Slater Ready to Drop In for Surfing Comeback

Never in his wildest dreams could Kelly Slater leave his feet at the free-throw line and slam a basketball through the hoop.

But then, never could Michael Jordan drop into a towering breaker and basically carve his signature into its face.

“About all we really have in common is that we’re both bald,” Slater said last week from his home in Cocoa Beach, Fla.

Actually, there’s more.

Both athletes left their respective leagues--Slater the Assn. of Surfing Professionals’ World Championship Tour and Jordan the NBA--after 1998.

And both recently announced comebacks.

Jordan, while in his prime, dominated basketball as few others before him--and has six NBA championship rings to show for it.

Slater, still in his prime, dominated surfing as no other--and has an unprecedented six world championships.

In surfing circles his comeback ranks up there with Jordan’s.

As for Slater’s being bald, it’s partially by his own doing, same as Jordan. He started shaving his head about two years ago, giving in to the inevitable.

“His hair is thinning but he’s not Telly Savalas,” maintained his manager, Bryan Taylor.

Nine years younger than Jordan, at 29, Slater, having been granted a wild-card berth “because of his supreme standing in the sport,” is preparing for the 2002 World Championship Tour, or WCT.

Last week he was surfing in Barbados. This week, he’s in Hawaii on Oahu’s North Shore to compete in the Rip Curl Cup at Sunset Beach, and in the year-ending $150,000 Xbox Pipeline Masters, at the world-famous Banzai Pipeline.

Next on his agenda, the inaugural World Championships of Tow-in Big Wave Riding at Jaws, Maui, and Quiksilver’s Men Who Ride Mountains event at Maverick’s at Half Moon Bay, Calif.

Then, the world tour begins anew for Slater, who confesses that part of the reason for his comeback is to satisfy the executives at Quiksilver, who desire maximum exposure from the poster child they so generously sponsor.

“I did not miss the competitions,” he said of his three-year hiatus, during which he whittled his golf handicap down to six. “I surfed in just enough of them [as a wild-card entry] to keep me competing on a top level, but I did not miss being on the tour.”

Slater then paused for a second and added, “But I guess I’m starting to miss them a bit now.”

His enthusiasm is hardly bubbling over. Still, his return is welcome news to the ASP, which, despite a healthy mix of rising young stars and perennial standouts, could use the kind of exposure sure to be provided by Slater, one of a few surfers widely recognized beyond surfing circles.

“I think it’s a really good boost for the tour,” said fellow pro surfer and friend Rob Machado of Cardiff, Calif. “Kelly is still looked at as the best surfer in world, whether he’s on the tour or not. I think everyone is happy to see him come back.”

Until, perhaps, they draw him in a competition heat.

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With style, power and precision matched only by his fierce competitiveness, Slater made his big splash in 1992, becoming the youngest surfer to win a world title. He was only 20 but on top of the world. He made People magazine’s list of 50 most beautiful people. He landed a two-season role as Jimmy Slade on “Baywatch.” He had a lengthy romance with Pamela Anderson.

None of this affected his surfing. After finishing third in 1993, he put together an incredible string of five consecutive world titles, amassing more than $750,000 in prize money and earning a great deal more through sponsorships and endorsements.

With nothing more to prove, he slipped into a state of semi-retirement, surfing the waves of the world minus the pressure, spending time with family and friends, strolling the fairways of Cocoa Beach Country Club.

For the last 15 months, Slater has been dating actress-model Lisa Ann Cabasa. But he’s hardly ready to settle down.

The world tour requires a powerful commitment. The nine events--trimmed from as many as 16--are spread over nine months but they’re held in remote locales and have long time windows to ensure quality surf. Athletes often spend days biding their time while awaiting optimum conditions.

“After you’ve done it for a couple of years, you kind of just go on auto-pilot and you forget to even enjoy these wonderful places you’re at,” Slater said. “Sometimes you just want to get the competition over with and fly home.”

But Slater maintained that he is not complaining. “I’m not out there digging ditches or building things, making an hourly wage,” he said. “I’ve got it pretty good.”

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Surfing is in the spotlight this month and next, with the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing underway in Hawaii. Last Saturday, Jaqueline Silva of Brazil won the Roxy Pro for women in the first leg of competition at Haleiwa’s Alii Beach Park. Andy Irons of Hanalei, Hawaii, won the $100,000 G-Shock Hawaiian Pro on Tuesday.

The second leg is the $250,000 Rip Curl Cup, which begins Monday. The WCT event will determine this year’s world champion. Sunny Garcia, the reigning world champion and 2000 champion of the Hawaiian Pro and Rip Curl Cup, is among half a dozen surfers in contention.

The Rip Curl Cup, of course, is followed by the Pipeline Masters.

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There’s a unique twist to this year’s Pipeline Masters, a three-day showdown scheduled Dec. 8-17.

Because of a scheduling shuffle, the event this year will not be an ASP contest but rather an ASP-sanctioned specialty event to crown the world’s top tube rider.

No longer limited to WCT surfers, it will feature a field of 48, consisting of eight of this year’s WCT event winners, eight other WCT competitors, eight previous Pipeline Masters champions and an assortment of invitees, mostly North Shore locals and Pipeline specialists. Among those expected to compete: Slater, Garcia, Shane Dorian, Kalani Robb, Andy Irons, Derek Ho, Tom Carroll and the defending champion, Machado.

Machado, 28, took most of this year off because of injuries and might show some early rust. He might also have other things on his mind. His wife, Patricia, gave birth to their first child, a baby girl, on Nov. 14.

“It was kind of a blessing to basically take a year off and get my life together,” Machado said. “As you get older, you start getting your priorities in order.”

At Pipeline, a major priority is to avoid the unforgiving coral reef a few feet beneath the breakers.

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The Pipeline Masters will return to network television for the first time in nearly 20 years.

NBC will tape the event to air Jan. 13. And while some view this as a positive for a sport that for so long has been kept out of the mainstream, skeptics remain.

In a Triple Crown program, Casey Koteen poses the following question and commentary: “What we want to know is, who’s going to be anchoring the thing?

“Perhaps it’ll be ‘Today Show’ host and native New Yorker Matt Lauer, or maybe it’ll be NBA big-mouth Bill Walton. Either way, we’ll be pushing for one of our own to take the mike in order to prevent Marv Albert from saying something like, ‘That Kelly Slater guy is really sliding down a high-crester.”’

Koteen shouldn’t worry about having any such big shots to push around. NBC is sending a team of relative unknowns, Pat Parnell and Kenan Harkin.

News and Notes

Bass fishing: Renee Flesh of Edwardsburg, Mich., made history earlier this month, becoming the first woman to win a national bass fishing championship. Flesh accomplished this despite a final-day catch of two bass totaling four pounds during the $325,000 EverStart Series national championship in Florence, Ala. She earned $40,000 and said being a woman in a man’s world is OK with her. “The fish don’t know who you are,” she said.

* Marlin fishing: Nothing has yet edged the 871-pound blue marlin caught recently off Cabo San Lucas, but two others have since come in around 800 pounds, the latest an 820-pound blue, minus its bill, caught by a pair of tourists aboard Mucho Loco.