Clarity through a cup of coffee.

"16 years old, oceanside jetty,"
You know when you drink a few cups of coffee and you start thinking way too hard over trivial topics? Well to quote a stupid rap song "I'm on one". So I was looking at the quiksilver king of the groms and I have seen quite a few of these kids literally grow up. Learned how to stand up with kanoa igarashi, watched Jake Marshall go from a frothing little grom to a well spoken ripping frothing little grom. Leo fiorvanti when staying out in cali was afraid of hot sauce and its just pretty cool to see all these little guys blow up. I'm the same age as John John and would see him every year down at nationals at lowers and now on the ct' competing at lowers it was like the cultivation of the nssa child hood dreams all coming true. I have stepped away from the contest side of surfing due to lack of confidence in my own ability and the loss of competitive nature in what I love. My dad would always get so bummed that whenever I lossed when I was younger how much it would kind of kill my spirit and the purity of surfing for me. I used to wake up 4 30 a.m every morning with a walkie talkie conversation to my friend Shane across the street getting all hyped to surf 1 foot seal beach north side dribblers. I was so pumped ! Everything was so cool and exciting. I know a lot of people hate on the whole contest side of surfing and the sponsors and how a lot of kids burn out early but truthfully. I have met so many life long friends through competing, traveled to some pretty amazing locations and I feel rather blessed through my time doing all of that. Some of my best memories are waking up in the back of my dad's tahoe on the way to a contest in seaside with my mom getting all siked on surfing somewhere new. When the comp was over, We would take the long route home, stopping at cool little diners and checking some beach that I swear I just saw in taylor steele's new movie. I think competing is good for kids. My dad really helped me learn how to control my emotions after loosing over a close call or poor judging. "save it for the car ride home", he would say. I would vent, cry get pissed off do whatever, and then once the car pulled up to my house. It was over, unloaded the boards and size 12 wetsuits and move on. Janice Aragon of the Nssa, Andrea Swayne of the Surfing america prime series always greeted everyone at each contest so happy to see us their and wanted us to grow as athletes. I'm probably never going to make the ct' or get a cover of surfer magazine, but if it wasn't for those ladies and others in the surfing world, these kids dreams would never happen. So next time you hear someone going off about the spirit of surfing being killed by some grom with a million stickers on his board, just realize this. Every kid has a dream of being a world champ, beating Slater at Pipe. We all wanted that. Just some of us forgot how good it felt to be a grom.