Counterculture career - surfing and purpose

This article is an update to one I wrote in 2011, about how much impact the 1978 Coke Classic surfing contest, and the interaction with people there, had on the trajectory of personal career passion. I decided to rewrite it, and apply the lens of purpose and creativity, as the World Surf League announced a historical spotlight on Trestles, one of the most high-performance wave in the world, and the location of the World Tour surf events I produced in the 2000s.

Many of the surfers at that event have continued to live and work with purpose and creativity for decades, and are now legends of the sport. Particular props to @shauntomson, who is writing some of the most purposeful and transformational articles on Linkedin. Shaun's podcast with Guy Kawasaki is also worth listening to.

To think that a 1978 surf comp could have been a formative moment for my career might seem a stretch, but it is not. This event remains indelibly inked into my brain, and I can look back now and see its influence on the direction of my life.

Of the hundreds of surfing events I've been to in my life, this one has the most heritage to me. I was 14, and 4'6" tall. A little grom, who had been surfing only 3 years, but surfing had become my life. Manly was my home, and to have the worlds best surfers on my beach was a thrill beyond comprehension (although as a good Queenscliff Boardriders Club member I'd claim that the Coke Classic was actually held at South Queenie). 

The final was a day to remember. Some of the best waves ever seen at Manly, although when I look at the video in my child-sized perspective memory it seems bigger. The waves were phenomenal. I remember interacting with famous surfers, and getting autographs. Somewhere I have the little autograph book, and it has in there the scrawly, water-dripped, smeared signatures of Larry Blair, Mark "MR" Richards, Wayne "Rabbit" Bartholomew, Peter "P.T." Townend, Wayne Lynch, Cheyne Horan, Simon Anderson, and anyone who would spare the time to take a pen from a shy, star-struck kid. I remember Reno Abellira shared a cookie with me from a pack he was consuming between heats, in a time well before sports science took account of nutrition. I remember sitting on the sandstone block wall and talking at length with Mark Warren, who was gracious and shared what it was like to be a professional surfer on the world stage. They say there are no coincidences, and I've since worked in a professional capacity, on event production, television programs and live webcasts with Mark, PT, Rabbit, Shaun and MR among other legends. Had I not been at that event on that particular day in 1978 I may not have had the career of passion for combining sport and work, and I might be a very different person.

I remember Larry Blair, all smiles, a mop of blonde hair, and exuberant confidence. He had surfed all the way through the trials, took to the ever present television cameras like a seasoned reality star, and his confidence (some might say arrogance) steamed through his pores like coffee through an espresso machine. Wayne Lynch was all hair, and cool in that south Victoria cold-water hippy way. The final was like a battle of Clash of the Titans, and with each increasingly long barrel ridden, the energy, and voice of the crowd, became larger. I challenge anyone who was there not to remember it fondly. In fact many now legendary surfers consider it The best event ever held at Manly!

As much as the surfing, and the interaction with the surfers, was significant to me at the time, what lasted was the impact of the event itself. This was a massive event, and a period of among the largest outside industry support of surfing to this day. I remember the tents, the set up, the television crews with cables, cameras, trucks, and all manner of cutting edge technology. These days we are used to live webcasts and the ability to be able to see surfing as it happens, no matter where in the world. Back in 1978 not only would the internet have been considered the whimsical dreamings of a scientific crackpot, but television coverage of surfing was virtually non-existent. In a superb coup, the event directors not only convinced Channel 9's Wide World of Sports that surfing made good TV, but that it would make good LIVE TV, something unheard of then. Significantly, the man who made the decision to back live coverage of the '78 Coke Classic was David Hill, who became the head of Fox, also living in America. In another twist, I produced television shows about action sports for networks under Mr Hill's control some 25 years later.

At the 1978 Coke Classic live, in-water interviews, during a final not only took place, but worked (Nat Young's interview of Larry Blair during the final was all time). Only in the past few years has this been able to be replicated on live webcasts.

I was just a kid in 1978, with no real idea of what I might do when I grew up. I'm still wondering when I might grow up, but the Coke Classic gave me an experience that set my passions, and interest, which then took me to an advisor and lawyer to organizations and world champions, and later across the world to produce World Tour events for 8 years and was a live webcast and television commentator for almost double that. It is some of my proudest work, and I got to work with people and teams that not only strove for excellence but who made me happy. If I was in any way able contributed to event experiences that other kids will remember, I am eternally grateful.