Thoughts and prayers and maybe a tear or two for the Santa Babs style maestro!

Lovely Conner Coffin, the tiny thirty year old from Santa Babs whose gender-bending “cute fem boy” looks make any hot-blooded man want to kiss his eyelashes, has officially quit professional surfing after his early elimination from the US Open of Surfing at Huntington Beach. 

Coffin, who was a world title contender in 2021, lost in the round of 32 and made his decision public shortly thereafter. 

“It was so cool, my brother came down, got my fiancé and family…a lot of people who have been a part of my life and competitive surfing career,” Conner said. “Super special. It kinda started here in Huntington Beach, surfing NSSA [contests]. And this [the US Open of Surfing] was the first big contest I surfed in. I think Hurley gave me the wildcard. Then, I won the Pro Junior here a couple times. A lot of really good memories. It’s kinda weird, but I’m super stoked.”

It’d been a wild two years for Conner, dumped by Rip Curl, his sponsor of five years, and losing his spot on the tour in what he described as “waist-high shit Winkipop.”

Despite his milquetoast manner, Coffin has rarely shied away from controversy. Following the cut from the tour, he savaged the World Surf League’s chief strategy officer in a wild interview.

Per Chas,

He describes how his tour fate was decided by “waist high onshore shit Winikipop.” How the waves were garbage, more or less, the first five events, crushing livelihoods. Dealing with the hatred, amongst his professional surfers, about the cut. “It sucked. I hated it honestly. Big price to pay…” he ends with as Prodan giggles uncomfortably, eyes wide, mouth, framed by well-manicured beard lightly agape, then tries to re-spackle the Wall of Positive Noise by calling this year’s G-Land “really good” before casting blame on magazines of yesteryear for poorly representing the early “dream tour” as all fantastic.

After the premium surf website Stab used “racist tropes” to describes Coffin’s chances, or lack, of winning the 2021 world title, he fired back, “Stab, thanks for your continued ‘premium’ journalism, you could spell my name right. It pissed me off for a few minutes, but then I thought about all of the times people have doubted me, said I wasn’t good enough, said I can’t do something that I wanted to do and how I’ve always channeled it and combined that with passion, hard work, and love to accomplish my goals. In posting this, I hope it encourages you guys to use negativity and spin it into a positive and don’t let anyone get you down or keep you from achieving your goals!”

Although the honied era of multi-million dollar contracts is long gone, surf fans can rest easy lest they be worried of his financial future for mammy and daddy Coffin , Rich and Krista, operate a high-end construction biz, delighting in “creating architecturally significant homes”.

The last time we saw ‘em on these pages was one year ago when they listed their one-third share in 101 acres of gorgeous Hollister Ranch dirt, a beachfront enclave that counts blockbuster filmmaker James Cameron, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard and minstrel Jackson Browne as owners.

Coffin made his first appearance on BeachGrit in 2015 when he read a short story from the New Yorker called “I will slap you”, admitting the piece fit him well considering he’d once slapped the photography great Tom Carey during a heated showdown.

“I’ve slapped men twice your size and density,” says Coffin.

Essential.

McConaughey's "love of surf is unquestionable" although his career was almost dashed on the rocks with turns as Steve Addington in Surfer, Dude and Moondog in Beach Bum”.

You’ll remember only twelve months ago, tears falling for Griffin Colapinto who, despite winning two of the ten events, failed to secure a position in the crucial top five thereby missing the chance to win a world title at Lowers, his home break. 

Griff was murdered by four seventeenths at waves he should’ve owned, Pipe, Sunset, Bells and Rio. And when he fell in the round of sixteen at Teahupoo, oowee, out came the waterworks, the twenty five year old crying over a loss for the first time since he was twelve. 

This year has been markedly different, seconds at Sunset, Margs and El Salvador and a very controversial win at Slater’s Surf Ranch securing his spot in the final five and a slot in the US Olympic Surf Team, which is coached by Brett Simpson, one of the ablest and worst-used men in sports. 

Now, Colapinto has revealed the role Academy Award winning actor Matthew McConaughey, who watched the Sunset event from the Red Bull Athlete Lounge, played in his success.

As Colapinto told People magazine, McConaughey “hurled magnificent verbal thunder and lightning” before heats and it propelled the San Clementine into the season of his life, culminating with a ticket to Teahupoo in 2024 and a seat at the champions table in September. 

Colapinto has since returned the favour, advising McConaughey’s kid Levi, who made a stunning debut on Instagram three weeks ago with surf heavyweights lining up to praise his skills. 

The WSL personality famous for his steroidal tits, Strider Wasilewski, wrote, “Sick one grom” while former pro surfer Yadin Nicol simply melted, “So sick, Levi!”

Colapinto says Levi’s “been super psyched on surfing so I’ve been helping him with some surfing tips. He comes to San Clemente and surfs our local wave. It seems like they’re getting super into it, and that’s rad.”

McConaughey’s “love of surf is unquestionable” although his career was almost dashed on the rocks with turns as Steve Addington in Surfer, Dude and Moondog in Beach Bum”.

(Editor’s note: this story is a culmination of three hours sitting in front of a blank screen watching the click meter stutter and grafting an even-more-pointless-than-usual story over an otherwise fruitful afternoon drinking rum treated with squirts of lime and grapefruit juice.)