That Time Pete Carroll Showed Up At A Surf Contest At Lower Trestles
Full transparency, I’m an unabashed San Francisco 49ers fan and will root against USC any chance I get, which doesn’t make it easy to cheer for Seattle Seahawks coach and former USC coach Pete Carroll. But surfing. Riding waves is the tie that binds, and Coach Carroll gets it. Years ago he showed up to a surf contest at Lower Trestles in San Clemente, California. He’d just given an inspirational talk to the U.S. Junior Surf National team and was coming down to Lowers to see what was up.
“My relationship is with the ocean, and just being a life-long lover of being around it. You can’t miss it,” Carroll reveled. “These warriors our here surfing, what they’re capable of, it’s just amazing. It’s a dream it is to be down here watching them and seeing what incredible athletes they are. They don’t just compete, but they’re here showing there art too, you know. It’s so much different when then the competition’s at hand and they’re not just out there lovin’ surfing, but there’s still art to it. Either way it’s really exciting to be around it.”
While football’s defined him, in our brief conversation it was clear that there’s still some salt water in his veins.
“I grew up in Northern California, up there where the water’s freezing and the waves are crap, but it’s still a blast out at Bolinas and Stinson Beach,” he described.
And that’s why it’s so hard for me to root against the Seahawks even when they play the Niners. He grew up riding waves at Bolinas and Stinson, the same spots as me (and like me, when he was a kid he was a sponger).
In terms of how surfing and football compare, Carroll offered an interesting perspective.
“It’s an individual sport fundamentally, but you know, the art of coming through in the heat of the competition is exactly the same. You have to find a way to clear your mind so you can project your ability out there and get the job done. The conversations are exactly the same.”
And that’s when Carroll conjured the GOAT.
“I just talked to Kelly Slater and that’s what we were talking about,” Carroll explained. “The battle that great competitors have is not getting caught up in the winning as much as the performing…being the best, maximizing the ability. That’s how you win forever and that’s exactly what Kelly’s doing. The more we got to talking it was amazing because the language really crosses over. It’s all about performance.”
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With more than 25 years of writing about surfing, the ocean and action sports, Jake Howard continues to share stories, profiles and issues that shape the surfing world. One of the premier subject-matter experts in the field today, he's savvy in the ways of print, digital and social media, his breadth of work is expansive. Getting his start writing Surfline surf reports and recording the phone reports for 976-SURF in the late '90s, Jake served as the managing editor for Surfer Magazine in the early 2000s before moving on to launch RedBullSurfing.com and cover surfing for ESPN and the X Games. Over the years, Jake has also enjoyed time behind the edit desk at The Surfer's Journal, as well as the World Surf League, where he worked as the Senior Editor for a number of years. Beyond producing editorial content, Jake has served as a digital marketer and copywriter for iconic surf brands such as Quiksilver, Roxy and Rip Curl. Writing thousands of pages of copy for Surfline, he has deep SEO experience as well. The surf columnist for the San Clemente Times, Jake continues to dedicate himself to the culture and history of the sport through his involvement with the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center in San Clemente.