When I first learned to surf there was one way to go. You started on a mini mal (what you guys in the States know as fun boards) then progress to a short board. I was lucky, as shortly after standing up for the first time on my 7,6 pop out the whole longboard resurgence kicked in and I never had to try and ride a little pointy thing! I was obsessed with the 60s and riding like Phil Edwards but struggled to get the boards. Stewart was King and guys like Jeff Kramer, Joey Hawkins and of course Herbie Fletcher were the big names. At the time I was obsessed with heavy 60s style boards and didn’t really appreciate what those guys were doing. Years later I felt a certain nostalgia for those early 90s ‘performance longboards’ and started riding lighter more rockered out 2+1 finned 9 footers. I came across an old VHS player and dug out my old videos from 25 years back. I found Cure For The Summertime Blues and settled in with a cold one to watch Joey Hawkins rip up HB. I was blown away! Utterly and completely blown away!
Joey had an amazing raw athleticism and was a truly gifted young surfer. He was just magic on his Wave Tools longboard. I started to realise what an injustice Joey had to suffer. The only Huntington Beach surfer to ever win a world title, the guy never even got interviewed. Every old guy from the 60s has a star in the sidewalk there except Joey. He was completely shut out by the controlling forces in longboarding at that time. These old ‘legends’ and their protege wonder kids wanted longboarding stuck in the 60s. Why?..because they saw a second bite at the commercial cherry and all hastily re released their shticks…their 60s model (limited run, numbered and signed by the legend himself of course…)
I’m sorry to have bored you and to have laboured my point. I only wish I could tell Joey how damn good he was, how underrated and misjudged and how badly treated by our longboard community he has been, no wonder he has suffered so many hard times since his World Championship win all those years ago.
Thank you for letting me use this platform to send out my support and respect to Joey.
Hey thanks Bill…an odd posting I know but just something I feel strongly about.
If there are any HB guys out there that know what’s happening with Joey these days I’d love to hear from you.
Joey was one of my favourite progressive longboarders, along with Rocky Mc Kinnon, another HB guy. Must be something about Huntington Beach! So many great surfers and shapers hail from there.
Good post, glad to see people share the things they feel strongly about.
From what I heard, Sion Milosky ran into the same problem when he was a competitive longboarder - used to break all the classic longboarding style rules, the contest judges didn’t appreciate his style, too progressive. As we know, he eventually left longboarding and got into to big wave riding…
I doubt Joey Hawkins was ever underrated or misunderstood…(lol)…how many world longboard titles …2 … or 3 ? . He was (IMO) the thin end of the wedge for the progressive movement of longboarding… he was also the public face of the corporate status quo that hijacked the whole of global surfing through the 80’s , and were very scared of the resurgence of traditional longboard surfing in it’s own right , and it’s growing global popularity. They have now been forced to acknowledge the great contributions the came from the 50’s , 60’s (and earlier) through their own financial self interest , rather that genuine appreciation of what surfing is… corporate surfing has only one master - the bottom line…if someone wants to ride a 6’ thruster shortboard , with 3ft stuck on the front , it’s totally their choice… but as Joel Tudor once said “why bother , just ride a shortboard”
So the winning approach to competitive longboarding is now the classic style, as opposed to the modern style? That’s news to me, but I’d be happy if it were so.
(opinions are the gluten that bonds discussion forums… gratuitous, possibly unhealthy, but makes things nice and chewy)
Hey Kayu, maybe you are confusing Joey with another progressive longboarder? Perhaps Rusty K ? Joey only won the one time, France in '92 I believe it was. He took down Joel to win the World Title. Whether or not we like progressive, traditional or whatever, my point was that it was a legitimate win and yet he returned home to…nothing. My question is why?
Joeys style reflected the times, airbrushed lightly glassed rockered out barely ‘legal’ modern longboards and day-glo wetsuits. I think enough time has gone by to look at that period objectively. It makes me smile when I hear people quote Tudor… “If I wanted to surf like that I’d go grab a shortboard”, “One country one God one fin”, " I think 360s are lame". at the same time young Boris was saying this he was pictured in LongBoard Quarterly (as it was then) doing helicopter 360s on a 2+1 finned modern longboard, his long bleached hair half way down his back. Yeh…ok Joel.
I happen to like watching Tudor surf. I also like watching Bonga, Beau, Wingnut, Tom Wegener, Jimmy Gamboa etc… I believe good surfing is just that, good surfing. You know it when you see it and it doesn’t matter if it’s done on a 40lb single fin Dave Sweet, a high performance lightweight longboard or a 70s single fin beak nosed Lightning Bolt.
No other surfer has been so badly treated and overlooked for his achievements as Joey Hawkins. Fact.
