I had dinner with Ken Goring last night, who was a grom in Maui like 30 years ago, and he gave me some interesting tidbits of grom surf history way back in Maui. Let’s get some more tidbits of Maui Surf history in this topic.
- Matt Kinoshita (@kazuma) single handedly crushed Ken’s hopes of becoming a professional surfer. Matt went on to become something like national champion, but focused more building boards and coaching than competing.
- Justin Roberson was by far the best Maui surfer of that time.
- Mike Crowe, now a SWAT team cop who still surfs the Point at Hookipa was the 3rd standout.
A bit of Googling confirmed these facts with this super fun slide deck from SurfLine:
Maui, Hawaii is a Breeding Ground for top international talent
Here’s a quote from the slide deck (or text version):
“Mike Crowe was the first pro from Maui, absolutely,” says Kinoshita. He had some good results on Oahu, got some magazine coverage. Mike was our hero – the first to leave and become a pro surfer. Justin Roberson was the second, and I was the third. It was almost impossible to get sponsored back then. Justin would just show up on the Mainland with no place to stay, sleep on the beach in his boardbag on the North Shore, whatever it took to be able to surf the big-name spots. Mike and Justin really paved the way for everybody else here. And they sacrificed a lot to make a name for themselves.
Roberson died in an automobile accident in 1989, but not before cementing his cult hero alongside the Fletcher boys in the hugely popular Astrodeck videos of the day. In Wave Warriors IV, the caption “Who’s Justin Roberson?” precedes his futuristic act while subtly mocking the surfing world’s ignorance about Maui’s holdings.
