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ECSC Public Relations
Kevin Gaydosh (mobile: 757-646-3493)
or Mia Wingfield (mobile: 757-469-5815)
Email: publicrelations@surfecsc.com
Office Phone: 757-422-323
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****FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 9, 2007 ****
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- The 45th Annual East Coast Surfing Championships (ECSC) will be held August 22-26, 2007 at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront. This year ECSC is a 2-star event on the ASP WQS Tour.
“Some of the hottest surfing talent from around the world is headed to Virginia Beach this month,” said Paul West, surf director of the event. “Without a doubt we are anticipating great showings from two of Brazil’s most talented junior professionals, Jadson Andre’ and Miguel Pupo.
According to many in world surfing circles, Andre or Pupo are odds-on favorites to be world champions within three to five years, West said. “We’re very fortunate to have them traveling to ECSC in what could be the break-out performances of their careers,” he added.
The ECSC is North America’s oldest surfing contest and the second oldest continuously-run surfing contest in the world. About men and women professional surfers from around the world will compete for cash prizes 250 (112 men, 80 juniors, 32 women and 24 longboarders). There will also be several hundred amateur surfers competing for top ranking on the amateur circuit or a coveted spot in ECSC history. (More information about surfing can be found at www.surfecsc.com or www.surfusa.org)
Prize purse for professional divisions at ECSC:
- $25,000 MEN
- $5,000 JUNIOR
- $5,000 WOMEN*
- $5,000 LONGBOARD*
(*Pro women and pro longboard do not surf until Saturday.)
Brazil Rising.
The significance of having the Brazilian surfers at ECSC is the emergence of the South American competitors on the world stage. “Brazil has an amazing surfing organization, but they have yet to capture a WCT men’s world title,” according to West. “We may be witnessing a South American emergence onto the world stage by these two young men.”
About five years ago, Adriano de Souza was the number one junior pro in the world who made his first trip out of Brazil at the age of 15 to the ECSC in Virginia Beach. Now a world renowned surfer, de Souza is a national hero in Brazil.
“All the young Brazilian surfers know that he (de Souza) started in the American circuits at ECSC,” said West. “The hope of the Brazilian surfing organizations is that Miguel and or Jadson will follow in his footsteps.
Approaching a half century in surfing, ECSC is more than a weekend surfing event. It has grown into four days of beach sports, sights and sounds. Annually selected as a “Top
20 Event of the Southeast,” ECSC is the great American beach festival.
Hundreds of competitors take part in other uniquely beach-oriented sports, including beach volleyball and an oceanfront 5K run. Extreme sports like BMX, skateboard and skimboard exhibitions will amaze the thousands who make their way down to the Virginia Beach oceanfront each year. FREE, live musical entertainment from regional bands and national recording artists like The BoDeans, and CYK will perform on a beachfront stage.
A skateboard half-tube vertical ramp will be set up on the beach between 1st and 2nd Streets on the beach for the Capri Sun Capri Sun Skate Park, where fans will be awed by professional and amateur skateboarders who will perform during four days of extreme sports demonstrations. Spectators will also be able to take part in the Jeep Adventure Tour or visit the COX Communications Pavilion.
All events at the ECSC Beach Festival are open to the public, free of charge.
The East Coast Surfing Championships is produced by the Virginia Beach Jaycees, a volunteer community service organization. Portions of the proceeds raised at ECSC benefit the Jaycee’s many charitable projects. www.surfecsc.com
Can’t make it in person to Virginia Beach this year? Check out all the surfing action from the 45th Annual ECSC as it is broadcast live from August 22-26, 2007. See the action live! Go to: http://www.beachbyte.com/live07/ecsc07/live.asp
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ECSC HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
The East Coast Surfing Championships originated from a party held in the summer of 1961 in the town of Gilgo Beach, New York. The party was a small affair thrown by some wealthy parents for their teenagers who surfed.
Surfing was then still a novelty or curiosity to most of the East Coast population. As more people began getting surfboards, (and because the party in 1961 was a lot of fun), plans for the 1962 party were becoming bigger.
The second party, now billed as the East Coast Surfing Championships, was publicized only by word-of-mouth and was held in Gilgo Beach on September 7, 1962. Bob Holland, Pete Smith and Butch Maloney were among those from the Virginia Beach community who attended the event.
By the third year, 1963, the reputation of the party had now reached surfing fans up and down the coast. Virginia Beach, then an early hotbed of surfing activity, was represented again, presumably by Bob Holland, Pete Smith and others. Just a few weeks earlier on August 24, 1963, in Virginia Beach, the first Virginia Beach Surfing Carnival was held by the Virginia Beach Junior Chamber of Commerce in cooperation with the Virginia Beach Surfing Club and local surfboard dealers like Western Auto, Fuel/Feed & Building Supplies and Coaches Sporting Goods.
At the 1963 ECSC in Gilgo Beach, the case was made by the Virginia Beach crowd to move the event to Virginia Beach because it was a more central location and easier to get to for all East Coast surfers (from Maine to Florida). Virginia Beach was already well-known among the surfing networks of the East and therefore stood a better chance to truly become an annual contest.
In 1964, it appears that the “2nd annual Virginia Beach Surfing Carnival” and a Long Island surfing event of some sort were BOTH held, the Virginia Beach event on August 29 -30 and the Gilgo Beach party later in September. The overlap is made murky because the 1964 contest in Virginia Beach is headlined as the East Coast Championships.
By 1965, the confusion had cleared up. The New York event was transformed into another contest while most participants were now heading to Virginia Beach because the weather was nicer and the waves were bigger and more consistent. The name of the Virginia Beach Surfing Carnival was dropped in favor of the plain and simple East Coast Surfing Championships.
For purposes of record-keeping and clarity, the forty-four years of ECSC are defined from the first Jaycee-sponsored surfing event in August 1963 through today. The 1963 event was chaired by Don Fentress and Phil McAdams and it later incorporated the unorganized Gilgo Beach contest and adopted its name. All this makes ECSC the second-longest, continuously-run surfing competition in the world.
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