Kelly Slater’s stat sheet was a pretty light read in June of 1985: 13 years old, 0 World Titles. And there you have it.
Florida-based videographer Stephen Lenches has a gaggle of old VHS footage he’s published to YouTube and one gem within the bunch is a five-minute highlight reel of the 11-time World Champion as a teen on his home turf. A few things are apparent in watching the footage. For starters, just seven years before his first World Title would come in 1992, Slater’s wave count on an average day at Sebastian Inlet was clearly through the roof. And perhaps no surfer has ever had a camera pointed at him more often since then, which means the rest of the surf world has become quite familiar with Kelly’s style. His posture, flow, even the simple little waves of his arms through turns resemble the exact same 50-year-old man today. You can spot the guy from a mile away…or perhaps through squinted eyes staring at a 4×3 aspect ratio and the resolution of an Atari video game projected onto a movie screen.
This is a fun watch — a few minutes to appreciate a young grom with a head full of hair and energy that would endure through another 35 years and beyond. His stat sheet looks a little different now. That includes those 11 world titles, highlighted by 29 events at Pipe, winning eight of them, with the last victory just six days before his 50th birthday. It’s a slight departure from those early days running around a Florida beach with a spring suit and booties.
