Surfing soon to be a offical high school sport in Hawaii

[The1calledTKE]

Wailuku-AP) -- The Hawaii Board of Education has unanimously approved surfing as an official high school sport.

All nine board members voted in favor of the move after hearing about an hour of testimony during their meeting on Maui Thursday night.

The new policy directs the Department of Education to adopt regulations to implement surfing as a high school sport.

Those rules would need to address liability, logistics, safety, equipment and funding. Interscholastic leagues would not be required to offer competitive surfing, and the decision to field a surfing team would be left to individual schools.

http://www.khnl.com/Global/story.asp?S=1885104

I think thats pretty cool because I never heard of any other H.S's having it as a sport.

Up until now, surfing CLUBS were allowed. The schools who had their own surfing clubs often competed against each other. Still, these clubs didn't receive any funding nor were they allowed to identify themselves by school.

It was inevitable that the BOE approved this. When I was in HS, a surfing team was just starting up (I went to private school). It'll be nice to get more schools in the mix.

After all, outrigger canoe paddling (where I lettered all 4 years and water polo have been around for years and are sanctioned by both the public and private school athletic associations.

Hopefully more schools in California or in the east coast (or other places where surfing is popular) will look into this and follow suit.

I have heard this but i am not sure if and how much is true but oneof the costal towns here in california has surfing as a class or a PE section to its cirrculum

[Rudey]

It's not a sport if you get point for style.

-Rudey

[BirthaBlue4]

Sounds good to me, I mean, its not odd, that's what they do out there. I'm surprised it wasn't ALREADY a sport.

Originally posted by BirthaBlue4
Sounds good to me, I mean, its not odd, that's what they do out there. I'm surprised it wasn't ALREADY a sport.

There's been talk going on about adding it as a sport even before I was born. It's only appropriate now considering Hawai`i is the birthplace of surfing.

[sigtau305]

sounds like a cool Idea.