Well, you're effectively on the world tour now. Friggin' Awesome.

Yadin Nicol's painful loss is your gain. You've done it. You've earned a precious seed into what looks like the remainder of this year's world tour events. I suspect this is the beginning of a very fruitful ASP relationship.

And now we can all smell the milestone moments coming. As I'm sure you know this means you're very likely to be facing Kelly Slater at Trestles next week. But even better, you're likely to clash with him at Pipepline in a few months, which, frankly, that you'll be doing so as a fellow tour member is worthy of a double rainbow response.

Seriously, what better way to usher in a new era than to have the you, the heir apparent to the Pipeline throne (let's save the world for later), go face-to-face against the guy who's been in complete command of this sport since the very year you were born, 1992.

Considering your back-to-to back wins last year in the Volcom Pipeline Pro and Da Hui Shootout, it's safe to say you're as big a threat to Kelly as anyone else out there.

Jeesh time flies. It seems like just yesterday you were that adorable 8-year-old Pipeline rug rat who needed help putting his leash on, tiny enough to fit Kelly's cargo pocket. Remember that floppy white hair and those little runt brothers hanging in your shadow? You don't? Well let me tell ya', you lil' tykes were cuter than a litter of pug puppies.

And since Kelly was hovering around your backyard quite a bit in those days my suspicion is he probably wiped your butt at least once...Because if not, he'll certainly be trying to in the days ahead. Picking on kids half his age is Slater's favorite hobby nowadays.

But let's face it, you're not that cute little kid anymore. No offense, but you've hit a rather awkward phase. You're a lot like my own teenage sons: greasy, unwashed, pretty slow moving, and maybe even a little too cool. Don't worry...it's a perfectly normal phase. The acne will clear up. The most important thing is you're comfortable in your own skin. And you should be. You're an accomplished young man with a big bright future.

But you're not little John John anymore. Time, after all, is even more vengeful than gravity. You're John now...just John...John Florence. Your former title was a fitting for little biddy kid, but not 18-year-old ASP rookie -- a giant killer -- and a young man who might someday live up to the promise of being ruler.

So this is it. Mark my words. I'm hereby bidding John John adieu...and will no longer be referring to you as "a grommet." I'll try my best to make this a clean break, but I won't lie, this isn't going to be easy, because I'm going to miss that little guy. I bet your mom already does, not to mention your poor sponsors, who have to be pretty confused about now since "John John" is as household a name as Duke, Rabbit, Kelly and Laird in the surfing world.

John Florence? Truth is, that guy is still a bit of a mystery right now. It's up to you to write his history.

But that's who you are, and more importantly who you want to be, so that's what I'll call you. Damn the consequences to my Google search.

But here's the deal, you must do me (and everyone else tearing up over the loss of that little dude) a favor. Please just do your best to make little John John proud, and try to keep viewing the world you're in through his eyes...You'll understand later.

Just wanted to say thanks for the entertainment today. Good stuff. I've always loved your colorful post-heat interviews. They make for some incredibly fun fodder during the webcasts, and did you see? For about 74 minutes today you were quite the trender on twitter. So awesome.

Still, I must admit, as one of your biggest admirers (who will always see you as a smiling, very grateful little grommet at Rincon) I can't help but be a little saddened by your departure from the world tour ranks.

You see, as hard as I'm trying to feel your pain and fully grasp the depths of hell that those evil twisted corporate soul-sucking bastards at the ASP have been putting you through, it's frankly a little difficult to sympathize with anyone who -- at the end of the day -- gets paid to surf for a living.

In an environment like this, when real unemployment in the USA is about 15%, and just having a job makes you among the fortunate in this world, selling us all on the idea that your "dream job" is actually a nightmare is pretty tough.

To much of the world that's a winning lotto ticket you're ripping up.

God knows the ASP is very easy target, but no matter how I try to twist things to get a glimpse of what exactly it is you're seeing, I'm having problems. Maybe my glasses just aren't dark enough, because through these lenses the worst day on tour is still better than the best day hanging dry wall in Oxnard, or blogging in San Clemente (trust me).

I'm thrilled to hear you have a new sponsor to support you right now, especially at a crucial time like this, but what happens next year when you're fading from view and they can't collect from struggling retailers in this shitty economy?

Don't get me wrong. I'd love to join the chorus of those pleading on your behalf right now, but first I'd have to grasp the actual point you were trying to make today...which for the life of me I can't, because it's got all kinds of holes.

