BODY BOARDING : Sport Reaches New Heights After Refusing to Take It Lying Down
It began as a softer, simpler alternative to riding a surfboard, but it has evolved into big business that has a viable niche in the marketplace, and a 30-second spot on MTV. Yes, body boarding has gone big time.
Much has happened since the early 1970s, when former Laguna Beach resident Tom Morey first boogied on a slab of polyethylene foam he had fashioned at his home in Hawaii. Morey’s tinkering produced the prototype of a plaything that has altered the course of wave riding forever. Once an oceanic minority, body boarders have multiplied and are now as much a part of a trip to the beach as sand in your shoes.
Evidence of the sport’s popularity is everywhere. It’s on the newsstands, where body boarding enthusiasts can purchase a copy of the magazine packaged and published just for them. It’s in the water, where more and more body boarders are searching for the perfect ride, and some even do it for a living. And it’s in the hearts and minds of thousands of youths, who have become a new target market for surfing industry products.
The first issue of Body Boarding magazine hit the newsstands last February. It is now published every two months, after being packaged as a Surfing magazine special edition for six issues. David Gilovich, editor of Body Boarding, said the inspiration for the magazine came a few years ago, when he and his co-workers sat in the San Clemente offices of Western Empire Publications, Inc., and watched as a parade of body boarders made their way past the parking lot there on the way to the beach.
“All day long, people would walk right by my window with body boards in tow,” he said. “One day, we just decided to walk down to the beach and see how many body boarders were in the water. We went down to Trafalgar Street and looked north and south. There must have been hundreds of body boarders out in both directions.”
Gilovich said more sophisticated market research followed, and recent results have led publishers of Body Boarding to believe that they have stumbled onto something very profitable.
“It’s our opinion that there are actually more body boarders than surfers,” Gilovich said. “We base that on the amount of sales of body boards last year. There were 150,000 surf boards sold last year, and 500,000 body boards. It really doesn’t take a nuclear physicist to figure out that there is a market out there.”
That market is not limited to those with access to a beach. Water amusement parks such as Wild Rivers in Laguna Hills are finding body boarders good for business. Greg Briggs, general manager of Wild Rivers, said the more than $200,000 expenditure for computerized wave machines at the park has made the wave pools there one of the main attractions. With today’s technology, one can now body board in Albuquerque, N.M.
Board and accessory manufacturers are spending a lot on national advertising, sponsoring and promoting a professional body boarding circuit, and hiring top body boarders as “team riders,” following the lead of the board surfing industry.
Mary Lee Christensen, director of sports promotion for Kransco Morey Boogie, said the sharp increase in the number of competitive events the company is sponsoring is a good indication of how the sport has grown in the last decade or so. “We started with one event in ‘75,” she said. “In ‘87, we anticipate either sponsoring or orchestrating 401 competitions.”
This is good news for people such as Keith Sasaki, a four-time world champion body boarder who grew up in Honolulu and spends about half the year living in San Clemente. Sasaki says he doesn’t make as much money through body boarding as the Tommy Currens and Tom Carrolls of professional surfing, but he has endorsement deals with board, wet suit and sportswear companies, and a sandal manufacturer.
“At this point, I’m fairly satisfied with the cash flow I’m taking in,” said Sasaki, 24. “I live quite comfortably, in fact.”
All of this growth has made things a little uncomfortable for board surfers, who once dismissed body boarders as unwanted, untalented obstacles, even questioning their right of wave. The early body boarder had to stay out the way of surfers or risk having his hair parted by the fin of a surfboard. At some Orange County beaches, blackball restrictions that limit the hours board surfers can be in the water during the summer months have helped separate surfers and body boarders. So has the fact that some body boarding waves are not always conducive to good surfing.
But many surfers still view body boarders as people who can’t surf and have settled for something less. Sasaki, one of the first of a new wave of Hawaiians who are turning to the body board to catch waves, doesn’t deny that his sport is much easier to learn.
“There’s some validity to that,” he said. “Body boarding is considered a step down from surfing. Anybody can body board, but to get to the level of the top professionals, it takes a lot of training.”
Said Gilovich: “There was a period of time when body boarders were definitely second-class citizens. But there’s a new appreciation now. The top professionals have gone to Pipeline and done some incredibly radical maneuvers. The surfers have seen that.”
Innovative designs in boards and accessories have made it easier for body boarders to maneuver their way toward more respectability. Today’s body boards have names such as “Turbo Z” and “Mach 20 RS,” and can come with enough fancy options (push-button, retractable skegs are among the latest) to make the prospective buyer wonder what owning one is going to do to his insurance premiums. Morey Boogie has no less than eight models on the market now, ranging in price from about $30 to $140.
It’s all a little more than Tom Morey might have figured would come of his invention. In a 1982 interview with Sports Illustrated, Morey waxed philosophic on the water toy that made him a wealthy man. See if you can follow this, keeping in mind that Morey could afford a few eccentricities:
“Waves are living creatures,” he said. “I see everything that’s going on as waves. We are chop on the face of the sea of reality. The ocean converses with you directly. The ocean is an organ of a whole being, and it tells you what’s going on. By surfing on a Boogie board, you are communing with the rhythms of nature.”
One need only drive to the beach on a hot summer afternoon to see just how many body boarders are getting in touch with nature these days.
