave count. Fortunately, Joe Sigurdson, the event creator, and co-founder of Boys to Men Mentoring that it supports, was near tears when he saw Florence’s brilliant marketing move.

“You have no idea how huge this is for us,” says Sigurdson. “He’s saving lives. All these kids are saving lives and most of them don’t even know it yet.”

Every dollar raised helps at-risk kids in underserved communities gain access to powerful group-mentoring services. Their efforts mind blowing, and their secret to success is simple and scalable: “The key is this: our mentors never — never ever — tell kids what to do,” says Joe. “All we do is listen to them. We let them release their pain on their terms. Then — and only then — do we begin to share our own stories that might relate, and the lessons we learned along the way. Sometimes the hard way. It’s really that simple.”

By participating in weekly group sessions these at-risk boys, most of whom are fatherless, find the positive influences they’ve been yearning for.

In time, that translates into better grades, healthier relationships, and overall better choices that improves their trajectory as humans.

And when they notice it working, they find others to bring in.

For their part, Boys to Men Mentoring uses their resources to identify, recruit, and train the army of volunteer mentors.

They also organize group outings and coordinate after-school programs with education administrators. The original San Diego chapter of Boys to Men Mentoring has programs in nearly 40 schools.

Today, there are chapters all across the USA.

In the three days since Florence’s began posting donations have surged by $40,000, bringing the 2021 total to $370,000. “I think we’re on track to beat last year’s record of $508,000 by the end of November,” says Sigurdson. “And heck, we had to get creative to make that happen.”

Last year, COVID nearly forced the cancelation of the 100 Wave Challenge entirely. Untiil then the event was a massive one-day gathering held only in San Diego, where hundreds of like-minded participants caught 100 waves in a matter of hours while Joe and his team supplied food, drink, massage tables, swag, and entertainment for the crowd.

“We thought we were done when the city told us we couldn’t gather,” Joe recalls. “But our surfers convinced us to pivot and loosen up the rules. So last year, we asked people to do it at their own beach, in their own timeframe. We also made it a seasonal campaign. All the sudden, we had people taking part in this all over the country.”

Florence was one of many fresh notables who joined for the first time last year, along with CJ Hobgood and Josh and Sierra Kerr. Shaun Tomson and Damien Hobgood, meanwhile, have been huge backers of Joe and the 100 Wave Challenge for years.

“This is our 12th year of doing this,” Sigurdson explains. “It’s funny because every year we see people get roped into doing it and they really have no idea what they’re signing up for. But eventually they look under the hood, and they see what our program is all about, the impact it’s having, and that’s when they decide this is going to be their thing. This is how they can give back in a meaningful way and have a great time doing it.”

If you’d like to learn more, donate, or participate, visit 100wave.org.

Load Comments

Baker (pictured foreground) surf checking sans un-vaccinated girlfriend.
Baker (pictured foreground) surf checking sans un-vaccinated girlfriend.

International press reporting that surf movie star Simon Baker has broken up with his girlfriend as capital punishment for her attending “anti-vaccine” protest in Australia!

Harsh.

Newswires are currently aflame with the news that surf movie star Simon Baker has just broken up with his girlfriend as capital punishment for her attending an “anti-vaxx” protest, or rather broke up with her a few months ago for that action.

Per, Yahoo! Australia:

Simon Baker and Laura May Gibbs have split.

A source confirmed to PEOPLE that the Mentalist actor, 52, and activewear designer, 36, “quietly parted ways” several months ago after she attended an anti-vaxx protest. Gibbs has been increasingly vocal on social media about her opposition to the COVID-19 vaccine and recent nationwide mandates for it.

On Sunday, she shared a video while attending a rally in Australia to protest vaccine mandates. The clip shows hundreds gathered and cheering with one person’s sign reading: “We stand united against ‘no jab no job’ and vaccine passports.”

Gibbs captioned the Instagram post, “Power to the people (heart emoji) (raised fist emoji).”

But whoa.

What Yahoo! meant to write was “A source confirmed to PEOPLE that star of Tim Winton’s coming-of-age surf film Breath, 52, and activewear designer, 36, ‘quietly parted ways’…” but potato potato, no?

Did you watch Breath?

I tried on an airplane, once, but became sleepy and only had the words of Derek Rielly making much fun of Tim Winton dancing in my head so didn’t take it very seriously.

I also don’t much like coming-of-age movies.

But back to Baker’s guillotine over a light difference of opinion.

Do you think fair?

Do you worry about everyone entering echo chambers?

My wife has been known to read Malcolm Gladwell but I’m not breaking up with her.

Malcolm Gladwell.

That bro properly sucks.

More as the story develops.

Load Comments

Rumor: Mighty U.S. Olympic Committee has “begun the process of de-certifying” Surfing USA as the national governing body due “ethical business practice concerns!”

Trouble in the water.

The shine has not quite yet worn off surfing’s grand Olympic debut wherein, just months ago, our best and brightest paddled out off Japan’s near-perfect coast and wowed the globe with top turns, bottom turns, floaters. Surfers were made stars that day. International heroes and it was an unmitigated success with Brazil taking gold for the men’s draw and the mighty United States of America, by way of Hawaii, taking it for the women’s.

A glorious coming out and one that will reprise in Paris, by way of Teahupoo, Los Angeles and Brisbane.

