Kelly Slater

In this modern world, it has become common for uncommonly talented athletes to stand head and shoulders above everyone else in their sports: In basketball it was Michael Jordan and now it's Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. When Tiger Woods is on, everyone else on the course watches and shake their putters. There is Barry Bonds, Jeff Gordon, Tony Hawk and in the surfing world, the Super Freak is Kelly Slater, the surfer who lead wave-riding into the 21st Century and is still going.

If you added up the height and weight of the top 44 surfers for the last 15 years, they would average out to 5' 9" and 165 pounds = Kelly Slater. He is the very model of a modern major surfer, a genius at morphing various elements of the surfers he grew up studying in magazines and movies: Martin Potter's obsession with smacking the lip and going up and out. Shaun Tomson's tube sense and gentlemanly, articulate poise. Tom Curren's preternatural wave sense and absolute flow. Slater studied, soaked it all up like the T-1000 in Terminator III and became a Terminator himself. He burst on the scene fast in 1990, and before anyone knew it he was strumming his old guitar (like Curren) and singing "Good Bye Old School" to the surfers who formed him.

Ever since, Slater style has been the style to emulate: speedy and aggressive while never, ever sacrificing style in small waves, bold and experimental in gnarly waves. He is the complete surfer, as impossibly fast in horrid two-foot surf as he is rock solid in giant waves at Waimea and Mavericks. If there is any one area that Slater has not dominated, it is the world of giant-wave tow surfing at Jaws, Mavericks and Teahupoo, a realm where Super Middleweights are at a disadvantage to Cruiserweights and Heavyweights like Peter Mel and Laird Hamilton.

In competition his domination has been complete. He won his first World Title in 1992 at 20 years old –- the youngest ever -– and won again in 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997 and 1998. With six World Titles on his mantelpiece, Slater retired in 1998 but came back in 2003 when Andy Irons began crooning that "Goodbye Old School" song under Kelly's balcony. Slater took two years to get back to speed and in 2005 he won his seventh World Title and became both the youngest and oldest. He followed that up with number eight in 2006 before Mick Fanning took his crown in 2007.

Slater is still impossibly fast in small surf – he looks like a Special Effect – and when he is inspired in gnarly reef breaks like Cloudbreak or Teahupoo, everyone sits back in awe and wishes they were golfing.< br>
Never married, Slater has one daughter and has been seen squiring around movie stars and supermodels like Pam Anderson and Giselle Bundschen. He has homes around the world, from Cocoa Beach to Australia, and is rumored to be building two in the Hawaiian Islands. It is anyone's guess how long Slater can continue to be a leader, going against surfers 20 years younger. The smart money never bets against the Super Freak, and Slater himself probably doesn’t know how far his gifts will take him. But a 40-something World Champion is not impossibility if Slater can stay interested. After all, in 2008 at the age of 36 the man took the first two contests of the ASP World Tour -- numbers 35 and 36 (and that's a world record, too). The story is definitely not done.