Sports Illustrated runs a story on Kelly Slater:

Kelly Slater is the greatest surfer of his time, with a record nine ASP World Titles and counting, and plans to bring his sport to the masses. But before embarking on his quest, the uneasy ocean rider had to solve the nagging mystery of why he surfed.

Senior writer Gary Smith first revisits Slater’s up-and-down childhood, haunted by a deadbeat father who moved out when Kelly was 11 and provided an example of the type of person Kelly never wanted to become, of what not to do with his once-ingeneration talent: “All that anger and confusion he’d siphoned off for competitive fuel without even knowing it, now had to be confronted…. First thing he’d done when surf-gear makers Ocean Pacific and Rip Curl signed him to one-year sponsorship deals before his sophomore year of high school? He’d bought a three-bedroom home for the family and turned his new bank account over to Mom. He wasn’t going to be the slacker surfer that Dad had been. He’d be the provider.”

Soon Kelly had the dream job and all the accoutrements that came with it: millions of dollars worth of endorsements celebrities and rock stars for friends and a parade of seemingly unattainable women – among them Pamela Anderson and Gisele Bündchen. And yet he has never felt whole, never felt he could answer the question, “Why do you do what you do?” because it was never about simply being the best: “His life’s quest had swept him right past his big brother, far beyond what that little boy in the cinder-block tract house had really wanted: to bring everyone together, to be a bridge. He’d kept his trophies hidden in gear bags and car trunks, loathed being the alpha male no one had taught him about the oneness of No. 1.”

Part of him has learned to let go, but the shark’s mind still remains: “Kelly never aims small. Kelly never stops doubting his aims. He sighs. So much trail remains. He still forgets sometimes and gets scorched by his competitive fire. Still can’t quite see past the contradictions, beyond the either-or, to the place where surfing, like anything else a man does, can be communion and enterprise, om and cha-ching.”

story via: aspworldtour.com