Years after Maui led the way, surfing could become a statewide sanctioned sport in Hawaiʻi high schools under proposed bill

At Ho‘okipa Beach Park on the North Shore on Saturday, waves were breaking at the prime spot to create ideal conditions for 103 high school surfers competing in a Maui Interscholastic League meet.

Canopy tents from 12 girls and 11 boys teams covered the area just above the beach. The park was filled with participants of the meet and onlookers watching the teenagers ride the waves.

On Maui, state-sanctioned high school surfing meets have been happening since 2014. But that has not been the case elsewhere in Hawaiʻi, a place known worldwide for its great breaks and surfing champions.

This could change soon if the State Legislature passes House Bill 133, which would provide $2 million annually for funding the sport in all four Hawaiʻi public high school leagues. The fifth high school league in the state, the lnterscholastic League of Honolulu, is made up of only private schools and would not be part of the funding.

The state House of Representatives already has passed the bill. Now, it is in front of the state Senate Ways and Means Committee, which today is hearing final testimony on the matter.

‘Iolani High School club surfing coach Chris Butler said the Maui Interscholastic League has “been showing us it’s possible for a long time now. People are starting to open their eyes and say: ‘This is legit. Let’s do it.’ ”

Keith Amemiya, the sports task force chairman for Gov. Josh Green, said after today’s hearing he expects the committee to move House Bill 133 along to the full State Legislature.

“If it gets past that committee, then it’s passed both the House and the Senate and it needs to be voted on by both the House and Senate before the end of the session in early May,” Amemiya said. “When that happens it will go to the governor for his signature.”

Amemiya, who was the Hawai‘i High School Athletic Association executive director from 1998 to 2010, added: “The MIL has proven this works, for 10 years. If this passes and surfing gets funded, there’s really no excuse as to why it shouldn’t be an official sport next school year.”

But Keith Hayashi, the Hawaiʻi State Department of Education’s school superintendent, has raised a variety of concerns.

“Conditions are not the same on every island,” he said in written testimony to the lawmakers on March 12. “Any new competitive athletic sport offered in the department is determined by the respective league associations where it is proposed and approved to ensure conditions are right for students and the school.”

Hayashi said on Oʻahu, surfing has not yet been proposed by its public school league, the O’ahu Interscholastic Association.

“Despite the success MIL has demonstrated, on Oʻahu there remains concerns about significant risk factors that make surfing difficult for many high schools to sanction,” Hayashi wrote. “These risks include concerns about accessible and safe surfing areas to conduct practices and the inability to control the practice environment.”

He also wrote that state appropriations to support surfing in high school athletic programs would not alleviate these concerns.

Hayashi said that if all the leagues across the state that include public schools, comprising 43 public high schools, decide to establish surfing as a sport, there would be costs for personnel, equipment, operations, transportation and fees. He said funding just for coaches’ salaries would total $610,084 annually.

“Organizing a single surfing competition would cost approximately $5,800,” he said, describing the “essential expenses” as two lifeguards with Jetskis, five judges, a live scoring operator, beach marshal, announcer, production setup, PA system, generators, horn and timing system, set up and breakdown, supplies and contingency expenses. 

“The department requests that any appropriations would not negatively impact the department’s governor-approved budget,” Hayashi concluded.

Kim Ball, the driving force behind surfing becoming a sanctioned sport on Maui, provided a budget for all public high schools across the state to hold a season of five contests per league (the MIL, Oʻahu Interscholatic Association, Big Island Interscholastic Federation and Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation).

He said in written testimony that the total budget was $685,870 and covered transportation, judges, security, water safety, equipment rental, contest director, beach marshal, contest judges, live score operator, team jerseys and coaches’ salaries.

Ball has been battling for high school surfing for decades, beginning in the 1990s when he started club surfing in high schools on Maui.

“So many kids told me their sport was surfing,” Ball said Friday from his Hi-Tech Surf Sports office in Kahului. “It just seemed natural that there should be surfing in the public schools.”

Over the years, many naysayers thought funding and safety issues would prevent surfing from becoming a sanctioned sport.

“I remember the quote from one MIL official: ‘We will have girls flag football before we’ll have surfing’,” said Ball, a former wrestling coach at Lahainaluna High School and owner of Hi-Tech Surf Sports since 1982.

Ball said in some ways that MIL official was right, with girls flag football starting this spring statewide as a high school sport. But that is a decade behind sanctioned high school surfing on Maui.

In 2014, the Maui Interscholastic League became the first high school league in the nation to sanction surfing as a sport, Ball said at the time.

