A SHORT HISTORY
See also suggested Guidelines of the Coalition of Surf Clubs Before I start this information sheet I would like to confess to failing memory. If anyone knows of any information that needs to be corrected or added please send it to me via foot print in the sand. Bruce King, fax number 760-945-1743. Thank you. Welcome to the Rider Quality Recorder's (RQR) site for Coalition of Surf Clubs on the World Wide Web. I suppose you are wondering just what RQR is. It is a group that has been formed to judge coalition of surfing events. Each member has many years of surfing and judging experience within the Coalition of Surf Clubs (CSC) contest arena in the past 20 years. For a little historical explanation... The hay day of California surfing and surf clubs took place in the 50's and 60's. It began to die out with the emergence of the short board. In the late 70's and early 80's some of the old surf clubs started to see a rebirth of the California long board, a renaissance at that time. Clubs like Santa Cruz Surf Club, now the Santa Cruz Long Board Union, Swami's Surfing Associations (SSA), Malibu Surfing Associations (MSA), Oceanside Long Board Surf Club (OLSC), Big Stick (SBSC), and the Fog Dogs to name a few. They began reforming their ranks along with some new names. In the 90's old clubs were rekindled and new ones formed. Such as Malibu Board riders (MBR), Doheny Long Board Surfing Associations (DLSA), Pacific Beach (PBSC), and the infamous Windansea Surf Club (WSC). Things were different this time around, the surf clubs seemed to have a better outlook and more in common than when they first came on the scene. The importance was to preserve the freedom of surfing as a way of life, an art form, and maintain the quality of the ocean for future generations. The concern was real, everyone with any time surfing had noticed just how fast the ocean was being killed and was going down the tube fast. In 1985 the Clean Ocean against Escondido and their water treatment was lead by surfer, Richard McManus. The effort was supported by surf contests and by outfall upgraded to secondary from primary. With these and other projects up and down the California coast, a ground swell of awareness was soon taking place and being supported primarily by organizations like the Surf Rider Foundation and the surf clubs of California. In 1983 Santa Cruz Long Board Union (SCLU) lead by Dennis Taku and Boots McGee, and the Oceanside Long Board Surf Club (OLSC) lead by Kenny Stocks got together for a surf contest; club vs. club. It turned out to be the 1st club invitational since the 1960's contest at Malibu, the MSA Club Invitational, which was the 1st of its kind on the planet. The SCLU invitational contest was held at Steamers Lane and soon was considered to be the premier long board contest in the world for professionals or amateurs. They ran 6 man, 15 minute heats, definitely the toughest. And with 360 surfers, the largest in the world. A year later OLSC started its long, and still running, individual format contest at the Oceanside Pier. In 1987 the Malibu Surfing Associations (MSA) put on what started out as a club on club event between MSA (Dru Lewis) and Swami's Surfing Association (SSA) (Bruce King) at Malibu. Which turned out to be the first club Invitational since the original club event held in the 60's. Next, in 1991 the Board Riders (MBR) held their event at Malibu and Swami's (SSA) held theirs at Cardiff Reef. In 1992 Doheny (DLSA) put on their club event at Salt Creek at Church's. In 1998 Windansea put on their event in San Miguel, Mexico. All these events are club invitational two day events. They make up what is now the Coalition Contest Circuit. The largest long board contest circuit in the world, and probably the best, for sure the most fun! Something some people seem to forget. CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE | | CONTINUED... In the beginning the contest results at Santa Cruz and Malibu were a little blurred because of judging discrepancies. The judges were picked from the participating clubs, which at times produced a bias towards their won club. This created a creditability gap. To counter act this rising gap was one of the reasons the RQR's were formed. Long boarding seemed to be at the high point. In 1991 the Professional Long Board Association (PLA) was formed with mostly young surfers from the Coalition ranks. The PLA was formed by Bob and Rita Bohanan. The major reason was to help young surfers go professional by creating a venue dedicated to them. This was just what they needed. But sadly it only lasted 5 years, because of a few rotten thieves, which you can find anywhere I guess. By this time the clubs were, without a doubt, producing the best long board surfers in the world. There are too many men you may have never heard about, but they are great examples of the quality of you surfers the coalition is creating today. Talent beyond comparison and great watermen. The only venue left for boys like these was the Australian Surfing Professionals (ASP), which is pretty much a short board contest with a long board side show event. They are given the lowest prize money of any division, and are being judged by short boarders who don't know the first thing about long boarding. Some of them don't even know how to surf at all. And definitely have no idea what a waterman is. In trying to judge a surfer on their wave skills you should be able to perform some maneuvers yourself in order to appreciated the difficulty. Such as hanging five, ten or even a simple turn. The surfers today are of such a high skill level that they make it look easy, which is even harder to judge what is happening in the water. Because of these problems, the bias of the short board community and their sponsors, we started to see the downfall of soulful, stylish surfing in general. So to preserve the roots and make the Coalition Contests competition more creditable for the young surfers The Ride Quality Recorders (RQR) was formed in 1999. In 1992 the Coalition of Surf Clubs (CSC) was formed. With these objectives in mind: To enhance communications and camaraderie among the surf clubs and to promote the soul and spirit of surfing and clean environment. About the same time, people started to show concerns about the rules of the CSC surf events. They were all different, some thought it would be nice to make the events a little more constant if possible. So in 1993 I gave a lot of effort and a lot of time spent talking to members at coalition meetings and at contests from San Diego to Santa Cruz for about four years. Then the Coalition finally adopted a set of rules that everyone agreed upon. The are called Suggested Guidelines, not rules, there are 11 such guidelines, and they are listed within this history. The idea is the judges must be respected long board surfers with above average surfing skills and with 2-3 years of proven judging experience on the stand at Coalition Contests events. The RQRs are now the back bone of the CSC events. The RQRs have worked out extremely well over the last 3 years of their existence. The results are as fair and as good as it gets in surfing. The RQR crews are without a doubt the best judges in long and short board history. I would like to thank the CSC and the RQRs for their efforts and energy for the "Sport of Kings." May the young and old surf together forever. If anyone is interested in hiring a RQR crew for judging, at surf events or needs directions on how to produce an event, please contact: Bruce King, Founder and Director
Ride Quality Recorders
A Respective of the Coalition of Surfing Clubs
Fax 760.945.1743 |