Also I don’t agree that they have been forced to “acknowledge the great contributions that came from the 50s and 60s and earlier”. I’m sure they knew their surf history. They were hot young kids who didn’t want to longboard like their dads…it was their time. The same way Fran Heath and the Hot Curl crew didn’t want to ride wide assed redwoods, the same way Bob Simmons didn’t want to ride heavy Redwood/Balsa Pacific Homes Swastika boards , the same way the Malibu chip guys went their way and later Dave Sweet and Hobie and Co went to foam.
Ok sorry…I’m boring myself now but that’s my point. I love traditional (however you want to interpret that) surfing and admire many of its exponents. I also love to see a talented guy mixing it up on a modern longboard. Whoever it is and whatever they ride I just think they deserve some recognition if they win a world title and Joey didn’t get that. It’s always bothered me and I’ve always felt for the guy. He’s suffered problems over the years as have many of us and I guess I hoped that somehow he might just happen to read this thread and know that people do remember him fondly.
Joey Hawkins was a great talent , probably on any equipment…the fly in the ointment was always business interests who use elite sports people as commodities , rather than having some respect for them…the fact remains that through that period of longboard resurgence , the corporate hijackers of all things surfing , were scared , when confronted with something they didn’t own and control… so they used every trick in the book to consolidate their stolen ownership of global surfing… no matter how much collateral damage it caused to surfing itself , or any surfers that were involved and used by them.
Hey Kayu…point taken, I see where you are coming from. I guess I see the same corporate manipulation but from a different angle. I always felt that progressive form of longboarding didn’t fit in with the way certain influential figures from the 60s era wanted surfing to go. IMO these ‘legendary’ board builders and their followers wanted to take surfing back to the original longboard era for their own commercial interests. If you were a respected board builder in the 60s who saw a chance to turn a buck re issuing that ‘famous model board’ for big money to the original baby boomers and their disposable incomes the last thing you would want would be Joey Hawkins, Jeff Kramer etc popularising progressive surfing…right? Wrong?
It was just what was popular at the time I guess, and still is in the competitive format, the 50-50 criteria. Personally I was watching the old Bruce Brown movies at the time and lamenting the fact I couldn’t get a heavy log with a rolled bottom, 50-50 rails and a big old glassed-on fin. The same way I refused to drive a modern car at that time and insisted on driving 30 year old classics. Ah…nostalgia…it’s overrated! Ha ha…
Perhaps given 25 years everything appears nostalgic? Post modern Stewart Jeff Kramer models with traction pads will be on display in surf museums …well…if any ever survived ! Ha ha.
One last thought though… If you represented your country in a world Title competition abroad and came home victorious wouldn’t you feel a little bitter if everyone ignored you instead? The President shakes your hand but the town council don’t invite you to put your hand in the cement on the Sidewalk walk of fame? No one interviews you? No one sponsors you or even offers you a job?
I really hope I live long enough to see Joey Hawkins get the recognition he deserves. HB has a bust of the Duke (he visited) handprints of Mark Martinson (he won the US Surfing Championship once) and The late Jack Hailey (well known surfer and shop owner in the 60s era) but not their own World Champion???
Joey Hawkins, Jeff Kramer, Kevin Conelly(sp), Josh Baxter. All are great surfers. They were at their best though when they mixed it up with traditional Longboarding. Someone mentioned the 80’s. There wasn’t any money in contests and Media, sponorship etc. until the mid or late 90’s. There are 15 year old kids at Malibu that make Phil Edwards, Lance Carson, Dora etc. look like hodad kooks. Rocky and Joey rode Wave Tools (Lance Collins) Lance is sooo overlooked. One of the best. Lowel
Rad thread. I had two Joey Hawkins models and was part of the Lance cult back then. A couple of comments, observations whatever you want to call it…
Those boards Lance shaped for Joey was what made me WANT to longboard. They looked insane and completely out of step with the times. It was totally uncool to longboard in Newport and HB then so I knew I had to do it. Joey and Lance took shit behind their backs from the “progressive shortboarders & longboarders” and over-opinionated nazis posing as “soul surfers.” These same idiots calling these boards “rockered out barely ‘legal’ modern longboards” didn’t know what the f*ck they were talking about. These boards were made out of neccessity for steep, fast beachbreak waves. Lance knew better than anyone how to make a 9’ board fit into waves like that and perform. And still does.
As for the “controlling interest” of longboarding at that time it was the Stewart clones and close-minded, short-haired hippies. The “big deal” back then was the first published photo of someone (Jeff Kramer? Colin McPhillips?) doing an “air” on a longboard. It was weak sauce compared to the aggressive, vertical surfing by Joey. Plus, people north or south of Newport and HB hate surfers from that area and Joey was an HB guy. A big reason for him being overlooked in my opinion.
Years back I heard Joey was having some troubles. I hope he is well. And you’re right, he does deserve a star in his home town.
We could argue all day about what was “progressive” back then. Who cares. As I remember it, the most radical longboards at that time were from Lance, Herbie Fletcher and Bob Pearson.
