SAN CLEMENTE : Surfing Magazine Celebrates 30 Years

In the glossy office building, above the walls covered with cheerful graffiti (“Stay Hardcore,” “Skate, Surf, Snow”), the pace is what Nick Carroll would call “killer.”

It’s been an intense year for Carroll, 34, an Aussie surfer who became editor-in-chief of the San Clemente-based Surfing magazine less than a year ago. The magazine is celebrating its 30th anniversary, and one of California’s biggest surfing events in years is just months away.

In the next three months, Carroll has to produce three collector’s editions and a special How-to-Surf-Better guide, as well as plug the U.S. Open of Surfing, an international professional tour de force in August.

The November issue will also include a 30-plus-page special insert dedicated to the U.S. Open of Surfing. The magazine is the official publication of the event.

The Open will be visiting the mainland for the first time in several years, giving locals a chance “to see the world’s best surfers all at one event and at one time,” said Bob Mignogna, publisher of Surfing. It takes place Aug. 3-7 in Huntington Beach, after the 13th Annual Op Pro Surfing Championship July 26-31.

It was great timing for Surfing’s 30th anniversary to have the two-week surf open and the release of “Endless Summer II,” the sequel to the classic surfing movie, in the same year. But it was just a coincidence, Mignogna said.

To Mignogna and the mag’s staff, the events signify the upswing of surfing’s popularity after a slump in the ‘80s. And of course, if the industry booms again--as it did in the mid-’70s--all the better for the magazine, said Mignogna, who has worked for the magazine for 20 years.

Through it all, the magazine--with a circulation of 100,000--has never lost any of its own enthusiasm for the sport, Mignogna said. “We invest more and more energy, time and dollars to make things happen for the professional sport,” he said. “I believe it’s part of our responsibility to assist the development of the (surfing) business.”

Now in its 30th year, the magazine is looking ahead, though it has its share of nostalgia, Carroll said.

He points to the How-to-Surf-Better guide, coming out in June, as an example. The collector’s items look back on “30 Epic Photos” (March), “The 30 Best Things in Surfing” and “Five Great Tales” (August) and “The 30 Biggest Waves Ever Ridden” (November).

“My trip with surfing is that it’s a sport full of energy, life--it’s today, now that counts,” Carroll said. “It’s not really about yesterday or what’s old. Surfing is about a youthful attitude.”

For Carroll, the mellowed-out Aussie surfer whose first story for Surfing in 1979 described visiting the “jungle” of Southern California, his new job means there’s less time to surf.

Carroll grew up riding the waves of Sydney’s beaches, where harsher waves produce a more powerful but less flexible style than in California. He turned pro as an adolescent, winning several championships, then worked for surfing and non-surfing publications before Surfing recruited him in 1990 full time.

“I thought I’d take a break from surfing,” he said, “but I was too addicted to it. Around 1990 . . . I said, ‘Look, accept your lot in life.’

“Surfing will go on forever.”

He could have been musing about either the sport or the magazine--more likely, both.