Disaster barely averted.
The surf world is releasing a collective sigh, this morning, thanking lucky stars that the legendary Tom Carroll is still walking amongst us. The 63-year-old Sydneysider burst onto the scene back in 1977 with a stunning Pro Junior win. He chased it with an Australian Junior Title the very next year before making his debut on the big stage, the Association of Surfing Professionals’ Championship Tour at the Pipe Masters, no less.
Now a more diminutive man might have shrunk right away at the haunting, menacing specter of the Banzai Pipeline. It rising up from the mighty Pacific and blowing its guts out on that fabled reef. It chock full o Hawaiians. Tom Carroll, though, was not brought low, even though he is bite sized, and made the finals as a rookie.
It was no fluke. Tom Carroll won the World Title in 1983, the first ever goofy-footed champion. Not satisfied, he won it all again in 1984.
He was inducted into the Australian Surfing Hall of Fame in 1990 and is certainly considered one of the greatest to ever paddle out in a singlet, surfing at a very high level to this very day.
And yet yesterday it almost ended.
Tom Carroll was surfing somewhere beautiful, green-ish water, pleasant reef, a left peeling cute. He was flexing his inimitable style on a Chris Christenson 6’4 long fish, which he described as “A dynamic surfboard that covers all terrain,” making a nice wrapping carve when disaster nearly struck.
The Day Our Tom Carroll Music Almost Died
There, floating right in the impact zone, hugging a monstrous SUP, was the disgraced former World Surf League CEO Erik Logan.
But you certainly recall when the Oklahoman with a magical wetsuit of armor burst upon our scene some six-ish years ago. The onetime Oprah Winfrey television executive was initially tapped to lead the new WSL Studios. Those doors were quickly shuttered and Logan was failed up to the big chair. From there, he introduced a series of very unpopular changes to the Championship Tour, including but not limited to “Championship Day” at Lower Trestles which gifted the timid Filipe Toledo two crowns.
Logan’s Reign of Error came to a stunning conclusion when he was instantly fired from his position whilst on site in Brazil, the World Surf League releasing the tersest of statements, simply, “Erik Logan is no longer with the company.
Rumors flew as to what could possibly lead to such a cold dismissal but the case was sealed tighter than the Epstein Files. Logan disappeared from view, for a time, but made a return via subscription website Substack where he claims:
Erik Logan, a visionary in media and sports, has an impressive career spanning talent management startups, technology, cable networks, production studios, content creation, and sports league management. As the CEO of the World Surf League (WSL), he significantly raised the league’s profile, achieving record audience levels and revenues. His leadership at the WSL saw innovative changes in professional surfing, including the introduction of groundbreaking competition formats and strategic content partnerships with major networks like ABC, HBO, and Apple TV+.
In any case, and back to the moment we almost lost Tom Carroll, there floated Logan in the dumbest spot. As it happens, he got picked up by the wave and nearly tossed straight into the head of the unsuspecting legend. The girth of Logan’s SUP would have certainly taken Carroll’s head right off. Even a glancing brush with the fully traction’d deck would have ripped all face skin to shreds.
Mercifully contact is not made. Tom Carroll simply looking back, after finishing his wrap, at Logan cosplaying as a six-year-old boy who paddled out by his lonesome for the very first time.
The surf world wiping brows. Begging Logan to watch the following video before re-entering the lineup.
