http://www.thetimes.co.za/Careers/Article.aspx?id=1031664
Published:Jul 11, 2009
Surfing has come full circle for one of the sport's professional
pioneers, SA's legendary Shaun Tomson
It was called chasing the dragon. China white, diacetylmorphine
pure Afghanistan heroin is carefully laid up into a little pile on
a piece of silver foil and then lit from underneath, converting the
powder to a gaseous state. The smoke is inhaled through a thin straw,
which immediately induces a sense of euphoria, wellbeing and a
straight shot on the highway to hell of addiction.
It was November 1974 and I had just arrived in Hawaii, surfing's
equivalent of Olympus, Valhalla and Mount Everest, all melded
together into a 15km stretch of the most hellacious waves on earth. I
was 10 months out of the South African Defence Force, my first year
BCom. exams at the then University of Natal behind me, and three
months in Hawaii ahead of me. I was 19 years old, 20000km away from
my home town of Durban, back in an era when the world was a vast,
unknown place. I had received an invitation to surf in one of
Hawaii's prestigious pro surfing contests and I had come in search of
fame but not fortune, since, back then, there was none to be had from surfing.
I'd rented a downstairs studio from a local family, using the money I
had won in the Gunston 500, South Africa's largest professional
surfing contest, which my father had started in 1969. I had ventured
upstairs into the main house into my host family son's room. He was
the same age as me, and an excellent surfer, one of the best at the
Pipeline, the most dangerous wave on the island, but, as I was to
learn, the waves weren't the only danger.
"Hey Shaun, try this. All the top guys at Pipeline are doing it."
"What is it?" I asked.
"It's China white, man."
I declined the offer of the drugs, left the room and shortly
thereafter left the house. Three months later the young surfer was
dead from a drug overdose.
That was the reality of surfing back in 1974. Top surfers were doing
drugs and dealing drugs, too. It was ingrained into the surfing
culture, embedded into the surfing lifestyle of freedom and escape.
Since the late '60s, surfers had been at the forefront of a cultural
revolution as the youth of the world turned their backs on
established culture and values. It was a new world and surfers were
at the cutting edge of experimentation with mind-altering
psychedelics and the North Shore was the epicentre. Free love, cheap
dope and the waves were free too.
But a group of us from the southern hemisphere, Aussies and South
Africans, saw it differently. Sure, we loved the lifestyle of surfing
but we also loved the sporting aspect and most of us abhorred drugs.
Growing up in the southern hemisphere, going to school in
post-colonial Africa , the cultural revolution of the late '60s
somewhat bypassed us. We had been born into team sports, rugby in
winter, cricket in summer. Do your best and play to win. We saw
surfing differently and competed differently too surfing wasn't
only an artistic expression, a spiritual communion with the ocean; to
us it was also a sport a place where we could compete with honour
and compete to the death if we had to. And death was always there,
awaiting its chance the waves had the power and ferocity to kill
and maim and often did. And then there were a few angry Hawaiian
locals too, who once we became successful chose us as targets it
didn't help that some of the Aussies started boasting about their
success, not in a mean-spirited or disrespectful way but just to
promote the sport, just like Muhammad Ali did with boxing and he
was a great influence on all of us.
Bad feelings had a way of growing out of control and they did, and
after being punched out twice, swiped by a bottle and told to leave
the island or die, I had to take a drive out to the other side of the
island to the small military town near the famed Schofield Barracks,
home of Tropic Lightning, and pick up a Remington 12 gauge pump
action shotgun and load in 10 shells because I was in serious fear of
my life. Eventually peace was declared between us and the locals, but
cultural clashes were a part of growing up into men in Hawaii and,
when I look back now our lives would have been different if we had
run and hidden; and surfing would have been too.
Out of our vision and belief in ourselves as sportsmen, pro surfing
was born. We were convinced that we were as good or better than
anyone on the planet, in terms of sheer sporting prowess and courage.
We were proud of our sport and we made sure that the media knew we
were as good as any other athlete and from this came the confidence
of sponsors to support a professional tour, because they knew they
had a crew of legitimate professionals who would put their lives on
the line for a dream, a dream that we all believed, a dream of
actually being paid to go surfing. In short order it all happened
quite quickly a professional tour was formed, we won everything
there was to win, and promoted the hell out of our sport and ourselves.
There was still very little money on the tour. As the No 1 surfer in
the world in 1977, O'Neill, the world's largest wetsuit company, paid
me the princely sum of 350 a month. My cousin, Mike, and I could see
the writing on the wall and we saw an opportunity he launched
Gotcha and I launched Instinct, both surfing brands that grew into
multimillion-dollar businesses with distribution throughout the
world, and together we sponsored multiple world champions. As our
companies grew, so did surfing and eventually other brands like
Billabong, Quiksilver, Volcom, O'Neill and Ripcurl came to dominate
the market that us young guys kick-started. It was cool to be a
surfer and kids all over the world embraced the surfing dream and
idolised its pro athletes.
Today, surfing is big business with the worldwide market for surfing
products estimated at about 16-billion. The three largest companies
are all publicly traded with the market leader, Quiksilver, grossing
2.4-billion annually and employing thousands of people from
Huntington Beach, California, to Hossegor, France.
The Association of Surfing Professionals' world tour is worth
9-million and young surfers like South African superstar Jordy Smith
are making in excess of 1-million a year. Nine-time world champ Kelly
Slater is a darling of Hollywood, having dated superstar models and
been seen with film stars like Pamela Anderson and Cameron Diaz.
Surfing is used to sell products across the market spectrum cars,
cosmetics, credit cards and clothing. Capitalism and consumerism have
crashed into the coast.
Surfing is still a big part of my life and I continue to make a
living from doing what I love books, films, TV shows, clothing and
public speaking all my income is still derived from surfing, but
the sports side of surfing disappeared with my retirement from the
pro tour in 1989.
I consider myself exceptionally lucky to have chosen surfing, because
even at 53, the best part of my surfing is still intact.
I've come full circle and it is a lifestyle now. Surfing represents
freedom, solitude and escape, a respite from the chaos and confusion
of the world, a time when I can paddle out with the open horizon
ahead and think only of the next wave coming down the line. Nothing
else, just me and the wave, sliding along on an invisible band of
energy that I know will take me to another place, to where I need to be.
<snip>
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