Welcome to the second circle of hell.

Olympic bronze medalist Owen Wright is nothing if not prolific in retirement. The 33-year-old Australian has built a “staggering” real estate portfolio and become an author. His book, Against the Water, an instant classic detailing his heroic journey from duck dive-induced brain trauma at the Banzai Pipeline to the third highest step on Tokyo 2020’s stage.

Wright, described as “model-handsome with long blond hair,” sat down with The Guardian, recently, to add flavor to his story, something he was not allowed as a child.

Surprises?

For starters, the Pipeline incident was not the first bonk on the head for Wright. Far from it, in fact, as he shares that he probably had somewhere between twenty to thirty concussions while surfing.

And also more details of his hothouse upbringing.

Per the piece:

Rob Wright believed there was no shortage of great surfers, but very few great competitors. And he set about drilling his children: they had no TV and no toys; mornings would start with a family kung-fu session, sometimes at 4.30am. They ate plain vegetarian food, served with no sauce or seasoning, and travelled to surf competitions around Australia on a school minibus. That last detail reminded me of Richard Williams, the rambunctious father of Venus and Serena, whose eccentricities were showcased in the film King Richard, starring Will Smith. Wright laughs, “Watching that Williams sisters movie was kind of triggering.”

Wright says he was his father’s clear favorite, something that didn’t necessarily bother his siblings. “The attention was never that great,” he said. “I was also the one who got up at the crack of dawn and trained and all the rest of it. They were more than happy to pass on that!”

Unlike his sister Tyler, Wright doesn’t seem to wholly blame father Rob, crediting him, in fact, with the life he now lives. “My dad did so many things that clearly got great results,” he confesses. “That relationship was the reason I surfed, it was the reason I pushed, it was the reason I rebelled, it was the reason I pushed again. It’s part of the reason I’ve retired. And it’s part of the reason I made it back out of the head injury.”

Today, he is caring for his father while parenting his own two children, slightly worried that his eldest son might follow in his footsteps. The six-year-old surfed in his first competition. The waves were big though the child was brave. Later, though, he came and told Wright they were, in fact, too big.

“What have I done?” he wondered. While also recognizing “The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.”

Buy Against the Water here.

End further nigh.

Movie star handsome Ben Gravy is, without doubt, one of the most famous surfers on earth. Without need or use of the “global home of surfing,” also knows as the World Surf League, the 35-year-old New Jersey native has built a massive following based upon his positivity and an everyman vibe that translates from Burlington to Beaverton to Bakersfield.

Ardent fans have made his vlog the most popular surf channel of all, eclipsing the hard-charging likes of Nathan Florence and Koa Smith. His “pineapple wearing shades” logo is regularly seen out in the wild, adorning button-down shirts, soda coozies and beach towels, but to name a few products.

Safe at every speed.

Though it appears the lantern-jaw’d looker is taking a dark turn. For today, I attended the Boardroom Show in Del Mar. It is the only fun convention I’ve ever been to that didn’t feature Ashton Goggans, a feast of sights, sounds, conversations. Jamie Brisick ate a falafel hamburger. Devon Howard had me feel the rails of a 9-foot + longboard.

And Ben Gravy has begun selling hard boards.

Hard as in concussion-giving glass n foam, artery-slashing fins, poked-out eyeballs.

Sliding death.

Gravy had much success, maybe most success, in the soft-top market previously. Boards so fun and playful that they could only bring a smile to face while never busting out teeth.

Glass n foam though?

In his most ardent fans’ hands?

Body bags already being ordered and shipped to Upper Trestles.

David Lee Scales and I talked about the Boardroom Show, anyhow, during our weekly chat, and it really does live up to its billing. It runs again tomorrow and if you are anywhere near Del Mar, where the surf meets the turf, or maybe vice versa, swing by.

Get inspired and listen here.

"Should you be optimizing your job around your surfing or should you do the opposite way around?"

Any surfer who has wandered the radio dial, whilst stuck in traffic, and stumbled upon the National Public Radio program Marketplace has, certainly, been entranced. Its host, Kai Ryssdal, spent eight years in the Navy then more in the U.S. Foreign Service, became a reporter and finally host of the business-centric, beloved show.

Ryssdal’s broad knowledge, professionalism and keen understanding soothes nerves otherwise frayed by bad drivers, though, one of his recent guests left the aforementioned wave sliders distraught.

Caroline Mimbs Nyce, who covers technology for The Atlantic, has just begun to surf, a classic vulnerable adult learner, and fallen in disturbing love with the forecasting giant Surfline.

Ryssdal, who proudly states he does not surf nor cares to learn (smart), begins the conversation with “Anyway, so you’re a beginning surfer, and …”

Before Mimbs Nyce takes over and declares, “A beginner surfer and I had just been fascinated about how quickly my life started to revolve around this website called Surfline. And my weekends, and all of my schedule basically, is me planning to go out and surf based on when this website tells me that it’s ideal to.”

Ryssdal wants to know what this “Surfline” is, how it works.

Mimbs Nyce shares, “So Surfline is, at its core, a wave-forecasting website. They have a thousand cameras, millions of people use it to plan where and when to go out. So just before we started talking, I looked up Malibu. Looks like it’s a cruddy couple of days in Malibu. In addition to doing these forecasts, they partner with the World Surf League in order to decide when professional contests are held. They blog about upcoming swells and recent good waves that people have caught. So it’s sort of a full-scale media company and I found that surfers have a love-hate relationship with it.”

Ryssdal wants to get into the “love-hate thing” and Mimbs Nyce obliges, saying, “Pretty much since Surfline has existed, it’s been polarizing. I think that this really gets at a question of the spirit of the sport. Is surfing about everyone being able to get out in the water? Is this a cheat code to only go when it’s really ideal? A lot of surfing used to be related to counterculture, as well. Should you be optimizing your job around your surfing or should you do the opposite way around?”

Ryssdal, getting to the very heart of the matter, wonders, “Has surfing sold out to the man?”

Mimbs Nyce stalls but Ryssdal presses because she is a surfer. She decides she likes all the new people, like her, in the water and the commercialization and the colored bits of Surfline, yellow for ok, green for good etc. In the end, optimizing surfing around job.

There we have it.