First statewide high school surf season is making waves

Schiffner added that student athletes also have a lot of pride in being able to represent their schools and Hawaii, which is the birthplace of surfing and the only place in the United States where surfing is a statewide school sport.

Building up

Getting there wasn’t easy. Many schools needed to recruit coaches, who were required to obtain safety certifications before being able to hold practices. Students wanting to participate had to obtain junior lifeguard certifications.

For contests, county permits had to be obtained for surf breaks, some of which have limited slots that were already full. The events also needed to be managed, scored by experienced judges and monitored by safety crews on watercraft.

Students provided their own boards, but school buses couldn’t transport longboards and other equipment. Colored jerseys featuring school logos also had to be made.

All of it was accomplished with many contributing hands that included an offshoot of the Hawaii Surfing Association running OIA events and instant scoring results carried on .

Former pro surfer Shawn Sutton agreed to become the head surf coach for Campbell High School in Ewa Beach after another prospect couldn’t do it, and his friend Matthew Kenny, who competes in amateur contests, is assistant coach.

“It was a little last minute,” Kenny said.

Sutton wanted to hold practices at White Plains Beach in Kalaeloa but the timing of certifications got in the way. Instead, a school official was able to arrange three days of practice at the Wai Kai wave pool at Hoakalei Resort in Ewa Beach.

“Every session they got way, way, way better,” Sutton said of the school surf team.

Ten students — seven boys and three girls — competed at Campbell, and Sutton expects the number to grow next year because there were other interested surfers at the school who wanted to participate this year but couldn’t get certified in time.

Campbell, like other high schools that didn’t already have club surfing teams with volunteer coaches and competitions, had a harder time gearing up to participate in the new statewide league sport. Some OIA schools had only one or two competitors this year, including Kaimuki with one and Castle with two.

Some of the dozen or so Oahu schools with established club teams fielded the most competitors. One of those, Waialua, had 16 students competing in events this year and four coaches.

Waialua surf head coach Spencer Suitt said the team tried to train twice a week, including sessions at Haleiwa, Chun’s Reef and Kewalos along with cardio workouts on land. He said the school’s club is decades old and has a lot of talent, given proximity to so many premier contest breaks on the North Shore.

Suitt’s daughter Skai, a sophomore, won the girls shortboard event Monday and placed second in bodyboarding and fifth in longboarding.

During Monday’s first shortboard heat, coach Suitt was on a jetty cheering on Wyatt Falk, who placed second and advanced to the semifinal round. Sunny Drill of Kalani High School topped Falk and ended up placing second in the final.

Drill, a sophomore, started seriously surfing four years ago and considers Kewalos his regular surf spot. “It was fun,” he said after the first heat. “Just really fun, perfect waves.”

Kaipo‘i Koa, a senior at Kalani, has more of a wave-riding bloodline as part of a family from Palolo Valley where four generations have been big into bodyboarding. Koa’s mother, Kawena Garcia, said her daughter was catching waves in the womb.

“The doctor told me at seven months I should stop,” Garcia said.

Koa, who has competed since she was 3 years old, was beaming after posting the high score in the first of three qualifying girls bodyboarding heats.

“It’s just crazy,” she said. “It’s, like, making history.”

“This is a huge win and journey for us,” her mom added.

After two more heats, Koa became the OIA’s first girls bodyboarding champion and is headed to Maui for states.

Long journey

Teri Ushijima, an assistant superintendent in the Office of Curriculum and Instructional Design at the state Department of Education, also described the sport’s entry in Hawaii high school athletics as a journey.

Ushijima, who watched part of Monday’s contest and hadn’t attended earlier ones, was impressed with the turnout and operation.

“We’re really excited that so many schools are here and that our young female and male athletes have an opportunity to engage in a sport they have a passion for,” she said. “And at the same time, like any of our athletics, you know we want them to really develop all their skills — of course their athletic side, but really it’s about teamwork, supporting others and showing good sportsmanship, being a role model to their peers.

“It’s a journey,” Ushijima continued, “and we’re very pleased that we’re making progress.”

The state Board of Education approved surfing as a league sport in 2004, and two years later established regulations for it.

Those regulations, which were modified in 2016, allow each regional league to add surfing as a sport if more than half a league’s member schools vote to do so. Requirements also include ocean rescue training and other safety certifications for coaches and junior lifeguard-level qualifications for students.

Standing in the way for so long were concerns from school administrators about costs, access to good surf, an inability to control surf conditions, potential for serious injuries and drowning, and even fear of shark attacks.

Before this year, only the Maui Interscholastic League had surfing as a high school sport, which happened in 2014 after many years of frustrating efforts by surfing advocates.

The MIL, where 12 of 15 public and private member schools participate in surfing, had club-level surfing at some schools for 19 years and demonstrated that so much of the fear was overblown.

In 2024, a push at the Legislature to fund surfing as an incentive for expansion fizzled. But in 2025, a redoubled effort led to the passage of House Bill 133 to appropriate $685,870 this fiscal year and the same amount next fiscal year to help cover public school expenses for surfing if adopted as an interscholastic league sport.

How many schools and leagues would do so was uncertain after Gov. Josh Green signed the bill into law May 30 and even after HHSAA announced in July there would be a state championship.

Confluence

The Big Island Interscholastic Federation has about 100 students participating at 11 of 20 public and private member schools. Contests have been held at Honolii in Hilo and Kohaniki in Kailua-Kona.

Oahu’s private school league, the Interscholastic League of Honolulu, had 10 of 20 member schools participating with about 100 students. To accommodate varying surf conditions, ILH scheduled contests within four-day windows. Contests were held at Ala Moana Bowls, Sandy Beach, Rock Piles and Queen’s.

On Kauai, four of eight member schools of the Kauai Interscholastic Federation are participating with close to 100 students. KIF held its first two contests at the Waioli Beach Park break Pine Trees and at Kealia. A third contest was canceled due to weather before the KIF championship event.

Surfer and Kauai Mayor Derek Kawakami attended one of the KIF contests and joked from the beach that he wanted to surf in the first heat.

“To all the student athletes, today’s history,” he said in a recent Kauai County Facebook video post. “And what this league is about is not about the best surfers and bringing out the folks that are going to go pro. It’s really a sport for everybody. So, even if you don’t think that you’re ready, paddle out there and do a heat because there’s only one time you can do it for the first time and go down in the history books.”

Kawakami said KIF received valuable help with its participation in the sport from Kim Ball, who helped spearhead Maui’s effort more than a decade ago. Ball, a former Lahainaluna High School wrestling coach who has a chain of surf stores on Maui, said in an interview that he’s glad the sport is now statewide at high schools.

“We’re stoked that it’s finally a reality,” he said.

The state championship is slated to take place at Maui’s Hookipa Beach between Paia and Haiku.

“We couldn’t be more thrilled to host the first one,” Ball said.