New Wave of Sport : Fledging South Bay Surf League Draws Teams From Four High Schools

Mira Costa High’s 6-0 football team isn’t the only undefeated team on the Manhattan Beach campus. The surfing team is 2-0 and leading the South Bay Surf League.

The league, in its first season, consists of teams from Mira Costa, South Torrance, Peninsula and Redondo. The Southern Section doesn’t recognize surfing as a team sport because so few schools participate, so the Boy Scouts Explorer program stepped in and organized the league, which is patterned after an Orange County league the Scouts have run for the last 15 years.

Boy Scout administrator Randy Wenz helped start the league. He said the Explorer program aims to support team competitions that are not ordinarily offered at school.

“The Explorers (try) to provide a positive program for the youths that is based on special interests,” he said.

The contests begin at 6:30 a.m., usually on Tuesday and Thursday. Each team fields a squad of 12 stand-up surfers and three bodyboarders. A division for female contestants and longboarders is also included, but points won by the females and the longboarders do not count toward the team total. Because the league is in its first year, most of the teams have been unable to field a full complement of female surfers and longboarders.

Each team enters three surfers per heat, with points awarded through six places. Heats last 15 minutes. The contestants are scored on their three best rides. The season culminates with an all-star contest on Dec. 1.

Mira Costa Coach Elroy Lang, who has taught a surf class for the last five years, takes his team to Orange County to compete against high school surfing powerhouses such as Huntington Beach and San Clemente. He’s excited about the local league.

“We would take the long bus ride down to San Clemente, then get properly hammered because we didn’t understand the team concept,” Lang said. “It’s hard to get guys to realize that you have only 15 minutes to get three scoring waves, and you don’t have time to dillydally around.”

Because the contests start at a designated time, the competitors must make due with whatever waves are available. This can prove a challenge for surfers waiting for perfect conditions.

“On lousy waves,” Lang said, “guys that aren’t that good can look better than guys who are clearly superior surfers. You can’t sit around looking for the perfect wave. I keep telling them (to think) wave count, wave count. And to finish off a wave (and score some points) rather than try some ridiculous move and get knocked off the board and be of no help to the team.”

Although the South Bay has a rich surfing tradition, it has generally been an individual sport. Students who surfed instead of participating in the team sports such as football and baseball weren’t considered competitive athletes. The surf league may change that perception.

“People think we do drugs because of how goofy we are,” South senior Jim Pitts said. “But you can’t worry about what others think. It’s different strokes for different folks.”

Said Mira Costa junior Ryan Sterner: “People think that we’re just guys that hang out at the beach and that our brains are waterlogged.”

Despite what tennis player Andre Agassi says, maybe image isn’t everything.

Mira Costa senior Matt Muir said he takes it in stride when he hears people put surfers down.

“I just laugh when I hear that,” Muir said. “It’s always fun to surprise people when I say, ‘Oh, by the way, I’ve got a 4.0 grade-point average and may go to Stanford or (UC) Berkeley.’ ”

Peninsula Coach Tim Hall thinks it’s important for surfers to be part of a team effort.

“Before, surfers had no opportunity to be involved in a team atmosphere,” Hall said. “The team gives the surfers the opportunity to learn sportsmanship and the team mentality.”

South freshman Hagan Kelley, who has won several National Scholastic Surfing Assn. contests, also thinks that surfers don’t get the respect they deserve. Many people, he said, still relate surfers to Spicoli, the marijuana-smoking, brain-dead character Sean Penn portrayed in the movie “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”.

“Surfers aren’t like Spicoli anymore,” Kelley said.

Muir, also a member of the NSSA, said many serious surfers are high achievers in the classroom and do their best to live down the Spicoli stereotype.

“There is a new breed of surfer who is into school,” Muir said. “But there are also a handful of guys out there who are herb-smoking buzzards who live under the pier.”

Pitts said that participating in the surf league has helped him concentrate more on his school assignments. The early morning contests help clear his head for the school day.

“I’m amped to go to school,” said Pitts, who acknowledges to occasionally glancing at a surfer magazine in class. “My mom said that if I don’t do well in school, then she won’t support the contests.”

Lang, a longtime teacher at Mira Costa, is credited by many as being the driving force behind the creation of the league. He gets up at 5:45 a.m. at his Newport Beach home and drives to 26th Street in Manhattan Beach, where the Mira Costa surf class meets each morning.

“Some days are cold, and the class necessitates me getting up pretty early,” Lang said. “But no one held a gun to my head and said, ‘You have to do this.’ When you see the pelicans flying and the dolphins jumping and the sun coming over the Manhattan Beach skyline, it’s cool.”

Muir said there is another reason he likes to be part of the Mira Costa surf team.

“Girls dig it.”