How Kelly Slater Dominated Surfing for 40 Years

If I say the two words, Kelly Slater, what do you think? Legendary. Best surfer ever. You're looking at a man who's as important as Muhammad I. Willards. He's beaten them all. I cannot think of another athlete who's matched Slater's genius for such a long period of time. Is that a hard crown to carry? Didn't have the greatest family situation. My parents were fighting a lot. Most surfers don't like Kelly Slater because he sold out. He didn't stay low-key. He's just got this competitor in his own brain that he's trying to beat. I had already been a world champion. I had made over a million dollars in my life at that point, and I was in debt. Once they see him, it's like out of the woodworks. Thousands of people start showing up and surrounding the cars, and it just starts building and pushing in. Look, I haven't been excited about going contest to contest for ten years. You are close to the best athlete ever. You've dominated the sport longer than any other athlete in any other sport. Everyone thinks I have a fairytale life, and in a lot of ways I do, for sure. But in a lot of ways I don't. Cocoa Beach, Florida. At five years old, Robert Kelly Slater would take to the waves for the first time. The middle child of three, the kid proved to be a natural, driven by an intense rivalry with his older brother, Sean. You know what? I'm going to be way better than you at surfing. That's my thing. I'm going to just be as good as I can possibly be. And so I just got really crazy obsessive about it. It didn't take long before Slater was entering competitions, winning his first podium at just eight years old. But... To be honest, there was four kids in that, and I think three of them didn't surf. Alright, so it wasn't exactly his most epic win. But it was glaringly obvious this kid was something special. Ladies and gentlemen, you've just seen some magnificent surfing. You see, Slater wasn't just talented. He was completely reshaping the sport. I had an idea of how I wanted to surf waves, and I wanted to be able to do that. And I didn't see really anyone who surfed that way. You know, the way I thought you should surf. I thought it was a mix of Tom Curran and aerials. Slater and his revolutionary style would dominate the U.S. amateur scene. And at just 12 years old, he would compete in a Pro-Am Super Heat, an open-age free-for-all against the best pro and amateur surfers the East Coast had to offer. And despite being the youngest competitor, he would go on to win the entire event. And at that point, I realized, okay, I'm probably going to have a career out of this, you know. As a teenager, Kelly would win an insane amount, making for some of the most unrelatable problems you've ever heard. When I was an amateur, I probably won about 300 trophies, 200 trophies. And we had them in a pile behind our house from outside, and then we just kind of got tired of looking at them. On the water, Slater was hurtling towards greatness. But behind the scenes, things weren't quite as idyllic. You see, his home life was pretty messed up, stemming from a complex relationship with his alcoholic father. I had a lot of confusion about my dad. It was really affecting my life, you know, it was really hurting me. Because I didn't understand why he drank and why, you know, like he wasn't the dad that, you know, you see on TV in the perfect house, you know what I mean? You read about in a book or whatever. But, you know, that wasn't my dad. That wasn't who he was. His dad's drinking took its toll on his parents' marriage and eventually led to their divorce when he was just 11 years old. Kelly's relationship with his father became distant, leaving his mom to raise her three sons alone. She would pick up work where she could, working as a bartender, firefighter, or cleaner. Basically anything to keep her family afloat. You know, look, I had it better than a lot of kids. Like, I mean, there's homeless people out there. I always had a roof over my head. My mom made it work somehow. She made 500 bucks a week, kept a roof over our head, and fed us and, you know, raised three boys basically on her own. His unstable childhood would fuel his all-out obsession with surfing, as well as a strong disapproval of substances. Anyone who drank or did drugs was basically an idiot. And so I just never got into that kind of thing. All my energy was focused on the physical stuff with surfing. By his mid-teens, Kelly had built a reputation as one of the best surfers in the country. But there was one question everyone wanted to know the answer to. How many more years do you think you're going to surf in amateur competition before you turn pro? I mean, everyone seems to be asking that already. At the age of 18, and still in high school, Slater would eventually make his world tour debut in France, where he would go