Help, please.
Last night, after a long day toiling down in the surf journalism mines, the family and I went out for dinner at a humble local establishment. I was hungry from an honest day’s work covering blood feuds and linguistic wars and looked forward to a break. But no rest for the weary, and as we were seated, I noticed a large table filled with handsome young men, beautiful young women and a handful of glowing parents. The boys had razor sharp wetsuit neck tans, the girls sun and saltwater kissed hair. Dads and moms both looking very surfy. Each was drinking a bubbly water and I immediately thought, “Mormons.
Which directly led to another.
“Why aren’t there more Mormon professional surfers on tour?”
The Latter-Day lifestyle, all healthy and centered, family-based and motivated, entrepreneurial and multi-level, would seem to be the perfect environment for brewing World Surf League standouts. Mormons excel at sport, here in America, with their plucky Brigham Young University regularly besting conference powerhouses in football, baseball, basketball. The NFL, NBA, MLB all feature fine and successful Mormon athletes.
Why, then, no professional competitive surfers?
Making the conundrum even more baffling, the LDS church has colonized much of Polynesia, BYU has a campus on Oahu’s North Shore and Joe Turpel.
So, again, what’s really going wrong?
Professional competitive surfing has, long ago, left its party era where stars like Andy Irons and Eugene Fanning standard bore. Today’s best-of-best are all both straight and narrow, from the Colapinto bros to Jacob Wilcox. Even Italo Ferreira exudes Mormon-adjacent vibes. The Church of Latter-day Saints has an estimated portfolio of $100 billion dollars and, I’m sure, could create a surf academy that would dominate the Sport of Queens for years.
Why doesn’t it?
Help, please.
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Dusty Payne
They’re too busy plugging all their wives holes that’s why
How long do Mormons have to soak in the line up before they’re allowed to enter the tube?
I think my mormon neighbors are appalled by me since I drink caffeine and do work on Sundays. And since I surf that helps keep them away. This is a good thing.
Italo ? Nah . All brazzos have a tight connection to god, but he doesn’t look like the whitest sheep.
Instead he comes across as a tony alva type, gobbling up all the high life, in a way that would make Anton laVey proud. And good on him for doing so.
Why have i never thought about this?… Oh thats right, because it’s completely fkn irrelevant to anything.
Imagine… https://media3.giphy.com/me…
Josh Kerr is so pleasant and has such an easy smile, he could be mistaken for Mormon.
His airs do look quite mormon.
Jordy Collins is pro but leaning more on his social media as income. His dad was almost pro! The Hennings kids working their way through the amateur ranks have the skill to go pro. Lot’s of companies that support surfing have roots in LDS: Skull Candy, Traeger, Stance, Rockwell Watches . . .
Mormon!
Needs more bumhole repertoire.
Xox
They dont want to be gay
yes we need more men
Utah has some fickle waves and having multiple wives only makes it harder to sneak away for a quick surf
Buckskin Gulch an all time secret spot.All kinds of waves when it rains.
Throw a wave pool in SLC and you’ll get a couple of the first pool pros. They’ll dial in 720’s both ways and alley oop backside rodeos consistently for the first time in surfing, There’s so many snowboard pros living there a few of them would definitely step up the wavepool air game in the off season..
Yes, I see a splinter group “revolution ” coming. The sooner the better. Less in the oceans is good thing
Snowboarding’s a blessing where I’m from. During the winter when the waves get good, the more snow there is in the mountains the less snowboarders there are at the beach. Wave pools could help further that equation too.
Those aren’t razor sharp wetsuit neck tans. That’s a razor sharp white dress shirt with accompanying snug neck tie tan. And if you were to get a good look at their scalp, you’d notice a faint but recognizable bike helmet tan.
Also, Mormons are compelled to donate 10% of their earnings to the Church, leaving little disposable income.
Damn, Chas really has nothing to write about, huh?
Next we’ll get an article pondering why the sky is blue.
Why I got that tatoo…😞
Mor Core Division
As perhaps the only Grit Reader who lives just down from the Headquarters of the Temple in SLC, I have no idea, but the ex-members I am friends with all love watching surfing when it’s on TV.
Boots on the ground reporting! Thank you.
Sorry I don’t have anything more right now. I can tell you that they are for the most part a VERY wholesome bunch. Polite, friendly, curious about outsiders. The state is 70% LDS overall, but it seems to me that I meet a lot more ex-LDS than current practicing LDS, however this is obviously greatly affected by the people I tend to mingle with. It is a great place to be a single guy, as most of the women end up marrying the first boyfriend so that they are able to “fuck”. This relationship never works out, so you have a huge number of single 25-40 year old women who are divorced and sexually inexperienced, many times having quit the church as well as the first sex partner. True, many of them do have 4 or 5 toe-headed groms running around, but there are a fair many who only have 1-2. One obnoxious thing about having so many quitters around is that they cannot handle their alcohol having recently quit the church and begun to drink at an advanced age. Most of us transplants came here for the snow, what with 10 resorts within an hour and unlimited backcountry skiing (also now over-populated with VALS much like surfing in a post-COVID world), but the Mormons share and share alike on the pow days, and Sundays are guaranteed to have less crowds.
I’m in the ex-member category and there was, at one point, a hilarious website on how to get excommunicated from the church. Having not attended the church from age 12 on, I finally sent a letter asking to be removed from the roles. It took them 3 years to confirm via letter. They’ll likely baptize me back into the church, while standing over my grave after my death…
If you’re a serious Mormon you go to Church like 5 hours every weekend. No time for contests. The Morman free surfer is the only route. Good look with that when you’re riding your bike everywhere carrying books.
Think Ross is cooking one up with one of his padawans, Luke Swanson.