Jamie O’Brien celebrating his win at the 2004 Pipe Masters. Photo: Jamie O’Brien // Instagram
After a week of getting raked over the coals by the surfing community, Vans has had a change of heart over Jamie O’Brien. The freesurfer, YouTuber and Pipeline specialist was initially relegated to an alternate slot for the upcoming Vans Pipe Masters, but with the announcement of the official roster, he found himself back in the main event. However, despite the reversal, O’Brien is still not happy with the company.
The controversy kicked off when Josh Moniz took to Instagram to express his disappointment that JOB was only invited to the event as an alternate (though the official roster had yet to be confirmed at the time). In response, the professional surfing community quickly banded together online to lambaste Vans, with many claiming the Pipe Masters had lost its credibility after being removed from the Championship Tour schedule and turned into a standalone event in 2022.
Soon after, O’Brien followed up with his own Instagram post, expressing his disappointment with both the decision and Vans as a company. He also revealed that a Vans representative had told him he was “too old” for the event. Along with the admonition, O’Brien included a list of other surfers he believed should have landed invites, including Josh Moniz, Kalani Chapman, Torrey Meister, Lucas Godfrey, Eli Olson, Tyler Newton, Bruce Irons, Reef McIntosh, Landon Mcnamara, Mikey Bruno, Flynn Novak, Joey Johnston and Mark Healey.
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It seems that Vans heard the response. A week later, the official roster was announced, with Jamie on it. “GUESS WHO’S BACK IN THE EVENT,” wrote O’Brien on Instagram, “and only because you guys spoke up and had my back, love you guys!”
When I asked O’Brien about the dustup, he made it clear in no uncertain terms that Vans had not made up for the misstep. “My two cents is that, slowly but surely, Vans is ruining the prestigiousness of the event that surfers before our time paved the way to make great,” he said over the phone. ”I think they shouldn’t own the name Pipeline Masters, because they’re destroying it. I think they should give it back to the WSL, because obviously they did a great job with it over the years.”
“I think that people in the corporate office are obviously not watching Pipeline on the day-to-day and they don’t understand what’s happening out there. If they’re calling me too old and I’m out there getting top five best waves every single swell for the last 25 years – If I’m too old, then Vans the company is way too old and I think the decision makers are not qualified.” Later on, he added, “I think there’s a lot of cool things that they did bring to the event, like bringing in X amount of Hawai’ian surfers, but at the at the end of the day, there’s people that earn their stripes out there that should be in the event that weren’t even on the alternate list.”
In the end, he wanted to make it clear that his feelings about the company were not just a response to being snubbed, but also about the list of other excluded surfers he’d named in his Instagram post, and the surfing community as a whole. “I don’t want to make this just about me,” he said. “I think it’s bigger than just me. I think it’s about our community. I think it’s about the other surfers. I think it’s the disrespect that Vans brings to our community. I think the craziest part of the whole thing is no one’s owning up to who made the decision. They all point fingers around in circles to where no one gets in trouble, but it’s not like they’re gonna get in trouble. I would like to say, ‘Hey, it’s clear as day that you know nothing about Pipeline and you guys are running this event.’”