head-to-head with three-time world champion Tom Curran. Yeah, it is a little intimidating because he is my favorite surfer. I think he's the best in the world. Slater would battle hard in the semifinals against the childhood hero, but Curran would use his superior experience to win the heat and his third world title that same year. But just a few weeks later, Slater would tear up the body-glove surf bout at Trestles. The guy is surfing out of his mind here at Lower Trestles. Finally, the wave collapses around him, but Peter Tannen, that is as good as it gets in professional surfing. Smoking the country's number two and three ranked athletes and claiming the first pro win of his career. Well, you get the feeling this is the first of many checks to come for this young man out of Florida. Over 30 grand the first time out. At just 19 years old, Kelly Slater had already become the biggest commodity in surfing history. He'd just been voted as one of People's Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People and had secured a lucrative multi-million dollar deal with Quicksilver, making him the highest paid professional surfer before he'd even suited up for senior prom. But he wasn't about to let all that go to his head. My mom would always say, if you ever get cocky, I'm going to beat your ass. She was like, I will beat that out of you. And so she would just, and she never was going to beat me. But it was, I had someone keeping me in my lane. And that was important. The fame and fortune came with plenty of perks. He was able to buy a house for his struggling family. But as he quickly discovered, it came at a cost. As his popularity grew, so did the crowds of adoring fanatics and the overwhelming amount of unsolicited fandom on phone calls. I grew up kind of a shy kid and it was, I've always been a little uncomfortable. I've only kind of come to grips with it in recent years, but I have a little bit of social anxiety just when I see people approaching me and stuff, I just get a little bit like, I kind of seize up. The ugly side of fame was also beginning to rear its head. And a French stalker of psychotic proportions had begun waging a three-year campaign, following him around the world, even turning up in his house in Australia. It was really scary though. She would follow me, like in my car she'd see me driving, follow me to an airport or like to a restaurant and then stand two feet away from me and take pictures of me like nonstop. It was really bizarre. Just eight months out of high school, he would begin his first full season on the ASP World Tour, setting his sights on the most ambitious goal of his life. Why set a goal to make the top 16? Why not set a goal to make the top 5 or to hopefully be world champion? Why not just go for it right now? I don't see why I have to wait until I get older. Despite a 30th place finish at the first stop of the season, a silver medal a few weeks later in Sydney catapulted him back into the title contention. That event, it put me in 4th place after that result and I think after that event I knew I could win no world. The championship race was well and truly on. Slater would take a 2nd and 3rd place finish in France before finding his first Tour victory at Osagor, propelling him to the top of the leaderboard. And by the time he turned up in Brazil for the season's penultimate event, Kelly was all but guaranteed the world title. At just 20 years old, he had become the youngest champion in history and only the second American to ever win the world title. This is my life and it's what I do for a living but most of all it's just what I love and I'd be doing it even if I wasn't making money. But little did we know this was just the start of Slater's grand plan. I didn't want to win the world title one time and be done with it. I knew that my bigger goal was to, I wanted to win multiple world titles. By the start of 1993, it looked like Kelly had it all. His first world championship win, over a million dollars in earnings and even a run on the TV show Baywatch. But behind the scenes, all wasn't as it seemed. A lot of personal things going on in my life. Basically my life was in shambles in 93. Shortly after winning the world title, Slater got engaged to his girlfriend but almost immediately the relationship began to deteriorate. And if that wasn't rough enough, after calling the bank to put a deposit on a house he discovered that his account was overdrawn and that he was flat out broke. That classic story, you know, go from rags to sort of riches and then back to rags for a little while before you figure it out. Even his stint on TV wasn't as glamorous as you might think. What do you think Baywatch did for you? Ruined my street credibility. He was only getting paid a few thousand dollars per episode and he was taking some serious heat because of it. A lot of people started