By PHIL JARRATT
MY OLD mate and sometime sparring partner Fernando Aguerre, founder of the Reef footwear company with his brother Santiago, has done a lot of good during his long reign as president of the International Surfing Association.
Although I’ve been a critic of his concentration of world title events in Central and South America, and his FIFA-like tactics in the long march to the Olympics, there is no doubt that this energetic, fun-loving Peruvian has his heart in the right place, and with Japan’s Olympic committee last week giving the nod to surfing for Tokyo 2020, it looks like he might go down in history as the man who turned our little pastime into an Olympic sport, for better or for worse. But nothing Fernando has done, or will do, at the ISA will surpass his championing of adaptive (or disabled, if you want to be politically incorrect) surfing.
Last week, thanks to Fernando’s hard work and the financial support of Bob Hurley (another champion in my book) the inaugural ISA World Adaptive Surfing Championships were held at La Jolla Shores, below the Scripps Institute in North County, San Diego.
Surfers from 18 countries competed in four disciplines – prone, assist, stand and upright – with Byron Bay’s one-legged phenom, 52-year-old Mark “Mono” Stewart taking the gold in the standing event. Paraplegic Jesse Billauer took out the assist division.
Mono said: “It’s a dream come true. I think every day I’ve had a tear in my eye seeing people who are so dedicated and love the ocean as much as I do. I’ve been waiting 35 years for this event, but I now know that the sky is the limit with adaptive surfing. The future is in the hands of all the young people we’ve seen here this week. I can’t wait to see what happens next.”
I haven’t seen Mono surf, but our Noosa Festival of Surfing media director Tommy Leitch interviewed him recently and reports that he is an inspirational character who will take on any wave, including some double-overhead, inside-out barrels during a recent Mentawais trip. His ambition is to create a high performance centre for disabled athletes in the Byron region. Following on from the inspirational visit of Brazil’s blind surfer Derek Rabelo to this year’s festival, we are hoping to have Mono as a special guest next March.
I have seen Jesse Billauer surf, in a demo with Kelly Slater at the Hurley Pro at Lower Trestles a few years back, and he blew my mind. I’ve also had the privilege of sharing a few sessions in the Maldives with shark attack survivor Bethany Hamilton. Beth surfs better with one arm than most of us do with two, and she was so adept during that trip that she and Layne Beachley conducted coaching classes for young Muslim girls who enjoyed their first surfs fully-clothed from head to toe. I’ll never forget watching Beth push a young girl onto a wave with her good arm, then launch herself onto the same wave so that she could be right beside her at the other end, since the girl couldn’t swim.
The Noosa Heads Surf Club has its fantastic Seahorse program, and the surf festival has long been a supporter of the Sunshine Coast branch of the Disabled Surfers Association, but the World Adaptive Championships have taken this to a whole new level. Good on you, Fernando, and good on you, all 69 competitors.
Everyone’s a winner, baby
I suppose you could call Tony Wellington a quiet achiever. Having worked with him on the National Surfing Reserve committee over the past 18 months, I’ve developed a great respect for the way the councillor (and surfer, and great photographer) goes about his business. He is mostly serious, dedicated, methodical and conscientious, but he does have a devilish sense of humour and a fun side too. I had a beer with him at the Sheraton’s River Bar just a few hours after he’d declared his run for mayor on social media, which was a fairly uncharacteristic thing for him to do (using social media, that is, not having a beer) and he confessed as much with a chuckle. Later that evening at a Tourism Noosa function, I also had a chat with Councillors Frank Pardon, Frank Wilkie and Sandy Bolton, all of whom seem very likely to run for mayor next year too. It’s an embarrassment of riches, really, because all of them are doing a splendid job for Noosa, despite what you read from half a dozen bored people on the letters page. I’m not going to declare my hand until I hear their policies, but it’s good to know we can’t lose, no matter who gets up.
What a grand final, by golly, by jingo
I reckon that was the best NFL grand final I’ve ever seen, from Barnesy and Mossy trading licks to the tear in Johnathon Thurston’s eye. I confess I was a bit tired and emotional by the final whistle, but it had been a big day!
A few hours earlier I enjoyed a great lunch at Sails on a perfect day with TV mates Brian Walsh (top dog at Foxtel) and Lorraine Willison, and the conversation inevitably turned to our mutual friend Mike Gibson, whose memorial service Walshy had attended a couple of days before. In fact Walshy brought me a copy of the tribute program, shaped as a wrap-around cover of Gibbo’s beloved Daily Telegraph, which was where we first met a hell of a long time ago.
Later on, I worked with the revered sportswriter and cricket legend Ian Chappell in the early days on Nine’s Wide World of Sports. In fact we did a book together on the 50 greatest sportsmen and women of the television age. Gibbo never quite forgave me for leaving Rocket Rod Laver out.
During the years I was at Playboy magazine Gibbo, Chappelli, my assistant editor Neil Jameson and I used to get together (often at the Mosman Rower’s) to decide on Australia’s best beers of the year. It always took a long time to decide, and Gibbo would be running at 10 or 12 by gollies and by jingos to the sentence by the end.
Always a man for the underdog, he would have loved to see the Cowboys get up, by golly.
