THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS
The Big Guys Are Taking Over

Australia's Owen Wright is part of a new crop of long-leggd future stars. He plays off his lofty, lanky frame with a healthy dose of 21st Century flare.

Now granted all of these aquatic athletes are all taller than your average civilian. Auxologists, or scientists who study human growth (What, you didn’t know that?) report that the average American male stands 5’9.2”, while the average Aussie bloke tops out at 5’10.2” (the average Brazilian, standing 5’7” seems to be at a disadvantage in and out of the water.) But compared to the rate at which other sport’s stars are increasing in size, until very recently surfing, by comparison, seemed to be almost going backward.

Picture the changes in major league baseball players, for example. In 1927 the average size of the New York Yankees famous “Murderer Row lineup (including sluggers like Babe Ruth, Lou Gerhig, Bob Meusel and Earle Combs) was 5’11”, 176lbs. By comparison in 2001 your average Yankee was 6’2”, 204lbs. In gridiron the legendary Jim Brown, who at 6’2”, and 232 lbs steamrolled over rivals on his way to breaking virtually every running record in the 1960s, would today be considered of average size.

And have you seen pro tennis players lately? Even women champions like Serena Williams dwarf yesteryear’s aces like Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall.

Surfing, in the meantime, seemed to join the rest of the U.S., at least, in what auxologists term a “growth stagnation.” For the first few years of the 21st Century our biggest stars, when either posed on the world’s hottest waves (or next to some of the world’s hottest hotties) appeared positively slight.

Today all that seems to be changing. With the ease of movement often exhibited by big men a new wave of standouts are, well, standing out from the pack, giraffes among the zebras, so to speak. None yet match the Promethean stature of Laird Hamilton, whose blond, blue-eyed brawn has transcended its way to mainstream stardom, with fitness mag covers, American express Ads and a cologne campaign right out of International Male. But a look at the pro standings hints that the size of surfers standing there may be creeping upward. Aussies Bede Durbidge and Luke Stedman top the six-foot mark, and at 170 lbs respectively can put a lot more punch into their tail slides. ‘QS star South African Jordy Smith, at 6'1" and 170 bs, has the moves of a big cat more than a meercat, while fellow ‘QS-ers Roy Powers and Gabe Kling both stand taller than their standard 6’0” squashtails. And though Ventura’s Dane Reynolds is still billed as a Young Gun, he’s definitely heavy caliber at 5' 10" and 160 lbs.

Big waves seemed to be breeding bigger surfers, too. At Pipeline tykes like Jesse Merle Jones and Mark Healy share Second Reef with the much taller Jaime O’Brien and the much, much taller Aamion Goodwin (6’6” 190 Lbs) and Reef McIntosh. And despite how he fares on the ASP world tour Pancho Sullivan (6’0”, 210 lbs) will still throw his weight around at Sunset, Pipe and Backdoor.

Why now? Tough to say. In other sports explanations for increasing size can be obvious, as in the case of pro stick-and-ball sports scouts recruiting only larger players. But in a freestyle sport like surfing, with no established height and size standards and/or recognized advantages, the trend is not so obvious. It’s not like contemporary surfing performance has dictated a size change. If anything, the more gymnastic, aerial approach of the new millennium would seem to favor a smaller surfer. In giant waves tow-in surfing has been the great leveler, as a new generation of boys have been dropping the rope in the sort of situations formally reserved for he-men. And yet the size and height of some of today’s hottest up-and-comers seems to be coming up. The recent trend in surfboard design that has seen the tiniest touch of width and volume added to high-performance rocket sleds, accommodating larger-framed surfers? Advances in surf forecasting and sponsored surf travel that have been providing a superior wave diet to the latest generation of lanky young groms who otherwise might be starving themselves out of a career at their local beachbreaks? Breakthroughs in wetsuit technology, staving off cold water’s deleterious effect on testosterone production (not to mention testicular shrinking)? Who knows?

All that’s clear is that whether or not a six-foot plus surfer wins the SURFER Poll again any time soon (a six-foot plus male surfer, at least) the future of high performance is definitely looking up.