Surf Club documentary to be distributed around globe
By SUSAN TAM Special to the Daily Press
SAMOHI — Students here have caught a wave that will rewrite surf history in Santa Monica.
What began as a father video-taping the start of a surf club at his son’s high school has now turned into a broadcast-quality documentary that is planned to be marketed around the world.
Originally just trying to record the journey, filmmaker and surf coach Christopher Dill believes that students in other countries can relate to the club experience at Santa Monica High School.
“It’s essentially about starting a surf club at a beach school,” Dill said.
Samohi’s surf team, which now carries a roster of 37 surfers, was reborn last year after 15 years of no official representation from the school, according to the club’s Web site. “(How can) Santa Monica not have a team?” Dill asked.
Samohi, situated at the hub of Southern California surf culture and home to many past role models, now has the opportunity for students to compete with a school team. But money, leadership and support had to come first.
A WAVE OF NEW TALENT “The level of surfing in high school is phenomenal,” Dill said. “Competing against some teams from other schools would be like the Santa Monica High School basketball team playing the Detroit Pistons.
“The old adage that surfers are slackers (isn’t true). This is the most difficult and demanding sport I’ve been involved in, and I’ve coached (other sports) for years and years,” he added.
With the evolution of surfing, the image of the beach bum, slacker lifestyle has been tossed aside. Although the spirit remains, the current multi-billion dollar industry now sells to teens who are regulars at before-school dawn patrol sessions. Also included in that culture are grueling practices, competitions, sponsorships, commercials and media coverage that push the pastime to the next level.
Some Southern California schools, like in San Clemente and Torrey Pines, have a physical education class with 100 surfers, Dill said. He hopes to have a similar program one day at Samohi.
The club at Samohi started off strong but then tapered off, Dill said.
“A lot of it was cold water, bad conditions that scared people off,” he said. “They didn’t want to deal with it and the commitment was a lot. Also, our faculty advisor was leaving at the end of the year.
“At times there were five or six kids at a meeting, I mean, it was depressing,” he added.
As with any new club, the initial push was the most difficult. But many parents were committed to getting the team up and running, Dill said.
The group found a way to revive itself by recruiting new members at an on-campus “Club Day,” then threw a beach party and surf competition that they called the “Samohi Valhalla Luau,” sponsored by 9star. Other sponsors later jumped on board, including local merchants Patagonia, Island Surf Shop, the Library Alehouse, ZJ’s Boardinghouse, and the Main Street Merchants Association. Other companies donated food and helped coor-dinate events, Dill said.
The team has gathered more momentum since last year.
“We have a new crop of groms, and all have improved,” Dill said.
The team competes anywhere from North County in San Diego to Santa Monica, as part of the Interscholastic Surfing Federation (ISF), which includes 80 teams.
For each competition, there are 16 available roster spots, which are determined by a combination of a surf-off, attitude and commitment, and seniority on the team, Dill said. During the season, the team participates in five tournaments and the state championship.
So far, the team has had surfers advance into semifinal rounds of competition — an improvement from last year when no athletes made it past the first rounds, according to the team’s Web site.
LEGENDS Surf culture has changed from the endless summer of the ’60s. Today, it’s found an urban niche in Santa Monica’s environment, said Randy Wright, owner of Horizons West surf shop on Main Street. These days, surfers from mixed backgrounds are found in the Southern California surfing scene that was once associated with stereotypical blond beach bums from Orange County.
Santa Monica, though, has had a long history of nurturing many surfers to success.
In 1913, George Freeth who invented the red buoys that lifeguards use, and Dave Rochlen, who created clothing company, Jam’s World Hawaii, came from Santa Monica, Dill said. Now, professional surfers, like Strider Raspberry Wasilewski, a former Santa Monica resident and Quiksilver team captain, led the way for other city-sprung surfers.
In the 1980s, Wright was in charge of a group of competitors that included, “a lot of Venice High students, and also the hot rippers from Samohi,” he said, who was himself a top surfer. After the inevitable shift of aging athletes began to get jobs and move away, and the death of two members who died surfing Pipeline — a historically fast and powerful wave on the North Shore of Oahu — the informal club slowly disbanded, Wright said.
With the passage of Proposition 13, the available money for the Samohi surf club dried up, Dill said. For years, there was no organization or leadership to start the surf club again. Until now, with the recent rise in popularity of snowboarding, as well as public action against ocean pollution, and a renewed mainstream interest in the sport, the time was ripe for more surfers getting in the water, Wright said.
AN ONSCREEN MEMORY On Wednesday night in Barnum Hall at Samohi, the club screened a documentary film that follows the journey of the fledgling team from the moment the students walked into the first meeting to the development of the club as it experienced a year of struggles and triumphs.
The documentary started from Dill’s background as a filmmaker, and his desire to capture and remember the experience.
“Something told me to take a camera along, that maybe it was the first and only year (of the club), and I want to have it for my kids,” Dill said.
The documentary isn’t the first one to come out of Samohi. In 1965, another school surf film was screened at Barnum Hall. In the future, Dill hopes to bring the two films together for a 40-year reunion of Samohi surfers.
Dill’s son, Gabriel, has been president of the club and worked hard to get the group recognized. He was one of the first to see the film.
“I am pretty proud of him for the way it’s turned out,” Gabriel Dill said. “I think people will like it a lot but I’m not sure what they are expecting.
“There’s a lot of narration, describing some of our obstacles. It’s not really a surf movie. The majority isn’t surfing footage but (more about) lifestyle, and about our tournaments.”
Christopher Dill hopes to market the video throughout the United States to high schools, junior high schools and all the sport cable networks. He also sees a possibility of “going international with it. Kids in Japan, China, Europe, might be interested,” he said.
“My goal is to tell the world about the Santa Monica high school surf team.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 10, 2004. Read the original PDF.