calling me a sellout. Totally understandable for, you know, it was just commercializing and, you know, sort of bastardizing what our culture was for a character and that's basically why I quit. Slater was definitely going through some shit. And it showed on the water. The pressure was becoming too much for the young champ. To be honest, I've never really talked about it publicly but I was basically kind of suicidal at one point for a couple of weeks. Within a matter of months, Slater's engagement had been broken off. His financial life was in ruins and he'd gone from being a world champion to fighting for his place on the tour. But as 94 got underway, he was more determined than ever to turn things around. I kind of went on a mission at that point. This year for Kelly, he's dedicated. It's nothing but surfing. Got a lot of high goals set for myself this year. One of the greatest days of my life. It's just, the waves are beautiful, the sun's out, the water's just perfectly blue. Gosh, if I could retire right now, I'd be happy. And you're looking at a fourth world title. I mean, are you unstoppable? Is there any stopping Kelly Slater this year? Congratulations, Mr. Egan. You're the second person this year to beat Slater. It was all up to me to just go win three more heats at that point. I literally just broke down and started crying. I just fell on the ground. I can't believe this is happening right now. Nothing will ever be repeated. Nothing will ever be the same again. There will never be another Kelly Slater. By the end of 1998, Slater was well and truly at the top of his game. He hadn't just matched Mark Richard's record of four consecutive title wins. He had surpassed it, becoming the most decorated surfer in competition history. But just as he was looking to dominate the competitive circuit into the new millennium, Slater announced that he wouldn't be returning for the Tour of 99. I walked away because I just was completely burnt out. I had no desire to surf another heat. You know, I felt like if I went on another year or two, I definitely was going to be maybe done with it forever, because it just wouldn't be attractive. So I took a few years off. But it wasn't just the traveling circus of the World Tour that was eating away at him. Kelly's daughter had been born in 1996, and he had been absent for most of her childhood. I have some residual guilt there, because I'm just not home much, and I don't get to see her that often. Yet despite all that, it was clear he wasn't ready to completely walk away just yet. He would appear as a wild card every year between 1999 and 2001, snagging wins at Pite in 1999 and Teahupo in 2000. He was also keeping busy out of the water, releasing a surfing video game, starting a band with Rob Machado, and landing a handful of cameos in movies and TV shows. After a three-year hiatus, Kelly was ready to mount a full-scale return to pro surfing. And thanks to a year-long wild card, he wouldn't need to suffer the grueling qualifying series to get his spot back. But if he thought the return to the top was going to be easy, he would be sorely mistaken. In Slater's absence, Andy Irons had established himself as the new superpower in 21st century surfing, and it was clear there was no love lost between the former and current champion. That's so good. It became immediately obvious that Slater's comeback wouldn't be the fairytale return, and by the end of the year, Kelly would go without winning a single event, finishing the season in ninth place. Many doubted Slater. You just lost it all. You're over the hill, you're old, you're going bald. But as 2003 got underway, it quickly shaped up as the most epic season in competitive surfing history. Slater and Irons would be neck and neck all year, swapping places at the top of the leaderboard. Being really honest, there's a lot of times where it was just, it was pretty much a two-person tour, and everyone else was just creating the fluff that goes with it. And as the tour drew to a finale, the world title was to be decided at the final event of the year, Pipeline. Well, this is it. It's come down to the final heat of the final event. The Xbox Pipeline Masters, a great world championship battle this year in 2003 between the defending champion, Andy Irons from Hawaii, and the greatest competitive surfer ever, Kelly Slater. For the first time all season, Slater and Irons would go head-to-head in the final. But as the morning of the final came around, it was immediately obvious Kelly wasn't in the right headspace. I walked outside, and I saw a friend of mine, and I just broke down and started crying. He said, what's going on? I'm like, I didn't sleep for one minute last night. I got to try to win a world title today, and I'm like, it's not my day. Sure enough, he would come up short, and Irons pulled off a convincing win to secure his second