Let's examine the crux of your rant: "How the fuck is somebody who's not even competing against our caliber of surfers ahead of 100 of us on the one world ratings. They've never been here. They've never fucking made the right to surf against us, but now we're ranked upon [among] them?"

Actually they have. To your point, PRIME events were tailor made for expressly that reason. That's where anyone in the Top 96 gets to step in the ring with the big boys of the Top 32 and make them justify their existence. From a fans perspective, that's far superior to the old system where both tours operated in completely separate silos.

Fact is, you've been getting beat by those "somebodies" in the very limited amount of Prime events you've bothered to enter, like the Nike Lowers Pro, The US Open and last year's Cold Water Classic. Guys who've defeated you would love nothing more than a crack at the title someday, which apparently you're no longer interested in based on your recent decisions to pass on J-Bay and Tahiti.

And despite your rambling about halfway cutoff marks you've had an entire year to justify your Top 32 tour seed. World rankings, after all, are based on your best 8 results over the past 12 months in any ASP rated event, period. You've had a huge advantage over those outside the Top 32 with ten more opportunities to perform in tour events with huge points, and yet you want to cry foul?

Unfortunately your results haven't been so good. Then you compound the problem by refusing to show up at J-Bay and Teahupoo? (And you've won Tahiti twice?) Are you implying that after losing, then skipping two world tour events you're still owed a valuable seed just because you rip and what...you're Bobby?

You certainly do rip. Of that there's no question. You haven't lost even a half-step from what I can tell. What you have lost, however, is any sense of how the world has changed around you in recent years. I hate to break this to you...but a lot of people rip these days...and the ASP owes you absolutely nothing. Time will tell how much you owe the ASP though. It's never been a perfect system but it's the still the best one pro surfing has.

In the meantime, like all your fans, I wish you the best in wherever you take your surfing next: films, reality shows, Rincon. Please keep those beautiful carves and that silky smooth style visible. And for what it's worth, do whatever it takes to find that big grin again. Don't ever fight the fun.

Today is an anniversary that is very likely to go unnoticed by pro surfing fans, even though it shouldn't. For all the whining we hear from mollycoddled pros and marketing experts about how broken the sport of pro surfing is, it's worth noting, on occasion, how far things have actually come.

After all, 25 years ago this very day pro surfing endured its darkest day ever, as the Op Pro, the single biggest event the world tour had ever known up to that point, literally went up in smoke as a result of a riot.


OP Pro Riots (Televised), 8/31/1986 from JayRock on Vimeo.

The blow to surfing's image compelled ASP tour director Ian Cairns to resign in disgust, as he felt the incident set surfing back by 10 years. Cairns had reason to be depressed. After spending the better part of a decade laying the foundation for America's eventual takeover of the ratings and fertilizing the birth of the modern day surf industry, Cairns fled back to his Western Australian home.

Whether Cairns' timeline was correct is arguable, but what's not is that pro surfing has endured, and even thrived despite all its political pitfalls, grunt and grovel locations, multi-tiered rankings, and bitchy, whiny, mollycoddled athletes.

We needn't look much further than this past week, and the coming one. On Monday we witnessed pro surfing nirvana, with perfect Teahupoo being dominated by Kelly Slater, one of the most respected athletes on the planet. And as the Quiksilver Pro, the first pro surfing event with a million dollar purse, gets underway next week in New York City (a surf scene that hardly existed 25 years ago) some lucky pro is going to take home 300 thousand bucks by spending a few days unleashing hacks and landing aerial reverses in beachbreak slop, which, by the way, is what a lot of today's progressive surfers actually prefer surfing in.

Need more context? Well, back in 1986, there were (maybe) three surfers making over one hundred grand a year: Tom Curren, Tom Carroll, and Shaun Tomson. Today, most surfers in the top 100 make that much, and pro surfing's millionaire club is growing larger each year despite the economic slowdown.

For those, like me, who keep tabs on trivial little things like surfing's highs and lows, it's frankly pretty amusing to hear all the bitter chatter about what's wrong with pro surfing. Frankly, I have zero empathy for today's brand of whining pro. The sport has never been perfect, and it likely never will be. But it is the backbone of a pretty nice livelihood these days, which sure as hell beats a 9 to 5 job. Last time I checked just having one of those is a blessing in this climate.

If today's prima donnas want to tear up their winning lottery tickets because the oppression they have to endure is just too painful, they should savor what little time left they have with people caring about them, then enjoy your road to irrelevance.

They would be better served to take from Slater's page. His continued success is due almost entirely to his positive attitude. When Slater had his issues with the ASP, he did his part to institute change by throwing his weight around. Arguably it worked. Today he's having more fun than ever, and is utterly aware of how fortunate he is to live the life he's living.

