After her victory in the World Surf League Oi Rio Pro in Brazil on June 28, five-time world champion Carissa Moore gave in to tears.
Although she was the top-ranked female surfer on the championship tour, it was her first event win this season, thanks to a ride in literally the last minute that earned her a 9.5, the highest single-wave score for any woman in the event.
Quickly gathering her composure as a WSL announcer held the mic in her face, “I’m kind of emotional right now, it’s been a trying year,” Moore said with characteristic, disarming honesty. “I was like, I shouldn’t be claiming,” she said of her thoughts as, riding out the wave, she flung up her arms in exuberance before her scores came in. but she was “so happy to make that second maneuver.”
And why not? Certainly, on the 50th anniversary of Title IX, Carissa can go ahead and let herself claim. She’s earned it, for herself and on behalf of every girl and woman riding waves, especially in Hawaii, where surfing, Moore and the late U.S. Representative Patsy Mink, co-author of the law, were born.
Patsy Takemoto Mink was the first woman of color and the first Asian American elected to Congress; Moore was the first woman of color and Hawaii native to win the world pro surfing championship, a feat she has achieved five times so far, as well as the first woman to win a gold Olympic medal for surfing.
Throughout her stellar and still young career, Moore has thanked the female surfing pioneers who fought for equal opportunity and against gender discrimination, notably fellow islanders Rell Sunn, who in 1982 became the first woman of color ranked first on the world longboard championship tour, and Margo Godfrey Oberg, the California-born, Kauai resident who won six world surfing titles in the 1970s and 1980s.
The simply stated goal of Title IX, passed in 1972, is to guarantee equal opportunity for all individuals regardless of sex to participate in educational programs or activities at institutions that receive federal funds.
But thanks to its sound rationale grounded in social justice and U.S. Constitutional rights, the law has been widely influential beyond educational institutions. Women surfers cited it in arguments leading to the successful passage of Bill 10, which requires gender equity in the issuance of permits for sports activities by the Honolulu City and County Department of Parks and Recreation, in order to ensure the fair allocation of park facilities “without discrimination on the basis of gender.”
This spurred the World Surf League to act proactively, restructuring their Hawaii and worldwide tours to field women’s and men’s divisions side by side at the same venues. It started with Banzai Pipeline at the city’s Ehukai Beach Park, where a women’s championship tour competition had never before been held.
Women who surf, like female athletes in almost every other sport, want to compete against other women on a level playing field.
However, a frequent impediment has been the lack of a girls’ or women’s division in a contest. In 2007, at age 14, Moore was crowned “King of the Groms” after besting a field of 60 male teenage surfers at Honolulu’s Kewalo Basin, her home break. The waves were so big the event was nearly called off, but the young Moore dominated.
Title IX and Moore’s courage in representing her gender in otherwise all-male competitions highlighted the need to provide equal opportunity in women’s events.
In 2011, at age 18, Moore became the youngest surfer of any gender to win the world title on the professional championship tour. She was also the first Native Hawaiian woman and the second Hawaii woman surfer to win the women’s world title.
In December 2011, Moore accepted the invitation to compete as the only woman in the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing’s Haleiwa and Sunset Beach men’s championship tour events. She won the Haleiwa contest. She had previously won events at both venues on the women’s tour, but in 2011, due to lack of sponsorship funds, the women’s division in the Vans Triple Crown was dropped.
The women’s Triple Crown returned in 2021, and Moore won it, taking it again in 2002.
In the 2022 Hawaii state Legislature, Moore testified in favor of House Bill 2277, which would have appropriated funds to make surfing an official high school sport of the Hawaii High School Athletic Association. Currently, only Maui has official interscholastic surfing.
“I think surfing being a part of the school system would be a great idea,” she testified before the House Committee on Education.
“Hawaii is the birthplace of surfing, and it’s brought me so much joy and taught me so many valuable lessons in life, (including) how to balance school and athletics,” said the graduate of Punahou School, which did not have a surf team or surf club during her tenure, and still does not.
Moore, who has striven to help girls and young women build self-esteem and confidence through surfing with her nonprofit, Moore Aloha Foundation, added that the ocean is “a good place for kids to find some mental peace in stressful situations.”
The committee passed the bill, but it subsequently stalled. When and if surfing finally becomes an official Hawaii interscholastic sport throughout the islands, opportunities will open up for surfer girls in schools.
Before she signed off from her interview on the winner’s dais in Rio, to the cheers of some 40,000 live fans on the beach, Moore added she was grateful to the sea spirit who sent her that winning wave.
So are we. Let’s claim victory and fight on. There’s a lot more equality to win.
Carissa Moore
Age: 29 (DOB: Aug. 27, 1992)
Highlights
>> Winner of first-ever Olympic gold surfing medal at Tokyo Summer Games, July 2021.
>> Reigning champion and five-time winner of the World Surf League women’s pro surfing world championship titles in 2021, 2019, 2015, 2013 and 2011.
>> Number of career championship events won to date: 25, most recently the Oi Rio Pro in Brazil, June 28.
>> Winner of women’s title in Vans Triple Crown of Surfing on Oahu’s North Shore in 2021 and 2002.
>> Youngest winner (18) of any surfer to have won a world title, in 2011.
>> First woman to win a Triple Crown of Surfing Event, the Reef Hawaiian Pro at Haleiwa, 2011.
>> Rookie of the year, 2010.
>> First pro competition season: men’s qualifying series, 2008
>> Winner of 11 National Scholastic Surfing Association amateur titles.
>> Represented Hawaii at 2005 International Surfing Association Junior Championships, placing third in women under 18, and participated in winning ISA team.
Honors
>> Jan. 4 is designated Carissa Moore Day in Hawaii State.
>> Inducted into Surfers’ Hall of Fame and Hawaii Waterman Hall of Fame
>> National Geographic Adventurer of the Year
>> Glamour Magazine Woman of the Year
>> President’s Award, Punahou School
June marked the 50th anniversary of Title IX. To commemorate this watershed event, the Star-Advertiser will publish a series of stories celebrating the achievements of female pioneers and leaders with Hawaii ties.
Click here to view the Title IX series.
