In September of 1999 I started studying at the University of San Diego (USD). My intentions of studying at USD were two-fold, academics and baseball. However, as school started, and baseball trainings became the norm, I decided that my focus at USD should be academics. After talking with family and friends, I made the decision to stop playing baseball and I went and visited USD’s head baseball coach to break the news. Upon receiving the news he said, “Well Travis, it’s real easy to be a regular student.” Hmm??? What did that mean, that without baseball, I would become a regular student? I had plans; plans that I thought far exceeded a regular student. I was going to travel, study abroad, double major, join University clubs, work, and occasionally, party and surf!
Surf Team Tryouts
Later that fall, I noticed flyers around the university for surf team tryouts. My curiousity perked. At the time I was an avid longboarder who had competed locally and was kindly being sponsored by local shaper Don Laughlin of Sea Brothers Surfboards and Pacific Beach Surf Shop. By no means were my surf skills at the level of Joel Tudor, but I wasn’t a novice like Rick Cane from the famed movie North Shore. I was good, not great, not exceptional, but simply good. I rode a red 9’0’’ tri-fin Sea Brothers Surfboard. It was red, because my mother likes red; I guess that makes me a mama’s boy. Surf tryouts were scheduled and hosted at Mission Beach, San Diego. I was slated to compete against five others for either a position on Team A (the all stars) or Team B (back-up). Each team would be comprised of 6 men, 2 women and 1 longboard surfer. Conditions that day were terrible, but in the end I came out ranking a few points higher then some of the other competitors, and made Team A. Right alongside of me was my good buddy Eric, who was also sponsored by Don Laughlin of Sea Brothers Surfboards and Pacific Beach Surf Shop. Hmm…regular student? Now I was a student-surfer. From 1999 until 2003 I would trek this path, traveling the Califronia coast, winning, losing, but most importantly, surfing and having fun.
NSSA Southwest College Division
While I competed, the NSSA Southwest college division had two surfing divisions, shortboard and longboard. Our competitions extended the southern California coastline. Coastal and inland Univerisities and Jr. Colleges formed part of the Southwest College division. Some notable Universities were:
- Point Loma Nazarene
- San Diego State University (SDSU)
- University of San Diego-California (UCSD)
- University of Los Angeles-Califronia (UCLA)
- University of Southern California (USC)
- University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB)
- Santa Barabara Jr. College
- Cal State San Marcos
- Mira Costa Jr. College
Now the National Collegiate Championships have become so popular and fierce they are being televised on Fox College Sports. This year a total of 22 teams will be competing!
National Scholastic Surf Association
Competitions at the college level are organized by the National Scholastic Surfing Association (NSSA), a non-profit organization whose mission is to encourage and assist its members to learn and develop the fundamentals and skills of surfing competition while competing in structured and quality events. The organization prides itself on maintaining high standards and excellence in the merits of academic achievement to young surfers and it is one of the few youth sports organizations that require participants to maintain high academic standards in order to compete.
Tags: Competitive surfing, Surfing