Ball developed a system in the MIL that addressed the concerns, most notably safety and funding, that was expressed by other state leagues as deterrents to starting and operating the sport.

Each MIL surf meet has a water safety lifeguard in the ocean on a Jetski ready to help any surfer as needed.

“For MIL surfing, we’ve never had a concussion, there’s never been a bone fracture, never been a dislocation,” Ball said. “Okay, it can happen, but we haven’t had anything like that. And, it’s been since 2014.”

O‘ahu Interscholastic Association Executive Director Bryce Kaneshiro and President Sean Wong, the principal at Roosevelt High School, traveled to Maui on Saturday to observe MIL’s surfing meet No. 2 of the season.

“This is just to see what they do on Maui,” Kaneshiro said. “I need to see how it’s run, because if it ever gets to fruition, I need to see what it takes to run it.”

Kaneshiro said the first step for his O‘ahu public school league, which has 22 schools that play most sports, would be to make sure that coaches’ pay would be covered. Currently, 12 of those schools have surf clubs.

“And I’m not just talking about the OIA, I’m talking about for all public schools because we fight for all the public schools, right?” Kaneshiro said. “So we would need the coaches’ pay for all the high schools for it to even be considered. … Without that, the only way we would do it is by cutting something else off. And I don’t see that happening.”

Wong said the first consideration in any sport is safety, so procedures and protocols would have to be put in place. But he added that funding will need to be in place that also will cover transportation and other needs.

Ball has helped fund MIL’s surfing with corporate sponsors, including Billabong.

Wong acknowledged the sport could be a positive step for O‘ahu and beyond. 

“Well, I like that they’re giving kids, students opportunities to come out and surf,” he said. “I see the community, the different schools coming out, working together, providing this for our students.”

Wong was impressed by the procedures and protocols and the organization of the schools that he observed on Saturday. The MIL meet ran like clockwork, with veteran judges in place to score each of 30 heats; surfers entering and exiting the water to end and start heats; school teams sharing barbecue pits to cook burgers and hot dogs that were consumed by anyone who wanted one; student-athletes playing cards between their heats; and school buses dropping off and picking up teams in the tight parking lot at Ho‘okipa.

“You’ve got to have people that are willing to step up and do whatever it takes to run an event like this,” Wong said. “I would love to see it because I surf myself, but again, there are hurdles that we’ve got to overcome.”  

If the bill passes, and three of the state’s five leagues sanction the sport, a state championship would be put on by the Hawai‘i High School Athletic Association.

‘Iolani High School, a member of the all-private school Interscholastic League of Honolulu, sent a full club team — five boys and five girls — to compete in the MIL surfing meet on Saturday. There are currently six schools that have surf clubs in the Interscholastic League of Honolulu.

House Bill 133 funding for the sport would not help private schools with funding, but ‘Iolani coach Butler said that would not be a problem for his school.

Sunny Kazama, a 2024 ‘Iolani graduate, is now an assistant coach for the team. She plans to enroll at the University of San Diego in the fall, study finance and compete for its surf team.

Kazama and her father Davin Kazama have been supporters of House Bill 133 for a couple years and have given presentations to lawmakers and high school athletic directors on O‘ahu in support of the bill. They were both in attendance Saturday at Ho‘okipa.

“We have club surfing on Oʻahu, but it’s not as organized. It’s not as prioritized by students or the state,” Sunny Kazama said. “So seeing that it is here, this is exactly what I want for Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, just the whole state. Just seeing it here is super awesome and I really want this for everyone. I really wish I had this level of surfing in my high school. … All I can do now is just pave the path for others.”

King Kekaulike High School senior Chrislyn Simpson-Kane, the youngest female to successfully surf the world-famous big-wave break Pe‘ahi (also known as Jaws) when she was 12 years old, said: “I think that everyone should have the opportunity to surf on a high school team.”

She was homeschooled through her freshman year of high school, but after competing for the King Kekaulike team as a 9th-grader she began attending the school in person because of the surf team experience.

Now 18, Simpson-Kane, who is Native Hawaiian, plans to study marine science and Hawaiian studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo. She wants to pursue big-wave surfing as a professional in the future, but it is her passion to see the sport become a statewide endeavor in high schools.

For Simpson-Kane, there is a cultural need to bring the sport to high schools statewide.

“I’m a Native Hawaiian and I take so much pride in carrying on and showing the world surfing,” Simpson-Kane said. “And I think that it’s only right that if we on Maui can have it as a sport, I think statewide it should be a sport as well … It’s our heritage.”