Bill to support public high school surf teams advances

When California declared surfing its official state sport in 2018, some complained Hawaii, the birthplace of surfing, had been snaked — to use a term for grabbing someone else’s wave.

But in August, Hawaii reasserted its supremacy when native daughter Carissa Moore won the first-ever Olympic surfing gold medal at the Tokyo Summer Games.

Now the state has a chance to support future local champions as envisioned in House Bill 2277, which would appropriate funds to make surfing an official high school sport of the Hawaii High School Athletic Association.

“I think surfing being a part of the school system would be a great idea,” Moore, 29, testified Tuesday via Zoom before the House Committee on Education, which went on to pass the bill.

“Hawaii is the birthplace of surfing, and it’s brought me so much joy and taught me so many valuable lessons in life, (including) how to balance school and athletics,” said the five-time world champion.

Moore also noted that the ocean is “a good place for kids to find some mental peace in stressful situations, (as it has been) for me during this time of COVID.”

While Gov. Neil Abercrombie named surfing as an official school sport in 2011, it is currently only an accredited high school team sport on Maui, where public and private high school students surf in Maui Interscholastic League contests.

On Oahu, surfing remains a club sport among a handful of schools in the Oahu Interscholastic Association and Interscholastic League of Honolulu, which both compete under the Hawaii Surfing Association.

“Carissa; her dad, Chris; and I have been pushing for high school surfing for more than 10 years,” Keith Ame­miya, a former HHSAA executive director, said Tuesday in a phone interview.

“One hurdle was cost and this bill will address that,” said Amemiya, now executive director of the Central Pacific Bank Foundation.

“I’m optimistic that private funding from corporate sponsors will also help with the expenses of running these competitions,” he added.

In written comments on behalf of the state Department of Education, Keith Hayashi, interim schools superintendent, said the department appreciated the appropriations “but asks that any additional funding does not affect the Department’s top budget priorities to restore funds that were reduced as a result of the fiscal fallout from COVID-19.”

Hayashi said DOE has been developing high school surfing since 2005, and the Board of Education approved a policy establishing surfing as a high school sport in 2016, but expressed concerns about safety risks, accessibility “and the inability to control the practice environment.”

Rep. Jackson Sayama (D, St. Louis Heights-Palolo- Maunalani Heights- Wilhelmina Rise-Kaimuki), who introduced the bill, said the measure’s sponsors were discussing an appropriation amount with DOE and that while he understood the concerns, “there are already sports being played that have huge liability issues.”

He noted, “We’ve seen how Maui has been able to implement interscholastic surfing, and plan to model off of that.”

Jackson said he introduced the bill because “Carissa Moore lives in Palolo, so she’s a constituent, and because when she won the Olympics, it occurred to me I’d never seen a local surfing tournament among DOE schools,” and thought it was time for the state to provide support.

Next, he said, if HB 2277 passes a floor vote in the House, it will go before the Finance Committee.