Cory Lopez

There was a time when the naysayers wrote off Florida and everything to the north: “East coasters can’t surf!” And then Kelly Slater came along and pissed on that concept from a great height, so the naysayers directed their attention to the other Florida coast: “Gulf Coasters can’t surf!!!!! There’s no surf on the Gulf Coast!!!!”

They said the same thing about Tahiti in The Endless Summer: “There’s no surf in Tahiti!” and maybe that is the cosmic connection that lead Cory Lopez to pull into two horrific Teahupoo barrels at the 1999 Gotcha Tahiti Pro, and start a whole subgenre of death or glory surfing. Cory didn’t make it out of either of the waves – or out of the heat - but a Tom Servais photo of Lopez riding incredibly deep in a sick, below sea-level death pit remains one of the most important surf photos of the last 20 years. Lopez’ anything is possible stance (and the fact that he lived) sparked a genre of incredibly dangerous, balls-out-in-huge-barrels surfing that has been taken to new heights with every passing year: Laird Hamilton's ridiculous Teahupoo barrel in 2000, Raimana van Bastolear's even bigger wave in 2006 and a lot of crazed surfing in heats during the annual WCT event there.

Like Greg Noll at Makaha in 1969, Lopez became a legend with a wave he didn’t make.

Cory and his older brother Shea grew up on the Gulf Coast of Florida, an incredibly waveless stretch of coast that only comes alive when citizens are putting up hurricane shutters or evacuating: “We learned how to surf before we can even remember” Cory said to Chris Towery of Eastern Surf Magazine. “We were two-years-old and standing on boards… There’s even pictures of me and Shea fighting over a board… I'm in a diaper while Shea's got this little speedo on…”

They probably should have been wakeboarders, but the Lopez brothers began competing in the ESA Menehune Division on the Gulf Coast and over in the giant surf on the east coast of Florida. Cory started on the WQS at age 15 and when he was 17, Lopez went West and fell in with the Billabong and ...Lost crews, partying hard, and surfing San Clemente inspired by local rogues like Pat O' Connell, Shane and Gavin Beschen and Matt Archbold: “You just see all these guys performing at the top level, and you try to match what they’re doing,” Lopez said to ESM. “That’s where I started airs—watching Gavin, Shane, and Joe Crimo.”

He made the WCT in 1997 but in 1999 in that First Round heat against Shane Powell, Lopez risked his neck and became an instant legend. Two years later, Cory came back to Teahupoo for the Billabong Tahiti Pro, pulled into barrels that spit him into the final against CJ Hobgood: “Man, it was a stressful heat, but it was killer to have two Florida guys in the final,” Lopez said to ESM. “I even gave him his first wave at the beginning of the heat: I was in position, had priority, but let him go, and he got a nine. I was just like, ‘What am I thinking?’ Talk about bad decision making.” Lopez took the lead but made another bad decision in the end, taking off on a small wave with priority and kicking out to see Hobgood pull into a barrel needing an 8.56 to win. The barrel backed off just a little too soon, giving Lopez his first WCT victory. He finished the year in third position.

Now a 10-year WCT Tour veteran, Lopez is a sometime traveling companion of Andy Irons, and the Lopez brothers were also two of the first outside surfers to go to Cuba. He spends a good part of the year traveling to compete, but comes home to a place he is building on the beach near Sebastian Inlet, near Cocoa Beach and is a Florida boy to the bone: “...there's only one road, and I'm the kind of person who likes to live quietly on my own routine, so it's perfect. Plus, there's good fishing down there, and I'll be able to do that all the time. Also, I have a dock right in my backyard where I can launch my boat.”