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 Travel & Outdoors | July 2006 
Touring with Beck
 Brian L Gillogly - easyreader.hermosawave.net
| | Holly Beck puts her surf girl look to selling the California dream for sponsors that include Roxy and Body Glove. (Aaron Checkwood/Body Glove) |
Holly Beck was in her first year at the UC San Diego when she decided to turn pro.
The former Peninsula High surf star and NSSA (National Scholastic Surfing Association) title holder was on a surf trip to Puerto Escondido, Mexico when she came across a woman’s pro contest.
“That’s when I realized the gap between my surfing and someone like World Champion Frieda Zamba was not as great as I thought,” says Beck. “I figured that I maybe could do this. I could achieve my dream of being a pro surfer.”
Beck returned to school, but resolved to finish as quickly as possible. She took 20 units a quarter through the summer and earned a bachelors of science degree in psychology n three years.
When she’s not touring on the WQS(World Qualifying Series), the 25-year-old Redondo resident models, acts and serves as a spokesperson for her sport. Her sponsors include Body Glove, Rusty, Freestyle, Sector 9, DaKine, and Paul Mitchell.
In 2003 Beck appeared on the WB cable channel’s “Boarding House: North Shore,” a reality show that documented her life at a North Shore house with other top pros, including Sunny Garcia, Veronica Kay, Chelsea Georgeson and Damien Hobgood.
"Holly is an inspirational surfer," says Scott Daley, marketing VP of Body Glove. "We‘ve watched her rise from a local standout to a national champion. Not only has she proven herself in the ever-changing conditions of the ocean, Holly has become an excellent representative for the sport of surfing."
From her vantage point as both a top competitor and spokesperson, she offered the following observations on the state of surfing:
Surfing’s Growing Popularity
“Blue Crush” had a huge impact on women’s surfing. Chanel had models in New York walking down the catwalk holding nine-foot surfboards. I’ve talked to a lot of girls who’ve said the movie is what motivated them to want to learn to surf - “but don’t tell anyone cause its kind of embarrassing.”
Cables WB had its “Boarding House” [which Beck starred in] show and MTV had “Surf Girls,” and all of a sudden surfing was in commercials for allergy medicine, Honda’s Element and Nissan’s Exterra. But the commercial tie-in’s are waning, especially in women’s surfing. Mainstream sponsorship for contests has fallen off, too. In Europe, Nokia had a huge surfing sponsorship for a couple years, but now they’ve reduced their involvement.
Public Opinion
Surfing’s definitely lost it’s renegade reputation. Older friends say that in the past they would hide the fact at work that they were surfers because they didn’t want their bosses to think they were slackers. The negative connotations that once went along with surfing no longer apply. Now its actually cool and you might list surfing as one of your hobbies.
$250/Day Surf Camps
I’ve taught at Surf Diva in San Diego and made appearances at other surf camps. If you’re getting one-on-one instruction where they are actually teaching you the sport and surf etiquette, then it may be worth $250 a day. It’s definitely more worthwhile than if you’re paying $50 a day and not getting any instruction other than `here’s a board, here’s a wet suit, I’ll push you into a couple of waves, good luck!’
Rich White Guys and Third World Locals
I understand where those white guys are coming from when they say they don’t want the local kids in Indonesia and Central America learning to surf. They’re paying $5,000 to surf clean, un-crowded waves. But nowadays, everywhere - Indo, Nicaragua, Mexico - the locals are starting to surf. At this point they’re all really friendly and they wave to you and cheer you on. In Indo in the Mentawai’s all those local groms are just sitting on the inside and riding broken bits of equipment. But as the years go on I’m sure they’re going to be getting better and start getting mad at all the white guys dropping in on them and taking all their waves.
It’s their local spot so we better start being nice to them now. |
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