Sworn enemies coming together?
There was a time in our surf history, and not long ago, that high school jocks and high school surfers were the swornest of enemies. Jocks representing “the man,” surfers representing rebellion against him. The two groups would meet in parking lots, late at night, and pepper each other with insults like “meathead” or “drop-out.” Sometimes these gatherings would take a violent turn, a jock, say, stomping the the bare toes of a surfer, and whole towns would become terrified of what revenge might take place. A surfer, say, spray painting the word “fashist” on a jock’s pickup truck.
Well, it’s a new day and while the rest of the world pitches further and further into polarization, the proud State of Hawaii is set to vote on unity this wednesday, marrying jocks and surfers.
House Bill 133, authored by House Majority Leader and North Shore Rep. Sean Quinlan, will be brought to the Honolulu statehouse floor to be voted upon by the 51 other representatives. If approved, it will provide $685,000 for each of the next two years thus officially establishing surfing as a high school sport.
Recent graduate Sunny Kazama testified last week on the Senate floor and told Hawaii News Now, “I see the money going toward coach salaries, equipment, any logistics they have to work out, and then any costs with officially making it part of the ILH or OIA. That’s where I see the funds going and I’m really excited to see it happen.”
Quinlan shared, “There were a lot of concerns about injury rates. We know from Maui (where surfing is played in high school) that the injury rates are negligible. There’s a lot of concern about the cost of insurance. The cost of insurance is very low. Surfing is an extremely safe sport when done properly.”
He added, “When you look at sort of the broader landscape of the WSL (World Surf League) and professional surfing, we want to give our homegrown talent every single opportunity they can to compete and thrive on that worldwide stage.”
If approved, Hawaii’s Governor Josh Green will sign the bill into law and the marriage will be consummated.
Are you pro unification or do you prefer enmity?
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Next up, abolish “Kill A Haole Day”.
Well, that one can wait.
It is very odd that Hawaii; of all places, that claims hard to be the birthplace of surfing, the “Sport of Kings” and produced one of the outstanding athletes of the century in multiple Olympic gold medalist Duke Kahanamoku does not and has never had ANY state funded programmes for surfing at the high school level, instead pouring millions of state dollars into mainstream American sports like American football, basketball and baseball.
What’s up with that, anyway?
It was never like that in Hawaii. Jocks vs Surfers is a Mainland trope.
The high school surfers in Hawaii are the jocks, I’m told
When I was in high school having a surf team was great. You got to surf instead of taking a PE class.
Now that I’m old and bitter my experience with these teams is trying to surf when they are practicing or running heats so they should be shunned and banned.
Were you the only one in the tall poppy surf school? Sure does sound like you are referring to surf club (surfies) as opposed to surfing.
FFS , I had surfing as a sport when I was at High school…the summer of 69’…..I think the US had jocks , we had clubbies vs the surfers …still do!
I’m just a Seppo trying to emulate Firelipe Torpedo and one on the funniest low-pro posts I’ve seen on BG.
This is a great opportunity for Hawaaian surfers to get a head start in spending years and years trying to qualify, then get on tour for a year, off tour for two, then on tour for one more before finally throwing in the towel, broke at 31 and opening a burger stand.
Just hand them $200,000 in debt instead, cut out the middleman
That’s the US university system, isn’t it ?
Easy Kimo, that’s opaneen one Acai Stand…
does it really count as a high school sport if you’re homeschooled though?
I don’t think homeschooled students are allowed to participate in high school sports anymore, at least not for CIF.
Their results are scrubbed off the books here. Ridiculous.
I can understand why though. Homeschooling can create all kinds of problems with where that kid participates in sports. What they call “school of choice” is already a big problem here with kids choosing which school they want to attend based on that schools athletic programs. The end result is going to be certain schools dominating certain sports because kids can choose where they want to go. It’s a huge problem for sports like football, not so much a problem for sports like golf and track that are more individualized. They should allow school of choice but that kid should have to play sports at the school they were supposed to attend based on address.
But when daddy has a ski to take you back out into the lineup after each wave at T-Street, who would want to actually “go to school”?
I don’t think surfing is recognized as a high school sport anywhere in the US (except maybe Maui). It’s typically a club sport (similar to university surf teams) even though it be called a high school surf team. Contests are organized and run by entities like WSA which isn’t affiliated with high school sports. Anyone know otherwise?
It’s actually unthinkable that surfing isn’t already a high school sport in Hawaii.
Ha, went to high school with the jock in the title picture.
Where’s JP?
Pretty sure Maui is the only place in the US that has anything like this.
JP’s decided to just write an “Australian leg” key point summary post Marg’s.
Boooo
At my school we had surf PE and one kid had his board taken out of his truck and strung up a flag pole
Did you ever get your board back?
Only a fool leaves their board in the back of a truck all day to get sunbaked or stolen.
So, no.
So, you can’t read. I never left mine out nor was I fucked with. Have a good day Otto
Tower 9 at 1:00 today?
https://uploads.disquscdn.c… finally some fun looking waves
Someone has the time, that someone just isn’t you. Definitely some south showing.
O’side fun…
#WWCS? (What would Chandler say?)
Life imitates art, imitates life, imitates art, repeat and rinse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lGPePkddgw
Enforcer/Blaster is legendary.
“Go on back to Burbank”
Heh!