The SURFER Profile

ALMOST NOT FAMOUS
Bobby Martinez Writes His Second Act

Bobby grew up surfing backside at one of the most storied right-hand pointbreaks in the world, and is regarded as one of the best backside surfers on earth. Despite this, he had his most success on last year's ASP World Tour - and put in some of his most impressive performances - on lefts. At Teahupoo, pre-Billabong Pro victory, 2006.

He won’t say it, and one truly believes that he doesn’t think it, but it is a big deal. Nowhere was this more evident on last year’s ASP World Tour than at the Rip Curl Search Event, “Somewhere in Mexico.” It was held at Barra de la Cruz, a place that Bobby has been traveling to for some time. He knew a lot of the folks in the town. As the rounds went on, the town was pulling for Bobby. Crowds lined up and got loud when it was his turn to surf. He didn’t blow out the competition. To the contrary, he bowed out in the early rounds. But it was a good experience.

“It was cool,” he says. “I’ve been going down there for a long time, and to see all those people from the little town there pulling for me was really cool.”

Bobby was the first Mexican-American surfer ever on tour, and he was making good.

Another group was pulling for him. He had brought a group of his friends from the neighborhood to Mexico for the event. He felt good, had his friends there. To some degree, it was a meeting of Bobby’s two worlds.

“That part was really cool,” he says. “A lot of those guys had never been on a plane, had never flown anywhere, and I was in a position where I was able to fly them down there for the contest, take care of their expenses, all of that.”

The number-one quality one notices in Bobby Martinez is that he’s exceptionally down-to-earth, not at all a believer in bull--t, his own or anyone else’s. And one gets the sense that his upbringing in a working-class Mexican neighborhood is a major part of this. And that his friends wouldn’t let him get away with it otherwise.

So how does Bobby handle the fact that many of his youthful indiscretions have played out in national magazines? He’s had public feuds with editors of magazines, other surfers, people of prominence.

Bobby laughs.

“We’re not famous, man,” he says. “This little world of ours—the surf world—it’s so tiny that it doesn’t really matter. No surfer is a real celebrity.”

That’s debatable. So I ask him about those surfers who try to cultivate a celebrity image.

“You mean Kelly?”

Yes, I mean Kelly Slater.

“He’s not famous. He could walk down my street wearing a T-shirt that says ‘Eight-Time World Champion’ on it and nobody would know who he is.”

We begin a discussion about the degree to which ego plays a role on the World Tour. He says that he learned an important lesson last year in how that whole thing works, very early on.

He surfed against Kelly Slater in the semis of the first event, at the Quiksilver Pro on the Gold Coast. Kelly won. Ended up winning the whole event. There was a break between that event and the next one—the Rip Curl Pro at Bells Beach. Kelly would go on to win that event, too. But Kelly told the press that he hadn’t surfed at all between events, gave a complicated explanation about how he was in a weird headspace and unsure of what to do about the tour.

Bobby laughs at that idea.

“I saw the guy get out of the water at Winkipop—I watched him surf,” he says.

What happened next is obvious. Kelly went on to win the world title, talking all the while about how he had learned to take it easy.

Bobby makes an astute point that this attitude, while useful for Kelly’s image-making, is insulting to the rest of the tour surfers who try their hardest. “He makes it sound like he doesn’t even try,” Bobby says. “Do you think Floyd Mayweather would win a title fight and then say that he didn’t even train for it?” Bobby asks.

No need to answer that question.

The point is not to bash Kelly, who Bobby says he’s learned a lot from, just by watching. The point is that Bobby doesn’t have much use for bulls--t in his life, professional or otherwise.

It’s this approach that’s gotten him where he is, even if it was a circuitous route. He’s workmanlike. He’s gotten where he is with blue-collar values: honesty, humility, hard work. He doesn’t dwell on the past—won’t even say that he’s got a career in professional surfing, doesn’t believe all the hype that’s coming with his freshman year on tour in 2006.

We spoke just after Bobby had a bit of a stumble at the first event of the 2007 season. He finished equal 17th at the Quiksilver Pro at Snapper Rocks—the same event where he took Kelly Slater to the semifinal in 2006.

After we spoke, he finished 17th at Bells. He’s aware that he needs to step it up. He’s aware that everything he’s worked for could be taken from him in a heartbeat. He’s aware that if he doesn’t do a thing, he’ll be back in Santa Barbara, living in the neighborhood, having gone from almost not famous to really not famous at all.

The fact that he’s aware, though, and the fact that he has the skills to prevent this, make you believe that Bobby Martinez is the real deal.

Pro tour or not, Bobby Martinez is going to be all right.