This article was published as a guest editorial in the Summer 1977 issue of Surf magazine. Gary Filosa

 a Vermont-raised surf contest promoter and organizer during the 1970s, and president of his self-founded American Surfing Association, is among the sport's most erratic and provocative figures—but his efforts to bring surfing to the attention of Olympic organizers were tireless, and to that end he got further than anyone before him. This version of "Olympics at Last" has been slightly edited and shortened.

The last weekend in September of this year at Huntington Beach, California, Mrs. Duke Kahanamoku, the widow of the father of our modern sport, will fly from Honolulu to toss a lei into the California waters and thereby initiate for the first time in the history of surfing an All American National Surfing Championship. Our sport will have All American Surfers just as other sports have had All American athletes for generations.

As the officially recognized national nonprofit governing authority for amateur surfing in the 50 states and territories, and as a full member of the United States Amateur Athletic Federation, the ASA has the power to create All American Surfers. As the guardian of amateurism in surfing, the ASA must also educate the American surfing community as to what an amateur athlete is. Any high school or college coach in any sport can quickly explain amateurism, which, basically means that an amateur athlete surfer has never accepted any money or material benefit for surfing, has never permitted his or her name or photograph to appear in any surfing advertisement, either in a magazine or on radio or television, and has never competed in the same contest with a professional surfer. A professional surfer, of course, has done and can do all of these things. They can endorse products, appear in advertisements, and accept cash or other prizes.

A surfer, whether on the team at the University of Rhode Island or the University of Hawaii, must be an amateur by ASA standards which are also the AAU standards and Olympic standards. It is important that all surfers learn and respect the rules of amateurism because after we achieve All American status this fall, we must work together to achieve Olympic status in the future. Rob Hill, surfing coach at Huntington Beach High School, the first high school in America to give letters for surfing, and who is chairman of the ASA Western Conference, believes we can be an Olympic sport by 1984. Olympic surfing was the lifelong dream of the Duke, and in reverence to the late father of surfing, all of us by working together can make his dream come true. The Duke himself was, of course, a great Olympic swimmer.

The days of "Pro-Am" contests in surfing are over. Whenever an amateur surfs in a meet with a professional, he becomes a professional — and cannot look forward to All American status. A surfing organization which is 

 nonprofit is automatically professional, and all the members thereof are professionals, so be careful to join only nonprofit amateur bodies.

The 12 men and women surfers who will become All American Surfers this fall will constitute the All American Surfing Team, the team which in the future days of amateur surfing, will represent our nation at the quadrennial Olympiads. It is the amateur surfer who is the future of surfing. After all, 99.99% of all surfers are amateurs, just a few are professionals. But that is true of all American sports and is in the mainstream of our American sports tradition. The OJ Simpsons of the amateur waves of today will be the professional OJ Simpsons of tomorrow. Thus surfing evolves, to use a phrase of the greatest of ancient surfers, King Kamehameha Nui, who united all the islands into the Kingdom of Hawaii, “a sport for all the young athletes of the nation."

"THE OLYMPICS AT LAST," BY GARY FILOSA (1977)

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