UNF Surf Team: Chaz Guernsey prepares for NSSA surfing championships
Chaz Guernsey, longboarder for the UNF Surf Team, speaks about the NSSA national collegiate championships.
- 53-year-old Kelly Slater competed in the World Surf League competition at Lower Trestles, California, but lost in the early rounds.
- Caroline Marks, the defending Olympic surfing champion, threw the ceremonial first pitch at an Angels baseball game and reached the quarterfinals of the women’s competition at Lower Trestles before being eliminated.
“Great Expectations” might have been the theme this past week for legendary surfer Kelly Slater, who was making a widely anticipated wild-card return to the World Surf League, and on a familiar wave break at Lower Trestles, Calif.
Instead, however, a combination of age (now 53); injuries (surgery on his hip two years ago, plus back woes); and maybe a loss of that familiar spark (with no WSL roster spot) finally melded under gloomy, gray skies at the venue of the 2028 Summer Olympics.
“The battery is running out, for sure,” Slater said in an interview with The Orange County Register following his first of two heat setbacks. “I’m happy to be here and be in the event — but I don’t live and die for it anymore … there probably won’t be too many more times.”
For the first 25 minutes of his 30-minute heat with No. 2-ranked Italo Ferreira, last year’s series runner-up, the 11-time world champion from Cocoa Beach had not caught a wave.
Meanwhile, his Brazilian counterpart was in playground form, securing five crooked numbers above 5.00 and even going all-air out with a showman Superman maneuver, similar to tricks once reserved for the superstar.
He managed just two waves (4.03 and 3.50) in the 15.17-7.53 loss to Ferreira (rookie Marco Mignot was second in the three-person heat with 8.77), then rode four more waves in the Elimination Round loss to fifth-ranked Barron Mamiya, who injured his knee on his final, clutch, scoring wave to win 11.97-10.40.
“I surfed really nervously in that (first) heat,” said Slater, who has dominated at Lower Trestles, winning six times, compiling a 74.5% heat win percentage, and posting 54 “excellent” scores (8.0 and higher).
While Slater still looked smooth when he did find a wave to his liking, his best ride probably came after the last horn, catching a nice left, snapping hard three times and landing a backside rotation in a pressure-less moment to give the “hometown” fans a treat.
Earlier in the week, Slater, who has long considered San Clemente, Calif., as a second home, was presented with the “Icon” award at the inaugural Orange County Sports Awards at Angels Stadium in Anaheim.
“I nearly moved out here for high school; they had surf class and they didn’t have it back home,” Slater told reporters. “Obviously, the waves are better in California than day-to-day in Florida.”
Slater won his first major contest in 1990 at Lower Trestles, the Body Glove Surf Bout, a Professional Surfing Association of America event at age 18, when he was just starting his senior year at Cocoa Beach High.
After claiming 56 major titles (the last in January 2022 at Hawaii’s Pipeline just before turning 50), Slater failed to survive the WSL’s mid-season cut in 2024, lagging in 33rd place (11 spots off the re-qualifying mark), and lost his roster spot for 2025 after more than three decades on the major circuit.
In a WSL interview on the beach, Slater said he had been relaxing in Australia with his family when he got the invitation to compete in the event, which was presented by his clothing line, Outerknown.
“This is going to sound really weird,” he said, “but I honestly didn’t want to surf in this competition.”
What Slater did excel at was sitting in on a portion of Saturday’s WSL broadcast, offering his keen insights and observations during the men’s semifinals.
Slater’s only other WSL appearance this year was at the season-opening Lexus Pipe Pro in Hawaii, where he reached the quarterfinals.
Marks pitches; falls short
Melbourne Beach native Caroline Marks, the defending Olympic surfing champion, recently threw the ceremonial first pitch before a Los Angeles Angels baseball game in Anaheim to promote the WSL event.
Marks, 23, who has been trying to shake off a mild slump in which she recorded four straight Round of 16 losses, reached the quarterfinals at Lower Trestles, but lost to Hawaii’s Bettylou Sakura Johnson 17.83-8.70.
Johnson, 20, started out Saturday’s duel with an impressive 8.83 ride, scored a “throwaway” 8.00, then added a sizzling 9.00 score. Marks also impressed with an 8.20 ride, but only managed a 0.50 for her backup wave.
Marks remains sixth in the rankings, although slipping to more than 5,000 points out of a Final 5 playoff slot, behind leader Gabriela Bryan, Caitlin Simmers, Molly Picklum, Johnson and Isabella Nichols. Johnson outlasted Picklum in Saturday’s spectacular final, 17.00-14.23.
Stops at Rio, J-Bay and Tahiti close out the regular season, before the Final 5 battle it out at Cloudbreak in Fiji.
