Champion surfer’s dad writes book on achieving excellence

The tide was going out on a clear morning last week with tiny but crisp, clean waves as Carissa Moore and her dad and coach, Christopher Moore, sat at a picnic table in Kewalo Basin Park and discussed his new book, “First Priority: A Father’s Journey in Raising World Champion Surfer Carissa Moore” (self-published, $9.95). An exciting, fast-paced story, it takes the reader behind the scenes at every stop on the World Surf League professional tour from Australia to California, Fiji, Europe and Hawaii.

In his brief but illuminating memoir, Chris Moore, a Honolulu-born surfer and competitive swimmer who envisioned a waveriding career for his daughter before she was born and started pushing her into waves at the age of 5, examines his parenting successes and mistakes with refreshing candor and humor.

“Writing it was a struggle,” he said, adding that he has a math degree and has worked as a graphic artist, not so much with words. “I wanted it to be real, and that can be scary.”

Beside him, Carissa nodded. “It can be scary to put yourself out there for everyone to see and judge.” She knows whereof she speaks; the book describes her bouts of anxiety and tension before contests.

“There were lots of things I didn’t know Dad even remembered — not to put him under the bus,” she said with a warm smile, “but it was good for me to learn all the worry and things he felt.”

For example, she said, she really enjoyed reading the scene after the Haleiwa Menehune Surf Championships when she was 8. Her father, confident she “would crush her pint-size foes,” writes of his horror when Carissa let the “wave of the day” go to her main rival, who rode it to victory.

“I met her on the shoreline and began my interrogation,” he writes. Carissa explained that she’d just finished riding a wave and the other girls had been waiting longer. Furious, he launched into a protracted lecture that resulted in his daughter breaking down in tears in the Pupukea Foodland supermarket.

Now, 16 years later, she turned to her dad and said, “I vividly remember that. It was a pivotal, defining moment for both of us.”

He nodded. “It was the only time in your journey you ever wanted to quit.”

Remorseful, Chris resolved to change. Yet it hasn’t been easy: Try as he may to emphasize the positive while giving an honest critique, his daughter mostly hears the negative.

But wait: In addition to acting out of fairness and generosity — admirable traits in any child — hadn’t Carissa been following priority? It’s the rule, enforced in contests, that the surfer who caught the most recent wave can’t try for another until the others have had a chance.

Chris shook his head, explaining the rule was put in place only five or six years ago.

But speaking of priority, his younger daughter Cayla had been displeased with the title of the book. “Cayla was like, ‘What about me?’” Carissa said.

He hadn’t meant that Carissa was his first priority, Chris said, but he could understand how Cayla saw it that way, despite the times, relayed in his book, he would leave Carissa on tour and fly home to look after his younger child. “First Priority” is dedicated to Cayla, now a junior at Pepperdine University and a talented artist, her father said.

Carissa loves her father’s descriptions of the joy he felt as he watched her stunning win in big barrels at Honolua Bay, Maui, which capped her third championship year in 2015. “The Maui event was a huge pinnacle for me in my career. Reading that was really special.”

Whether it was sneaking her into boys-only surf meets, or, at age 14, into a men’s contest in Mexico, “it’s Dad’s ability to think outside the box that put me where I am today,” she said.

Equally important was her sister and “the sacrifices she has had to make to help me reach the top of my sport.”

Carissa’s smile amped up in wattage as her fiance, Luke Untermann, appeared on a bicycle. She grabbed her board and paddled out for a quick sesh, shredding the small waves with elan as Luke swam, looking for lost fins and other reusable things.

A close-knit family who frequently surf together at Kewalos, the sisters share Carissa’s house in Palolo Valley and their father lives nearby.

On Father’s Day, “Carissa will probably make breakfast and it’ll be really good,” Chris said.

A sweet father-daughters adventure story, “First Priority” is a timely reminder that what matters is not the winning but the being there.

“In the Lineup” features Hawaii’s oceangoers and their regular hangouts, from the beach to the deep blue sea. Reach Mindy Pennybacker at mpennybacker@staradvertiser.com or call 529-4772.