By Hillard Grossman

 

“This feels like the end.”

Thirty minutes before the clock struck midnight Monday evening in Cocoa Beach, Kelly Slater’s time on the World Surf Tour as a full-time competitor, spanning 35 years, was, emotionally, ticking away in Western Australia.

“As far as emotions, it’s almost hitting me,” said Slater, 52, just 10 years from possibly picking up his first Social Security check. “It’s right there bubbling.”

Waves simply flattened out during the final few minutes of his 11.87-6.17 loss to California’s top-ranked Griffin Colapinto, 25, America’s newest hard-charging surfer and one of the Olympic representatives this year. It’s a spot Slater still covets, but it’s the one milestone he might never achieve.

After 11 world championships (the last in November 2011) and 56 major titles (the last in January 2022 at Hawaii’s Pipeline just before turning 50), Slater failed to survive this year’s WSL’s mid-season cut, lagging in 33rd place (11 spots off the re-qualifying mark).

“Everything comes to an end,” said Slater, after getting a celebratory “chair ride” on the shoulders of a couple of local Australian buddies up the famous beach stairwell at Margaret River, usually reserved for the contest winners.

“If you don’t adapt, you don’t survive,” he said. “My motivation just has not quite been there to really put in that 100 percent that everyone is doing now.”

Earlier in the day, Slater turned in a solid performance with an array of maneuvers, including a couple of huge, sweeping turns and even tucking into one of his trademark barrels.

His highest score of the day was a 7.17, good enough to place second in his three-man elimination heat to advance. But, another third-round setback, his fourth in four appearances this year, doomed his chances for another full-time season on the tour after having been granted a full wild-card season this past year due to injuries.

“I couldn’t quite pull a miracle off this week; I pulled a few off over the years,” said Slater, knowing he needed an 8.2 score to advance. “And I still had that hope out there. Even with a minute to go, I thought, ‘one might pop up.’ ” he said, smiling.

Slater tried to hold back his emotions when asked what he would tell his family back home after all these years.

After a moment of reflection, he said: “It’s just so much emotion, for so long, so much dedication. And, you know, it’s not all roses, you know. But, this is the best times of my life and I know my family is home watching. I love you guys.”

 

 

During the off-season, Slater underwent a reported seven-hour hip surgery and said he used adrenaline to overcome most of the pain. His first two events this year, in Hawaii, showed he still had that magnificent Slater style, but his turns just weren’t as sharp.

Now, he’s ready for the next chapter, recently putting one of his homes in Hawaii on sale for a reported $20 million.

And, if there’s any bright side to being removed from the tour, it’s the fact he and longtime girlfriend Kalani Miller are expecting a baby boy in about three months.

“As far as planning it out and the timing, this works out fairly well … now, just get prepared for a little different lifestyle,” he said.

Slater said he has filed for a wild-card entry to one of his favorite venues, in Fiji, in late August, so expect him to get a few more invitations along the way. The way he figures it, as a wild card, he’s likely to face Colapinto again.

“And I’ll pay him back,” he said, jokingly.

The deeply tanned, blond kid from Cocoa Beach High, who sat on the beach off North 3rd Street (now Kelly Slater Way), studying the patterns of waves for hours and hours, according to his mother, Judy, emerged as the sport’s icon, a bronze statue at the north entrance to the city’s central business district further cementing his legacy.

Will the men’s surfing tour be as popular without him? Probably not.

When the tour resumes in Tahiti in late May, technically, it will be the first time since 1983 that a Brevard County surfer will not grace the men’s lineup of a major circuit as we know it today.

Matt Kechele, who operates his own line of surfboards off US-1 in Melbourne, made an impressive five-year run on the Association of Surfing Professionals Tour, starting in 1983, before later being joined by the Cocoa Beach trio of Charlie Kuhn, Ritchie Rudolph and Todd Holland, the 1987 ASP Rookie of the Year.

Slater made his full-time entrance to the circuit in 1991 and won the first of his 11 world titles a year later at age 20, before winning five in a row from 1994-98.

Since that time, there’s been the likes of Matt Kechele, Danny Melhado, David Speir, twins CJ and Damien Hobgood, and Bryan Hewitson who have led the local charge. Now, without Slater, there certainly will be a void.

“It’s hard to believe,” said Kechele, who once took a 13-year-old Slater and his brother, Sean, to Hawaii for the first time to introduce him to the fierce Pipeline waves. “It’s been really fun to watch, and kind of hard to digest that we’re not gonna be seeing him at all these events.

“I don’t know why it’s different now. He’s said long ago he’s gonna retire (even taking a little break from 1999-2001), but I guess it’s because he became such a figurehead of the sport, a monumental stature, for so long … now, I think it really hits home, and it’s hard to absorb that this is real.

“I’m pretty sure Brevard will be a mainstay for him … I know he loves the golf courses here,” Kechele said with a smile.

“It’s the start of something else, the start of the rest of my life,” Slater said. “I have had such incredible luck and good fortune over the years and it’s so tied into my surfing … it’s been fun to be over 50 and still mixing it up with the guys. …

“It’s been an incredible lifetime of memories.”