Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.
SEVERAL years ago in the surf off Diamond Head, a visiting Brazilian dropped in front of a professional surfer known for his short temper.
Championship surfer Nat Young
exposes the dark side of surfing
in his new book 'Surf Rage'By Tim Ryan
Star-BulletinThe Brazilian fell on the local man who promptly snapped off the fins of the offender's board, then started to throw a punch before someone yelled that such action is assault. The angry surfer then ordered the Brazilian out of the water, yelling racist remarks.
Road rage, office rage, now surf rage is the subject of an anthology by former four-time world champion surfer Australian Nat Young following his brutal beating last year, which required seven hours of facial reconstructive surgery. Young, who is in Hawaii for book signings Saturday, calls war in the surf "nothing new."
"Surf rage has existed for a long, long time," said Young, 53. "But no one has wanted to expose the dirty underside of what's supposed to be a very glamorous sport."In 1995, local professional surfer Lance Hookano was found guilty of battery and assault for attacking a body boarder in Malibu surf a year earlier. Along with another defendant, Hookano was sentenced to three years probation and ordered to perform 300 hours of community service.
Young was attacked at his home break at Angourie Beach in New South Wales, Australia, suffering two broken eye sockets, cracked cheekbones and sinuses that no longer work the way they should. But Young, known worldwide for his own aggression, ego and ambition, admits he had a hand in provoking the attack when he slapped the face of the son of a rival surfer for "bad behavior." When Young left the water, the father attacked.
BOOK SIGNING
"I was wrong; I shouldn't have done what I did," Young says. "But no one deserves a beating for such an action. There are other ways to handle anger."
And that's the message of "Surf Rage," which chronicles violent incidents at dozens of major surf spots around the world.
There's the surfer sent to jail for assault with a deadly weapon when he attacked another surfer with the fins of his surfboard, and another tale about a group of young surfers arrested for stoning an older man who paddled out at their home break on his long board.While most of the pieces name names, the chapter "Localism in Hawaii" written by Carol Anne Philips, a professional bodyboarder, doesn't name some of the local surfers involved in surf rage "out of respect for them and their careers," she said.
"But if you've heard the stories already, just do the math and you'll know who I'm talking about," said Philips, 34, who interviewed several surfers about incidents here, including:
"The reason for surf rage is simple to understand like it is for road rage," Young said. "It's overcrowding, but it has to be dealt with by every surfer if they want to continue surfing. The solution is to understand that anger in itself is not a bad thing, but knowing that violence and aggression are totally unacceptable."
There are several ways surfers can take control of their rage or that of others.
"We all need to do something within ourselves," Young said. "If something going on in the water really pisses you off, then get out. Take control."
The time he spent writing the book was therapy for Young. He enjoined Derek Rielly, an Australian surf journalist who had written about "Surf Rage" in 1989 when he was editor of Australian Surfing Life magazine.The pair drew up a short list of surfing writers to contribute chapters, including Drew Kamplon, an elder statesman of sorts of surf journalism, surfer Nick Carroll who's been editor of numerous surfing magazines in Australia and the United States; Gunter Swoboda, a surfing psychologist; and Gordon Stammers, an attorney with the Victorian State Governments Justice Department.
The prime motivation in writing the book was "to turn a negative into a positive," and to confront that surf rage exists worldwide.
"What really (angers) me about many major surfing sponsors is they support stars who are often involved in surf rage," he said. "You need to make people within the surfing fraternity feel that this is unacceptable behavior.
"Even the ones involved in publicized surf rage incidents like Lance and Johnny Boy must feel pretty alone and crappy about what happened, considering the problems it caused them personally," Young said. "That sort of anger won't get you anywhere in the long run."
Young believes competition in surfing creates an aggressive environment."I know that's ironic for me to say, someone who has benefited tremendously from competition, but it's taken me a long time to understand it," he said.
Perhaps the biggest effect of Young's beating is his decision to leave Australia in December with his wife and children to reside in Sun Valley, Idaho. Young says media reports of his beating unfairly placed a large part of the responsibility on him. He's also tired of what he believes is the Australian media's attempts "to cut someone down who has made a success of himself."
"It's one of the things about Australia I hate," said Young, a successful book publisher and hotel owner. "We've done it with Greg Norman and our great swimmers."
Young will continue to surf on "those occasional odd" trips to Hawaii and Costa Rica, but said more of his time will be spent snowboarding which he can do as a family activity.
"America is far less aggressive and hateful than Australia," he said.
Click for online
calendars and events.
