Tuesday, May 8, 2001
Prep surfers Kahuku High School freshman Reis Harney is still confused, because it seems so simple to him. He's a surfer as well as a student, and feels he should be on equal footing with other Red Raider student-athletes.
want equal footing
But factors such as liability
By Brandon Lee
could cause the schools' official
acceptance of the sport to take years
Special to the Star-BulletinBut he's not.
On June 26-30, the top four state high school teams -- as determined at the Hawaii regional championship in March -- will compete at the National Scholastic Surfing Association National Championships at San Clemente, Calif.
The surfers attend Kahuku, Campbell, King Kekaulike and Kalaheo, but they -- along with the rest of the state's prep surfers -- do not surf as members of teams or clubs officially recognized by their schools.
Local teams cannot use their respective school names.
Unlike prep surfers from California -- where the sport has been both a school- and league-sanctioned activity for over 20 years -- and also unlike the rest of the surfers at nationals, Hawaii's surfers do not get to compete "for" their school.As an eighth-grader at Kahuku Intermediate, Harney wrote a letter to state Department of Education Superintendent Paul LeMahieu and then Windward Oahu District Superintendent Tom Pangilinan. As permitted by the NSSA, a non-profit organization that promotes amateur surfing, Harney was already a member of the Red Raider team.
Harney wrote: "I will never understand why a surfer is not an equal athlete to anyone else playing a competitive sport. ... I think we deserve the credit that any other athlete gets."
Instead, state teams must assume an alias. For example, the current three-time state champions from Kahuku are known as the Koolauloa Surf Club.
Volunteers coach the clubs and they hold practices, just unofficially. The surfers purchase their own insurance to participate in NSSA meets and provide their own equipment.
As members of the NSSA, prep surfers must maintain a 2.0 grade-point average to compete -- the same as any student-athlete participating in officially recognized sports.
"We have something that's working and can continue to work even better," said Iris Gonzales, biology teacher at Kahuku and coach of Koolauloa. "These (surfers) need the opportunity to be a part of something. They want to (officially) represent their school, and having surfing tied in with school can motivate them to keep their grades up."
Said NSSA Hawaii Region director Linda Robb: "These are not kids that are going to star in football, track, baseball or volleyball. They are specific in what they want to do, and they want to be able to hold their heads up high."
Robb estimates that there are eight unofficial surf clubs on Oahu, and another 12 or so in Maui County. The number fluctuates each year based upon the participation of athletes and coaches, and the willingness of individual school principals to support this activity, among other factors. Most have been initiated in public schools, but surfers occasionally represent private institutions like Kamehameha and Punahou.
Local advocates such as Gonzales, Robb, attorney Libby Tomar and current Windward Oahu Superintendent Lea Albert have made their push for recognition of surfing at the school-sponsorship level. This would mean that individual schools could officially permit the existence of surf clubs and the use of school names.
Tomar, who also currently serves as a volunteer consultant to the Windward Oahu Superintendent's Office, has convened on multiple occasions what she calls a blue-ribbon panel of experts and decision-makers on all sides of the recognition issue to further discussion on school sponsorship. Members include Albert, City & County Lifeguards head Ralph Goto, state Board of Education chairman Herbert Watanabe and deputy attorney general for the DOE Russell Suzuki, among others.
The BOE and DOE have been contemplating the issue of school sponsorship for several years. Representatives from both have stated that the major contention that needs to be resolved before school sponsorship is authorized and implemented is liability.
Though Robb claims that she is not aware of a single claim nationwide against the NSSA's insurance policy for injury since the organization began in 1978, the BOE and DOE consider surfing a high-risk sport that needs special consideration because it involves the ocean. Canoe paddling just received state sanctioning as a league activity for Hawaii public schools last fall, and officials plan to take a wait-and-see approach with paddling before going further with surfing.
"The Department, and therefore its schools, are very cautious about water sports in general," LeMahieu said. "The simple (differentiating) point in comparing surfing to other high-risk sports like football is that the ocean has taken lives.
"I am not saying surfing is less safe ... and I recognize (surfing's status) as the state individual sport. With a year or two of successful and safe canoe paddling, I think it will be time to bring up surfing. I am optimistic that with this approach, we can eventually support both."
Efforts for sponsorship league-wide (such as by the Oahu Interscholastic Association) and statewide -- including a state tournament -- have been supported by other individuals, including Hawaii High School Athletic Association executive director Keith Amemiya. But parties on all sides of the recognition issue tend to agree that while these may be future goals, they are still years away from happening.