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Friendly, intense, utterly dominant bodyboarder and bodysurfer from Kailua-Kona, on the Big Island of Hawaii; nine-time bodyboarding world champion (1983, 1985, 1987–92, 1995). "Stewart has transcended the bodyboarding genre," sports journalist Bruce Jenkins wrote in 1991. "His performances have established him as one of the best surfers in the world, period."

Stewart was born (1963) in Honolulu, raised in nearby Nuuanu, started bodysurfing at age four and bodyboarding regularly at 13. He moved with mother to the Big Island in 1976, not far from the home of Morey Boogie inventor and expatriate California surfer Tom Morey, who became the wiry blond teenager's father figure and part-time employer. Often riding alone in the late '70s and early '80s, Stewart developed a progressive new set of maneuvers, including the aerial 360. Many of the top bodyboards at the time used a half-standing drop-knee stance; Stewart (6' 0", 165 pounds) remained prone, continued to string together ever-more complex moves, and learned how to ride deeper inside the tube than anybody in the sport.

The smartest person in the room as a rule, Stewart attended the University of Southern California for two years in the early '80s, dropped out, became one of bodyboarding's original professionals, and by the early '90s was earning more than $100,000 a year in prize money and sponsorship retainers. Easygoing in most circumstances, Stewart nonetheless earned a reputation as a both ruthless and cunning competitor, and, when pushed, as a relentless brawler. "I've got that in me," Stewart once said. "I will go totally psycho."

In 1987, Stewart became the first and only bodyboarder to receive a full-length 

 magazine profile; the magazine followed up in 1991 with an article titled "Is Mike Stewart the Best Surfer in the World?" Most 

 readers agreed that Stewart's performances were astounding. But some, speaking for the bigoted tens of thousands who regard the easy-to-learn sport of bodyboarding as a crowd-making pestilence on surfing, dismissed him as a "spongerider" or "speedbump." Meanwhile Stewart-invented maneuvers such as aerial flips and barrel rolls were inspirational to New School surfers like Kelly Slater and Shane Dorian.

Stewart and fellow Hawaiian bodyboarder Ben Severson are credited as the first to ride bigger surf at Tahiti's Teahupoo in the late '80s; in the early '90s, Stewart was the first bodyboarder to ride 20-foot-plus waves on the outer reefs of Oahu's North Shore; in 1993 he became the first bodyboarder to ride Jaws on Maui. Stewart spent seven days following a big southern hemisphere-spawned swell in mid-1996 as it moved northward, riding first in Tahiti, then on to Hawaii, Southern California, and central California, finally ending up in Alaska.

Stewart also took up competitive bodysurfing, and was just as dominant in that discipline as he was in bodyboarding; he won the prestigious Pipeline Bodysurfing Classic 13 times between 1991 and 2014. The praise he received had a familiar ring: "Bodysurfing is the purest and most difficult way to master the act of riding a wave," former pro surfer Chris Malloy noted in 2009, "and most aficionados regard Mike Stewart as the best bodysurfer there has ever been." Meanwhile, as of 2014, Stewart, at age 51, remained a top-ranked professional bodyboarder.

Stewart has appeared in nearly two dozen surf movies and videos, including 

 (2012). He also starred in and co-directed 

 "Fifty Greatest Surfers of All Time" list, between Sunny Garcia (#40) and George Downing (#42).

Science Bodyboards, owned and operated by Mike Stewart, was founded in 1998.

Stewart, Mike

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