Part of that, I tend to think, is because he remembers how things were in 1986. Kelly was already relevant then as an highly-touted amateur with visions of grandeur. Today, he's our last link to generation of surfers who tilled the soil and planted the seeds that -- today -- producing some pretty sweet fruit.

Kelly Slater is six months away from his 40th birthday. He's the second-oldest surfer on the ASP World Tour. So when he arrived to surf the US Open of Surfing again this year we assumed it was to satisfy his obligatory public relations duties for Quiksilver and the ASP.

After all, the US Open is a Prime event that doesn't count toward this year's world title race, and while it's true ASP world tour surfers are required to surf in one Prime event in their region, Slater just skipped J-Bay, so a wrist slap from the ASP is the last of his concerns.

But once Slater survived a scary early-round heat on Tuesday in horrible conditions we should have seen this victory coming.

That's because on Thursday a nice hurricane swell dramatically improved conditions. The waves at Huntington Pier actually started looking good with 4-to-5 foot A-frames pouring through, and that's all it really takes for Slater to enter his most dangerous mode of all: the fun mode.

Throughout the event Kelly kept a close eye on the young guns (many half his age) who allegedly had an advantage in beachbreak conditions. While carrying on conversations with friends in the athlete lounge he was subliminally gauging all the acrobatic moves being thrown in the water (and the scores being given).

Early on in the event, Slater's above-the-lip behavior might have easily been perceived as tame compared to his younger rivals. Nevertheless, it was still solid, and when it came to everything else (read: linking his moves, crisp clean cutbacks, lightning-quick snaps, all around aesthetics) he was unmatched.

Meanwhile Slater's would-be rivals wasted no time showing their hands. There was no strategic pacing or planning. They simply unveiled all they had from the get go.

Slater didn't.

He got progressively better, throwing bigger above the lip moves with each passing round.

Slater's backside aerial 360 against Dusty Payne in the semifinal was arguably the best move ever pulled in US Open history, and it couldn't have come at a better time. Slater and Payne were locking horns the entire heat, but Kelly's come-from-behind Hail Mary of a move gave the crowd exactly what they wanted: one more good reason to roar for Kelly Slater.

This year, that's what the Nike US Open of Surfing was really all about, because after clinching his remarkable 10th world title back in November, well, who really knows whether this is his farewell tour or not?


If that is so this was the perfect place for Slater to say "thank you" to his adoring U.S. fans who, let's face it, don't really get to see him in action up close and personal often. And after all Kelly's done for the sport of surfing he deserved this day. A day with a Goodyear blimp overhead, tens of thousands of fans on the beach cheering, live television cameras rolling.

Add some mainstream love from the likes of Sports Center, national newspapers and the Yahoo front page and all in all it's not a bad week for pro surfing... You might even say it was the best.

Kelly Slater is pro surfing's reigning world champion with seemingly nothing left to prove. After all, since clinching his tenth world title last year even renowned sports pundits have actually debated whether Slater might be the best athlete of all time. Way back in 1992 he ushered in a new era of high performance surfing to win his first world title at the age of 20. Today, 39-year-old Slater has owned his sport for two decades.

His reign is all the more impressive considering there's been no shortage of young (read: half his age) surfing acrobats vying to knock him off. Today's young army of talent is by far the most threatening, and conditions at the Nike US Open of Surfing, held in Huntington Beach, Calif., usually favor that nimble set...But don't tell Slater that.


In perfect surf that arrived on California shores Friday by way of a tropical hurricane off Mexico, surf fans were treated to some of the best performances ever seen at The Open. The acrobats, led by California's Dane Reynolds, 17-year-old Kolohe Andino, Aussie powerhouse Taj Burrow and Hawaiian Dusty Payne, repeatedly got the crowd on its feet. But nobody delighted more than Slater, who did his part by scoring the two of the best waves of the day, and one of the biggest aerials of his career.

"I've been competing here since I was 12-years-old and I've never seen it this good," says Slater. "I got two sweet barrels -- at Huntington! -- and probably the biggest air of my life." Slater finished with two 9's, and moved directly to the quarterfinals. If conditions hold Slater could even nab his first US Open win since 1996.

Update Aug 7: Kelly Slater went on to win The Open, and take the $100,000 prize in front of a massive California crowd Sunday. In a way, the win is a long-overdue victory lap for Slater. Since winning his 10th world title back in November of 2010, this was his first time competing in front of his legions of US mainland fans, as most pro surfing events take place internationally in remote locations.

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