Go surfing, drop in on an executive of the biggest surf company in the world on one of the waves of the day, at one of the world’s most famous surf spots – and nail yourself a sponsor.
That’s how Mikey Wright took his first unknowing steps towards surf stardom.
“I remember the wave, a little bit. It was when I turned eight, so 2005,” reflects Mikey, now aged 12, as if his young life has since become a blur.
“There was a surf comp on. Kelly Slater and Andy Irons and all that was there, it was a pro comp I think. Yeah, it was a WCT (World Championship Tour event).”
With his dad egging him on, Mikey flung himself down the face of a Bells Beach swell. It was a set wave on a decent sized day and Mikey, being all of 4’-foot-nothing, made the wave look twice its actual size.
He followed a committed top turn with a swift, ambitious tube ride. Made it, came out, ripped into a cuttie, then lined up the inside section and finished with a skillfully timed floater, like a satisfied carpenter hammering in his last nail.
The whole ride, Craig Stevenson, Global Brand Manager of the ubiquitous “Quik” was cruising behind Mikey, copping the spray of this little blonde-haired natural foot tear-away, and thinking only one thing: “Who is this little kid?”
Within 24 hours, eight year-old Mikey was almost certainly one of the youngest sponsored surfers in the world.
“It felt cool to get sponsored. I thought I was in trouble when he said drop by the office later. I went upstairs and my dad waited outside, and he said something like, ‘Hey, you’re the guy who dropped in on me. I’m not impressed,’ but then he laughed and said you’re getting a contract.
And while Mikey certainly has ‘it’, one look at the rest of his family will tell you if it wasn’t Stevenson that spotted him, someone else inevitably would have.
Older brother Owen claimed the Quiksilver World Junior Surfing Championships U/18 Boys division in 2006 and is now headed for the pro-ranks full-time. Sisters Kirby and Tyler are regular finalists and winners of Australian girls junior comps, and dad’s eldest, Tim, rips the bags out of it too.
“There’s six of us who surf in our family. Mum is the only one who doesn’t surf. We tried to take her out once at Byron Bay, at The Pass, she was having so much fun. We were just helping her out in the shore,” says Mikey.
“Owen gives me heaps of tips, tries to help me out. It helps heaps. We go a lot of places together. With the family we’ve had two trips overseas to Bali, and we’ve been to Fiji. But Uluwatu in Bali is my favourite wave. We had it pretty good. Pretty big. About six-foot.”
Todd Richards is a legend, straight up. He’s a pioneer, a business owner, a ripping shredder, and he’s one of the gnarliest “would you rather” players in the game. Todd’s been toting board bags around the world as a pillar of the snowboarding community for going on two decades now, and it’s just as fun to him now as it was those twenty years ago. Looking back to his days as a wee lad, Todd claims that he was “destined for lamesness”. Thankfully time has since proved him wrong, as Todd is one of the best shredders and most un-lame people snowboarding has ever known. These days you can find Todd rolling heavily modified Audi’s around Encinitas in and out of the Omatic headquarters, tucking into the green room at the local Richard’s Reef, outshining kids on the Northstar jump line, and tucked away in his basement playing video games that his kids don’t even know dad has.
