Guess whos coming to dinner?

Surfing Heritage Foundation Roasts its own

1st Annual Event Honor’s Founders Dick Metz and Spencer Croul

This past Sunday evening the Surfing Heritage Foundation started a tradition that’s bound to go down in the annuals of surf lore as one of the most irreverent evenings of all time. Perhaps the infamous Master of Ceremonies, Robert “Wingnut” Weaver, said it best, “"This is the first ever roast in the sport of surfing and it’s about time we cooked some of our sport's most cherished characters!"

And cook it was as surf legends Greg Noll, Bruce Brown, and Hobie Alter skewered the roasted in a rousing session of jokes, tall tales and antidotes about their lives both true and complete fiction. Nothing was sacred and nothing was sparred. It was a very special evening that was both humorous and generous at the same time. The audience was a broad cross section of some of surfing’s greatest pioneers from the east coast to Hawaii who all shared a great evening together.

Bruce Brown, who created the iconic surf film The Endless Summer, spoke about how Dick Metz was the original inspiration for the film having traveled around the world years before. Big wave legend Greg Noll reminisced about how Spencer Croul searched and found the first surfboard Greg had ever shaped and gave it back to him as a gesture of friendship.

It was truly a great beginning to what will become an annual fundraiser for the Surfing Heritage Foundation.

About the Roasted:
Surfing Heritage Founder, Dick Metz, is a long time surfer from Laguna Beach, who tipped legendary surfing documentary producer, Bruce Brown about South Africa, where he filmed the most spectacular segment for his seminal 1965 film, "The Endless Summer". Later, Dick partnered with Hobie Alter to establish Hobie Sports, the first successful chain of surf & sport retail outlets. During those years, Dick began collecting the historical surfboards that help comprise the nucleus of the current Foundation collection. Metz established the 501(c)(3) foundation in 1998, as a lasting home for his collection.

Co-founder, Spencer Croul, a Newport Beach surfer and active surfboard collector whose family founded Behr Paint, teamed with Metz, and they combined their collections into the largest, most significant in the world. Spencer also provides the facility in which the Foundation currently operates. The on-going contributions of both men, as well as a prominent Board, dedicated staff, and a host of volunteers have brought The Surfing Heritage Foundation to its current position as the surfing world's most renowned archiving and preservation effort.

By Denny Michael