“We used to be cool, man.”
Professional surfing is rounding the bend to one full year without leadership. Twelve months ago, the World Surf League’s championship tour was headed to Australia’s Margaret River, mid-season cull looming, with loud and proud chief executive Erik Logan at the helm. He had made himself and the WSL one through a robust social media program putting the former Oprah Winfrey studio boss front and center of everything professional surfing.
From Margaret Rivs, the extravaganza made its way to Tahiti, Erik Logan sucking the very breath professional surfing’s lungs…
…and then, like that, it was over. The tour traveled to Brazil, Logan joined, giving behind-the-scenes social media tours to his growing fanbase one day, fired in the most terse press release ever the next.
Gone, baby, gone.
He was replaced, at the top, by the World Surf League’s PR maven and its head of legal. “Major cleanup up on aisle five vibes,” according to important surf voice Jen See.
Rumors circulated that Logan had been making people “uncomfortable” in Brazil but the World Surf League never shed any light on his vicious disappearance, pretending all normal. Making a mockery of its fanbase.
Back on the ski. Reset.
Now, surf fans are feeling violently ripped off in the wake of another surf adjacent firing. But let us travel to the Caribbean where the Sandals Resorts chief development officer, Eugene Staal was fired for attacking his boyfriend, Sandals art curator Rafael de Vasconcelos, on a highway.
According to the New York Post:
On March 2, Sandals art curator Rafael de Vasconcelos attacked his partner, the hotel chain’s chief development officer Eugene Staal, on a highway in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, shoving him into a ditch and then climbing on top and pummeling him, according to published footage and co-workers.
The couple, who left a function around 11 p.m., were staying on the island ahead of a new Sandals resort opening there last week, a senior executive said.
During the altercation in the village of Lowman’s Hill, de Vasconcelos shoved Staal into a concrete ditch along the highway while a black car idled in the middle of the road, footage showed.
What the heck.
Surfing used to be rock n roll, man.
Dangerous.
Now our tech pants are on sale at Costco and our CEO’s firing is being shamed by an all-inclusive resort.
Surf fans understandably miffed.