Now, the Olympics is known for uniting the nations in beautiful sport, not for corruption, but a troubling rumor has emerged from the gold medal-winning United States that suggests the powerful United States Olympic Committee is currently in the process of decertifying USA Surfing as the national governing body “due ethical business practice concerns.”

BeachGrit‘s inside source says, “They sent letters out to all the Olympic athletes recently informing them.”

USA Surfing, which declares on its website, “The essential elements of character building and ethics in sports are embodied in the concept of sportsmanship and six core principles: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and good citizenship. The highest potential of sports is achieved when competition reflects these “six pillars of character,” is headed up by San Clemente’s Greg Cruse while Brett Simpson coaches the team.

It is unclear what the “ethical business practice concerns” could be as USA Surfing has a vast code of conduct that must be signed by parents and makes them swear “I will not force my child to participate in sports.”

Speculation, at this early stage, would be inappropriate and BeachGrit will seek to secure the athlete letter.

More as the story develops.

Load Comments

"Yes. All tattletales go up the mainsail."
"Yes. All tattletales go up the mainsail."

Surf Journalist stumbles upon great fitness mystery, discovers heart beats per minute through the roof on the days he is not engaged in dancing ballet, running record mile times, doing any sort of workout at all!

An riddle not even the great Richard Simmons could solve.

Physical fitness is a grand mystery, one that the greatest minds of all history have tried to unlock. What is right so to do and what is wrong? Which way do muscles, endurance, vibrancy grow and which way do they shrink? Jazzercise yay or nay? Kettlebells in or out? Crossfit up or down? The Bunyanesque thinker Richard Simmons summed it up, rightly, when saying, “The human body, and how to train it, is the universe’s singular conundrum. I’ve resigned myself not to understand but simply like myself, eat healthy and squeeze my buns. That’s my formula.”

Wise and words that I try to live by own my own fitness journey, tacking them to the cedar walls of my infrared sauna and meditating upon them while I broil internally. As you well know, I purposed a month, or such, ago to pull myself from the morass of physical, mental inertia and march toward greatness once again. To strive for an above average cutback. A solid down carve.

And, as if listening, the universe responded, gifting me, and you too if you are bold enough, a personal digital fitness and health coach.

My WHOOP strap, sleek and black, showed how far I had fallen but also how to walk then march toward that greatness. A par-for-the-course bottom turn. It measured my strain, my heart rate, told me when to sleep, how to recover.

It whispered at me while I did pushups and squats like a convict in order to improve my pop-up.

It nodded while I danced ballet in order to improve my footwork.

It taught me to run, carrying me on its nylon wings toward a 4 minute kilometer and the ability to surf for more than 30 minutes without getting tired..

I would study the WHOOP application on my telephone nightly, watching strain soar, balancing recovery, but yesterday discovered an anomaly certain to befuddle the most august fitness scholars at the most gilded institutions like 24 Hour Fitness and Gold’s Gym.

Two days of the week, Wednesday and Friday, I do not train.

Those selfsame two days of the week shoot my heart beats through minutes through the roof.

An oddity.

An enigma.

And I pondered it while meditating on Richard Simmons, broiling internally, until the universe gently sighed the answer.

Wednesday and Friday are the days I gather with four of my best friends, all fathers, and our eight children, aged four through eight, in order to teach them.

The academy was founded near the beginning of last year as the pandemic chewed through schools, sticking boys and girls in front of Zoom screens for many hours a day. We met on a sailboat in Newport Harbor, halfway between my San Diego and their Los Angeles, and cobbled together math, English, Spanish, Arabic, history, sailing, literature, how to get in a straight line and stay there. How not to be an annoying spazz.

This year it has become even more serious with fully developed curriculums, science experimentation, ship shape penmanship, much memorization, nautical navigation, etc.

It has all been a wild experiment, learning how children learn, getting them to learn, tossing Derrida out the window and sorting through phonics, establishing both discipline and esprit de corps, preserving curiosity.

Oh, but nothing causes the heart to pound whilst towering over a five-year-old who has told you that three plus three is eight for the third time in a row. Nothing causes it to almost burst through its chest cavity when a seven-year-old snitches, yet again, when he’s been told at least one-thousand times, “Where do we put tattletales? That’s right. Up the mainsail.”

But then the four-year-old remembers that Jacques Cousteau’s boat was Calypso and somehow knows he invented the SCUBA tank without being told, the eight-year-old recites a passage from Dostoyevsky with award-winning flair and all of them, together, pound a bully at a park.

Proud moments that dot days mostly on the very border of full-blown aneurysms.

Teachers are saints and would likely receive pay raises if they each wore a WHOOP strap to work each and every day.

Buy here, fifteen percent discount if you use the code BEACHGRIT at checkout.

Fifteen percent is not written %51.

Load Comments

World’s most famous surf shop owner and “voice of the people” Sid Abruzzi reveals secrets to ageing disgracefully, his drunken surf reports, getting married at sixty and giving hell to billionaires!

And wait til he lights up on the east coast's own VALmageddon!

Today’s guest on Dirty Water is described by BeachGrit writer Steve Rees, as the “most famous surf shop owner in the world” and “Part animal―Part machine―Part idiot.”

While other surf shop owners obsequiously lick the boots of the clothing majors, for this is where the cash is, he sticks to his Buell wetsuits and custom boards.

If you don’t know where his little surf shop is in Newport, Rhode Island, well, good luck finding it. He don’t have a website.

He is seventy years old, still rides a six-one and he is a skilled persuader for he knows how to worm his way into a tired heart.

Load Comments