The California city that inspired “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” the 1982 comedy film that did much to propagate the laid-back surfer image, is now home to the world’s first Center for Surf Research. And, no, it’s not a clever way for college kids to earn their degrees by hanging out at the beach.

Jess Ponting has heard those jokes. A sustainable tourism professor, he recently founded the first-of-its-kind institute at San Diego State University with the aim of building a database and spreading awareness about what has evolved from a beach counterculture to a multibillion dollar global industry, with both positive and negative impacts. Ponting was amazed to find how little research and critical analysis exists on the surf industry

“We want to quantify exactly what we’re dealing with,” said Ponting, who, on the university’s web site, sports a suit-and-tie while holding a surf board. “I think it’s way bigger than anybody gives it credit for, but no one has taken it seriously enough to look at it before.”

Decades ago, long-haired surfers chasing isolated ocean peaks far from the crowded beaches of Australia and California stumbled into remote villages from Indonesia to Latin America and kicked off the global phenomenon. Today, so many surfers are traveling the globe in pursuit of that perfect swell that surf tourism is being seen as a top income-generator for nations from Papua New Guinea to Liberia, Ponting said. Even China has created a so-called Minister for Extreme Sports to dive in on the booming business.

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visit the school’s site http://csr.sdsu.edu/

Sports Illustrated will announce its choice for Sportsman of the Year on Dec. 6. Here’s one of the nominations for that honor by an SI writer.

Forgive the pro surfing officials who on Nov. 2 prematurely crowned Kelly Slater the winner of the 2011 ASP World Title.

After all, it’s not as though there was any doubt that Slater would, as usual, emerge as champion. So while it turned out he had not mathematically clinched the title on that Wednesday afternoon, a couple of days later in the surf at Somewhere in San Francisco, Slater won a heat — with another gorgeous and nuanced ride in a lifetime of gorgeous and nuanced rides — and that sealed things. Slater had won the title handily with an event to spare.

This is what Kelly Slater did over the first 10 stops of the 11-stop ASP tour: He won the season-opening contest in Australia in March. He won at Teahupoo in August. He won at Trestles in September. At two events Slater finished as the runner-up. Three other times he took home a fifth-place purse.

“To me, it’s amazing,” surfer Owen Wright told reporters after watching Slater surf the swell at Somewhere.

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The Association of Surfing Professionals has confirmed plans to implement a drug testing and enforcement policy for the 2012 World Tour season.

“The ASP is in the process of working towards a concrete and effective drug policy for the start of the 2012 World Tour season,” ASP Media Director Dave Prodan told ESPN on Thursday. “We are still in the process of figuring out exactly how that is going to work, and more details will be forthcoming next week.”

The news comes at the end of a whirlwind week for competitive surfing’s governing body, which began with the premature awarding of the 2011 World Title to Kelly Slater, followed by Wednesday’s resignation of ASP CEO Brodie Carr.

News of the possibility of drug testing ASP World Tour surfers was first reported Wednesday by The Australian, when Vans Triple Crown Director Randy Rarick went on record, saying, “It’s been a long time coming.”

The policy was reportedly spurred by the Surf Industry Manufacturers Association (SIMA) board of directors, of which major surf labels Billabong, Quiksilver, Rip Curl, Hurley and Vans are represented (brands that also sponsor all of the World Tour events).

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