Kelly Slater's Success

They say that the hardest thing about success is what to do with it once you have it all

Slater is now in a place that other athletes have been before: Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky were there, Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds are there now. Slater still has The Gift. He is without question the most naturally talented surfer in the history of the sport, and the other part of his gift is how he cares for that talent, preserves it, focuses it and makes it work for him. Slater has all of his powers and in many ways those powers are stronger than ever. He is as great in small waves at Lower Trestles as he is in deadly dangerous barrels at Teahupoo. Slater is still capable of slaying any dragon that confronts him, but he now knows all these dragons by the first names. They are familiar to him and he might be getting a little bored with it all.

Slater’s talent is unprecedented. His 8 World Titles is just one number in a lot of numbers that are going to be very hard to top.  In 16 years as a pro surfer, Slater has won almost a million and a half dollars in prize money, but that number is wax money compared to Slater’s rumored salary of $1 million a year, and that number is probably nothing if Slater has stock in Quiksilver, a company that went from 0 to $1 billion in sales in less than 30 years – much of that success propelled by their sponsorship of the most visible, popular surfer in the world.

Slater doesn’t need money. He’s a surfer, after all, whose needs are a little more elaborate than: “Tasty waves and a cool buzz” but whose needs are still pretty basic: a car, travel money and time to chase the best waves in the world. Slater has homes in Australia and Hawaii, and while he could probably use the money to build palaces in Malibu and Key West, he is most likely too busy and/or low key to do something like that.

Maybe what Slater needs is a good tow partner and a life vest, because just about the only surfing honor Slater hasn’t won is the Billabong XXL Award for Biggest Wave of the Year. Where Slater’s size is a tremendous advantage in small to large surf, it is a disadvantage in really giant surf, where Thunder Lizards like Laird Hamilton and Peter Mel can use their size and weight to handle the wind and speed and chops and make it across the faces of waves that are 50 feet or bigger. Slater has never been a contender for the XXL Award, maybe because he is busy during the winter chasing contests and World Titles.

Except for the Billabong XXL, Slater has won just about every contest, award and honor surfing can bestow. He has interests outside of surfing though, so maybe what he really wants is an Oscar or an Emmy or a PGA Championship. During the 80s. Slater had a recurring role on Baywatch as Jimmy Slade. Although the role provoked snickers among his surfing brothers – and Slater later said he regretted it a bit – it was on Baywatch that Slater met Pamela Anderson and that started a long relationship, which saw Pam on the beach watching Kelly at the Eddie Aikau contest, and Slater and Pam together at Hollywood functions.

In the early 90s, Slater recorded an album of songs with Peter King and Rob Machado under the name, The Surfers. The album did okay and in some ways lead to the recording success of Kelly’s friend Jack Johnson. Slater probably still sings We Are the Champions at the top of his lungs when he is driving alone in his car. Slater is good friends with Johnson, Eddie Vedder and Perry Farrell, so maybe there is a super group album in the near future, with Slater on vocals and tambourine.

Slater is to surfing what Tiger Woods is to golf, but maybe he would like to be what golf what he is to surfing. Surfers and professional surfers have a lot of down time waiting for the wind and swell and tide to cooperate, and Slater fills that downtime with a lot of golf. Like Michael Jordan and Gabby Reece and a lot of other super athletes before him, Slater has made noises about joining the PGA full time. It would be interesting to see if Slater’s competitive nature would translate from the sunny surf to the shady turf.

Slater has success and fame and wealth, but the Beatles got it right when they said, “Money can’t buy me love.” And so maybe that is what Kelly needs to get up in the morning: True love. He is rarely seen without a pretty girl on his arm and some of those pretty girls are pretty well known. Slater was engaged to a Florida girl named Bree Pontorno in the early 80s, but they never married. His relationship with Pamela Anderson was on and off until she married Kid Rock. And more recently, when Brazilian super-model Giselle Bundschen fell out of Leonardo Dicaprio’s arms, she fell into Kelly’s.

Kelly and Giselle made a nice-looking, lean, tan couple on the beach in Hawaii last winter, but it is hard for two jet-setters to spend much time together, and by July of 2006 the gossip magazines were reporting that Slater and Bundschen had parted company.

Slater doesn’t really need anything, and most likely he will do what a lot of semi-retired super-athletes do. He will announce his retirement, get bored, come out of it, kick ass, get bored again. The Gift has given Slater a lot and he has already shown a willingness to give back. He already sponsors the Kelly Slater Invitational which is held on the island of Tavarua every summer and donated money to the Reef Check environmental foundation.