Posted on: Thursday, June 19, 2003

EDITORIAL
It's time to promote surfing to varsity sport

Surf's up on the South Shore. Not that the state Department of Education would notice. Despite protests from a cluster of surf clubs, the DOE has resisted turning surfing into an official school sport.

Granted, a smattering of school surf clubs participate in competitions of the National Scholastic Surfing Association. But they yearn for surfing to be elevated to the same status that schools in California enjoy, which is ironic considering that surfing originated in Polynesia.

Today, they're scheduled to make their case before the Board of Education.

For its part, the DOE is concerned about the costs of adding surfing to its roster of sports. Keep in mind that though surfing adds costs to the budget it doesn't draw any revenues, because you can't charge folks to watch surf events. And surfboards don't come cheap.

And then there's the thorny issue of liability, although this may not be as big a deal as the DOE makes out.

As it is, students sign waivers to play school sports that essentially relieve the institution of responsibility, barring overt negligence. Presumably, surfing would be no different. Moreover, surf meet organizers and athletics associations have no trouble acquiring insurance.

Supervising surfing might present a challenge. But lifeguards are on hand and competitors are trained for contest conditions.

All things considered, we can't find a compelling enough reason why surfing cannot be elevated to a varsity sport. This is, after all, Hawai'i.