A comeback story!
There was once a time when Santa Cruz, there hugging California’s great middle north, was seen as a premier surf power. Locals like Ratboy, Barney, The Condor and Flea dominated the magazines. O’Neill the go-to brand of the core and Steamer Lane hosted the contest of the year.
Alas, the town of 60,000 souls lost an ugly fight over the moniker “Surf City, USA” to Huntington Beach, discovered methamphetamine and faded from surf memory.
But is she ready for a comeback?
Maybe.
The Santa Cruz Board Riders Club is ponying up and sending a team of four to Australia’s Gold Coast in order to compete in the Usher Cup, a tournament pitting the best surf clubs around the world against each other for bragging rights and also $100,000 cash money.
Sam and Ben Coffey, Shaun Burns and Autumn Hays each received the mayor’s blessing as they prepare to jet across the Pacific.
“It’s definitely very surreal, I haven’t traveled internationally for a surf competition in a while. All my heroes are competing in this, and there’s just going to be really good surfing that I’m excited to watch,” Hays told the local Action News.
“All the kids over there are so good, boys and girls. It’ll be super cool to represent Santa Cruz and we got a pretty good team this year, so hopefully, we can bring it home, do well,” Sam Coffey added.
“We kind of want to take it to them and be a part of this competition bringing it home to Santa Cruz and stealing the trophy away from them and bringing it home is something we want to do. We’re going in there to compete and fight hard,” Shaun Burns declared.
The Usher Cup features twenty Australian teams and ten from elsewhere in the world. Santa Cruz will have to really brings its A game but maybe, just maybe, it’s time for the sun to shine upon both the east and west sides once again.
Back to this Usher Cup, though. Have you heard about it before? Does it possibly have the clout to replace the World Surf League as the “global home of surfing?”
Things to think about.