consecutive world title. Slater was devastated. That was probably one of the most difficult losses I think Kelly ever was able to take. Yet despite suffering the most painful loss of his career, when asked to present his rival with the world title trophy, he stepped up like the true champion he is. One of us had to win, and one of us had to lose, and there couldn't have been a better way. I'm stoked that we both made the final. As the following year rolled around, it was clear Kelly hadn't recovered from that crushing loss at Pipe the year prior. In 04, I was on the tour the whole year like a zombie, basically. I was there, but I wasn't really giving it my best. And it showed. Not only was Andy really battling Kelly for real, but Kelly was literally schooling him. For a third consecutive year, Irons would be crowned world champion. By this point, it had been seven years since Kelly had last won the world title. And to make matters worse, he had never beaten Irons in a man-on-man heat. And as the tour got underway, it was shaping up as another dismal season for the old champ. Kelly takes 17th place. He's lost to two rookies in a row. It is the second worst start of his 14-year career. But all that was about to change. After battling his way to the final in Tahiti, he would land two tens in the final, the perfect score for the first time under ASP's new judging system. Something changed in Kelly after that, and it showed on the scoreboard. He'd stand at the top of the podium another three times that season, pulling a convincing lead over his old rival. And after Irons was unable to seal the deal in Rio, finally, for the first time since 1998, Slater would reclaim his crown. The king is back. The 2005 Fosters ASP world champion, Kelly Slater. One of the best years of my life. Slater looked like a new man, and the wins kept on stacking up. Here I see him just how gnarly he can be when he gets on a roll, and how he literally just... It's so hard to get him off it. Once again, Kelly would become the dominant force in competitive surfing, locking down the world tour between 2005 and 2011 and winning another five titles. And although he would narrowly miss out on the 12th, he almost seemed okay with it. If I can't win the 12th world title, I'll be fine with that, you know? It's not, like, killing me, but it's definitely... It burns me up a little bit how close I was the last two years. As the years rolled by, he would become increasingly plagued with injuries, and as his appetite for competing started to wane, Slater began to appear less regularly in the finals. It's not so much the contest. I don't care about the contest. I really don't care about the contest very much now. It's more just, like, the memories now, and the experiences, and... The richness. The richness to my life. Year after year, it seemed that the question kept popping up. How much longer could you see yourself going? And just when most had written Slater off, in the final event of 2022, something amazing happened. The score is... Kelly Slater has just won his eighth Billabong Pro! Wow! Kelly Slater is back! Just days before his 50th birthday, Slater pulled off one of the greatest wins of his career, winning his eighth Pipe Masters, 11 years after his last world title. You know, I've hated lots of it, but I just savor this, and this is the best one of my life. All good things must come to an end, and in April 2024, Slater would lose his place in the WSL Tour at the mid-season cutoff at Margaret River, signaling the end of an era. But come on. This is Kelly Slater we're talking about. This guy can never stay away for long. Look, if they'd give me the Pipeline or Cloudbreak wildcard for 10 years, I'd take it. Even if he won't be a regular face on the world tour anymore, there's no doubt this guy will go down as one of the greatest athletes of all time, even if he won't admit it. It's an honor that somebody would throw my name around in groups of great athletes, but a lot of it's just hypotheticals. It's not anything tangible. But in my opinion, it's not the 11 world titles, the 56 event wins, or the decades-long domination that makes him so impressive. But rather, it's the high standard he holds himself to and the example that it sets for others. The only good use for fame is to do something good with it, meaning something good in the world, and I thought, you know, with the level of that that I have, that I should always do my best. I feel like I have an obligation to pass on positivity. More importantly, despite all the wins, the losses, and the hard times he's faced, Kelly Slater has remained remarkably humble for a guy who's left one of the greatest legacies in sporting history. It's really just, it's given me all my favorite memories, all the most pleasure in my life, and thank you all. Let's give it up for Kelly Slater, the greatest of all time!