Surfer Frohoff Is Discovering That Success Comes in Waves

The past six years have been the best ones of Chris Frohoff’s life, but they’ve also been the worst.

For Frohoff, it has been a tale of 100 cities.

He has circled the globe dozens of times to compete against the world’s best surfers on the Assn. of Surfing Professionals international tour.

Along the way, Frohoff has battled loneliness and endured times when cash was low and the lines at the airport were long.

“Sometimes it seems like you’re going from dive to dive, city to city,” Frohoff said. “But once in a while, you sneak away to one of the best surf spots in the world, and you get one of those sessions that make it all worthwhile.”

This is one of those up times for Frohoff, 25, who is the younger brother of beach volleyball pro Brent Frohoff.

He rode high in the Op Pro surfing championships in Huntington Beach this week, matching his career-best ninth-place finish at the event.

Frohoff was knocked off Thursday by Brad Gerlach of Encinitas, 76.3 to 63.

But on Wednesday, Frohoff pulled off one of the tourney’s biggest upsets, downing Australia’s Rob Bain--the ASP’s points leader--with powerful maneuvers and a slash-but-don’t-crash surfing style.

And Frohoff had a victory two weekends ago in a Professional Surfing Assn. of America event in San Clemente despite surf conditions in the one- to two-foot range.

At 6-foot-2, Frohoff is tall for a pro surfer. In small waves, shorter and lighter surfers usually get longer rides and better scores.

“The little guys can ride the foam longer and get connections inside to the shore breaks,” Frohoff said. “Sometimes we big guys get so heavy that we sink.”

But at San Clemente, Frohoff outlasted local favorite Dino Andino in a 30-minute final.

It was Frohoff’s first victory on the upstart PSAA circuit. After six years on the far-flung ASP tour, Frohoff is winless, although he finished last season ranked 33rd.

Frohoff said that he’s gotten some bad calls and bad breaks along the way. He was so burned out from long travel and low finishes that he almost called it quits last year and split his season between the ASP and PSAA.

“I feel like I have a lot to prove,” Frohoff said. “Right now I’m 25, but I feel like I’m 18 again. I love surfing more now than I ever have.”

Not surprisingly, Frohoff’s drive for the top is coming at the same time as his brother’s arrival at the summit of the beach volleyball world. Playing mostly with two-time Olympian Karch Kiraly this season, Brent Frohoff, 26, is one of the tour’s hottest players.

The two brothers have purchased a condominium in Redondo Beach. Brent’s enthusiasm for winning is becoming infectious for Chris.

“It’s unreal having him as a roommate,” Chris said. “He’s been winning a lot lately and that fires me up. The way he’s thinking rubs off on me.”

It paid off for Chris, especially on Wednesday during his supercharged heat against Bain.

With his older brother cheering from the shoreline, Frohoff devastated his Australian opponent with a combination of moves. The final score was 89 to 75.5.

“Brent’s definitely a good-luck charm,” Chris said. “I can hear him hooting for me when I’m on the inside set (of waves).”

Fifteen years ago, Brent Frohoff was surfing off Hermosa Beach and he wiped out.

Chris, then 10, caught his brother’s board in the whitewash, stood up on it and rode it in.

That marked the beginning of separate destinies for the brothers. They are sons of Doug and Diane Frohoff, athletic parents who introduced their boys to a beach lifestyle. The parents surfed and played beach volleyball.

“The beach was our back yard,” Brent Frohoff said.

Growing up, the boys had the usual brotherly squabbles.

When he was 9, Chris called his big brother a name.

He ran. Brent ran. Brent got tired of running and threw a dart at his brother, which stuck neatly in the back of Chris’ calf.

“You could tell Brent had the hand-eye coordination from the start,” Chris said.

Their interests differed, though. While Chris surfed, Brent played basketball and baseball. He had a wicked fastball and once struck out every batter he faced in a youth game.

But the brothers are decent competitors at their counterpart’s sport. When they are home--a rare occasion since their respective tours carry them away often--Brent goes out with Chris for a few surfing sessions.

“He’s a good surfer,” Chris said. “I can’t believe some of the things he can do. He can handle the off-the-lips and the shore-break moves just like the guys on the tour.”

Chris is also a decent volleyball player. He got a plaque three weeks ago for being on the winning team in the Seawright tournament--an annual amateur four-man beach event held at 28th Street in Hermosa Beach.

Chris was one of the back-row players on his team, setting for hitter Doug Schneider. In the final, Chris’ team defeated a quartet that included pro beach volleyball veteran Steve Obradovich.

The younger Frohoff even has a nasty jump serve like his big brother. But Chris is an inch shorter than Brent.

“I always promised I was going to kick his butt when I grew up,” Chris said. “But he’s still bigger than I am.”

Although Brent makes more money on the volleyball tour--he’s closing in on $100,000 this year for the second consecutive season--he still has the heart of a surfer.

“To go to the types of places Chris has been, to surf the same waves he’s surfed, that would be awesome,” Brent said.

But Chris said there have been the low points as well, not only in surf contests, but in travel.

In 1986, Frohoff was with a group of 20 surfers arriving in Lacanua, France, for an ASP event. When they got to the beach, all the hotels were booked. Not knowing French, they camped on the beach under the event’s bleacher scaffolding.

That was OK until a rainstorm whipped through. One surfer ended up trying to sleep standing in a phone booth.

Then the event’s director, thinking the surfers under the scaffold were burglars, began throwing rocks at them.

Once they figured out the French word for “Stop,” the surfers were put up in a grimy shack on the beach.

“It was like a big Boy Scout camp,” Frohoff said.

Frohoff almost quit the tour because traveling became as much of a grind as low scores in events, but the disappointment of losing was tough to take, too.

When he was 15, Surfer Magazine ran a picture of Frohoff locked into a tube ride, and grouped it with eight other “rising stars” in a photo spread.

“It was cool back then,” he said. “It was great to get your first picture in a surf magazine, because you always check them out.”

One of the other rising stars featured in the same issue was Tom Curren of Santa Barbara, also 15.

“Back then, Tom and I were beating each other up every week (in junior surfing competitions),” Frohoff said.

Ten years later, Curren has won two pro world championships and is third in the ASP standings this year.

Frohoff is still looking for that first ASP victory. But with his new frame of mind, he might not have to look far.

The big wave contests are ahead--three in France, two in Spain, one in Portugal, two in Brazil, and of course--the Hawaii contests, home of Frohoff’s favorite waves.

“That’s when I charge into it,” Frohoff said. “I love it when it gets big.”

In surf lingo, Frohoff is “charging”--his snap moves to the lip of the wave are a little tighter these days, his attacks on the wave bottom a little more vertical and his tube rides are crisper.

“I do have some talent, but I’ve got to dig down and bring it out,” he said. “I’m poised on a crucial point, and I’m not going to go down. The great thing is that I know that I love the sport now, and this is where I want to be.”