News » Chris Keet Inducted into UCSB’s Sports Hall of Fame

Chris Keet Inducted into UCSB’s Sports Hall of Fame

By Jon Shafer

• Comments
• Print
• Share

 

Surfer Happens’ CEO Honored for Altruism & Dedication to Environment + Competitive Achievement

    On Saturday, April 24th SB Local Chris Keet was inducted into the UCSB Recreational Sports Hall of Fame.  Not surprisingly, he was not present to receive the award, but was instead consumed doing what he so loves to do—coaching his high school surfing proteges at the Interscholastic Surfing Federation championships.  Keet, a Santa Barbara native, grew up living at the Santa Barbara Harbor, and cut his teeth surfing around that area.  After high school Chris attended UCSB and established himself as a competitive force in the amateur ranks.  A recent story on GauchosPlay.com summarizes the numerous accolades that Keet earned as a collegiate surfer.  Perhaps more impressive is his resume surrounding all of his altruistic efforts—sharing the stoke by teaching and mentoring legions of surfers both young and old through his “Surf Happens” organization.  And as if that wasn’t enough, Chris is also our local surf contest impresario, having taken over the task of running our area’s annual surf contest, the Rincon Classic.

    Upon hearing of Chris’ award I contacted him to find out more about what his college years were like.  I myself am a UCSB alumni (Class of ‘83), but I don’t really follow intercollegiate competition, so I was curious to hear more as I knew that the 90’s were the period when superstar musician Jack Johnson and others were Gauchos.  Below is what Chris wrote back to me.

    “It was a really special time to be a student at UCSB, and member of the surf team.  There were so many amazing surfers from Santa Barbara on the team including Mike Billgren, Josh Decker, Scott Turner, Jason Dameral, Ryan Comperatore and others.  Josh Pomer from Santa Cruz, surfers from Ventura such as Sean O’toole, Malibu’s Donald Day, The Harcharic brothers Danny Horgan and Danny Hancuff from Huntington, Chad La Bass from Newport, Brad Romine from Palos Verdes, Seth Doherty, Terrance Aleman, Adam Smude and Jeff Sikand, Clay Peterson, Eric Kramer, Parker McNaughton, and more. So many cool people.  The waters of Isla Vista were always teeming with comrarderie and a super-high level of surfing.

    There were many times in contests that we had 5 out of 6 Gauchos…  The same time period showcased the entire (Momentum) generations of surfers coming into the area too from Conan Hayes, Shane Dorian, and (Kelly) Slater to Jack Johnson who lived right down the street.

    The team was pretty much indestructible, and we took out national titles five years out of the six I was in school.  The year the SBSS was founded we set a record that still stands for the largest ever collegiate victory over other teams, doubling their scores.

    It feels pretty cool to have run the events for long enough to watch entire generations of surfers learn to compete and evolve.  From Kilian Garland, Tyler Anderson, and Bobby Morris to Lakey Peterson, Demi Boelsterli, The Coffins, Adam Lambert, Colin Schildhauer, Decker McAllister and so many more…

    It’s awesome the way everything unfolded really.  The travel sponsor fell off the map in 2000 with trips being promised to all seasonal winners to El Salvador or The Philippines.  At the time a crew of local groms had become my proteges including Mike Walters, Tyler Anderson, Alex McGeever, Nick Argyropoulos, and a few others.  I took them out, taught cross-training, yoga and goal-setting, competitive strategy, mind control and time management, and advanced technique.  They had approached me to learn as the SBSS provided a free forum for growth as Matt Malone (head judge) and I provided coaching at the events to help the kids learn.  When the kids approached me to pay for coaching it was a perfect growth.

    Once the advanced coaching was in place and I realized that the travel sponsor for the SBSS was not coming through, I needed to raise some serious cash.  All of my dreams and goals for the SBSS, and my credibility would have been lost.  Many in my immediate circle encouraged me to give up and tell competitors they simply would not receive their trips.  I prayed about it and woke up in the middle of the night with the idea of Surf Happens.  Combining the contests and advanced coaching and creating Surf Camps.  Through the Surf Camps I hoped to make enough money to keep my word.  That summer we held five weeks of beginning camps, and two weeks of advanced camps, raised enough money to pay for the trips to El Salvador and began running private lessons and the After School Program.  Surf Happens was born summer 2000.  10 years later we have hosted contests and learn-to-surf clinics in Peru, Costa Rica, and even trained the Philippine team on Siargao Island who went on to win every division in their nationals.  The SBSS was laid to rest in 2006, but could be ressurected with proper staffing and funding.  We are planning on launching at the very least a menehune league in the future.

    After a long restructuring, we just relaunched the Surf Happerns.com site, which is built on a CMS system so that we may post videos and photos and make updates easily.  Our goal through the site is to also be able to post video clips of riders and analyze them online.  I am currently also setting up the launch of “Surfing for Fitness” on June 22.  This is a six-week course of surfing specific cross training with Wes Wilson along with surf instruction through two days a week of training.  We are also hosting advanced surfing for fitness clinics.

    For International Surfing Day (Sunday June 20th) we have teamed up with the Surfrider Foundation and Quiksilver Foundation, and are hosting the Surf Happens “Surf Into Summer Ohana Session #1”, featuring a free surf day complete with surf contest, learn to surf and advanced clinics, beach olympics, paddle relays, beach clean-ups, and environmental booths.  It will be super fun!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments (13)

Post a Comment

(Comments are moderated, and will not appear until they've been approved.)

Name:

Please enter the word you see in the image below: