Surf Springfield is the culmination of years of experience in water sports, water recreation, skateboarding, rollerblading, ice hockey, snowboarding, wake boarding and pretty much any activities that get your blood rushing.
My name is Matt, and I am Surf Springfield...for now. Maybe we will grow and have an employee someday. Anything can happen!
I grew up in Springfield, IL, the adopted home of Abraham Lincoln, and I have had a passion for things that go fast since I was a child.
My first memory is of being a small child at the end of a diving board, with my father coaxing me to jump into the diving well. I have always had an affinity for water, and throughout my childhood participated in swim team, had my hand at Olympic Diving (I wasn't that good!), moved on to becoming a lifeguard as a teen and eventually instructed swim lessons for beginners. These formative years in the water shaped my love for being in the water, and fueled the inspiration to pursue it further.
As an impressionable youth I found land based sports in the off season as midwestern summers are short! I found ice hockey to be my sport of choice. I was blessed (or cursed, depending on how you look at it) with the innate ability to skate backwards. As such, I was in high demand, as many children my age couldn't skate backwards that well, if at all. They placed me on defense due to this ability, much to my chagrin.
Fast forward a few years, I found skateboarding through friends at school, and subsequently, rollerblading. I gravitated towards rollerblading based on my hockey background. This was a magical time in antiquity that is seldom spoke of now, when rollerbladers and skateboarders skated together in peace and harmony. If the gods are good these days will come again...
It is around this time that I discovered that my father lived in California and surfed. As a child of the water I found this very interesting, that and the fact he had this weird thing in the basement called a "wetsuit". I was very intrigued by it. I would later find out the hard way that this was a crucial component to surfing in the Pacific.
After graduating high school, I made the decision to attend music school. Two choices were foremost: Berklee School of Music in Boston, or Musician's Institute in California. This was not really a hard decision; more harsh winters, or California...you see where this is going.
After making the choice and moving to Hollywood to attend school, I quickly figured out how to get to the nearest beach, which happened to be Venice. Technically it was Santa Monica, but Venice had better surf and was just down the street. My great friend Derek Anderson joined me on this adventure, and obliged my insatiable desire to be in the ocean and waves, joining me on the hours long bus rides from Hollywood to the beach and back daily. Thank you Derek!
I am not proud to say that I did more surfing than studying. I had no surfboard at this time. I body surfed without a wetsuit, even into the winter months, staying out until my teeth chattered and my lips were purple. It didn't bother me, as the freedom and joy the ocean and waves provided me was all I needed. That and Liz's car.
Liz loaned us her car while she went home for a holiday. We went to Venice and enjoyed the ocean all day...until the end of the day when we realized we didn't know where the key to her car was. We were pretty sure we lost it in the sand. We sulked back home on the bus, only to return the next day and scour the beach the entire day for the key. Dejected, and knowing we would have to spend our rent money on a laser cut key, we were again sulking back to the bus stop, when out of the corner of my eye I bought a glimmer of light off an object in the sand. Call it fate, call it luck, call it karma: we found the key to Liz's car; the logo on the key caught the sun at just the right angle, at just the right time for my eye to catch it. The ocean giveth, and the ocean taketh away I guess.
- Thanks again Liz!
After music school in California I returned home to Springfield with my newfound love of surfing. I worked in restaurants (which will come in handy later) and played with my band mates, whom had all returned as well, in shows around our area. Years went by, people moved, moved on, and lives were lived. It happens.
The band slowly fizzled out, and we were dispersed to the winds of time, but my love of surfing never wavered. I was determined to find a way to either return to the ocean, or somehow, bring surfing to me. It was around this time that I heard about Kelly Slater's intention to build his Surf Ranch. This was exactly what I was thinking about over the years! Now there could be a way to surf consistent quality waves inland. What could be better? You don't have to take time off work, or the kids away from school. You don't have to travel far away and all that goes with that, AND there are no sharks! Not that that is necessarily a good thing as sharks are really cool. Frightening sometimes, but cool.
This led me down a road of trying to find a way to bring surfing to the midwest through some kind of artificial wave technology. I looked high and low, discovering many different systems along the way. There are many different methods of recreating waves outside of the ocean, but I think that Wave Garden has figured it out best. If you don't know about Wave Garden, look them up. They have an amazing product.
Surfing is now an Olympic sport. Olympic athletes will actually be competing in the Olympics on Wave Garden installations rather than the open ocean, as it can be ensured that each person get the same number, quality and size of waves, while not having to have a holding period, or be dependent on weather or swell.
Olympic athletes require training facilities, especially ones that simulate the conditions they will be competing in. It is my opinion that if the Midwest is able to create such a facility, that we could draw not only Olympic athletes to our region to train as we have a low cost of living, but also create a Surf Tourism sector, and create an entirely new economic sector of surf shops, shapers, manufacturing, retail, recreation, and the jobs that will be needed to support it.
That leads us up to today. My aim is to prove that surfing is a desired activity in the Midwest through presenting eFoiling to our communities who may not have the ability to travel to the ocean, or may not realize that they love something they have never had: surfing. If electric hydrofoil surfboards can be a thing, maybe we can look to the future where we can drive down the street to catch some excellent tubes in a corn field.
Who knows when or if it will ever happen...but one can dream, and should, right?
Matt
My name is Matt, and I am Surf Springfield...for now. Maybe we will grow and have an employee someday. Anything can happen!
I grew up in Springfield, IL, the adopted home of Abraham Lincoln, and I have had a passion for things that go fast since I was a child.
My first memory is of being a small child at the end of a diving board, with my father coaxing me to jump into the diving well. I have always had an affinity for water, and throughout my childhood participated in swim team, had my hand at Olympic Diving (I wasn't that good!), moved on to becoming a lifeguard as a teen and eventually instructed swim lessons for beginners. These formative years in the water shaped my love for being in the water, and fueled the inspiration to pursue it further.
As an impressionable youth I found land based sports in the off season as midwestern summers are short! I found ice hockey to be my sport of choice. I was blessed (or cursed, depending on how you look at it) with the innate ability to skate backwards. As such, I was in high demand, as many children my age couldn't skate backwards that well, if at all. They placed me on defense due to this ability, much to my chagrin.
Fast forward a few years, I found skateboarding through friends at school, and subsequently, rollerblading. I gravitated towards rollerblading based on my hockey background. This was a magical time in antiquity that is seldom spoke of now, when rollerbladers and skateboarders skated together in peace and harmony. If the gods are good these days will come again...
It is around this time that I discovered that my father lived in California and surfed. As a child of the water I found this very interesting, that and the fact he had this weird thing in the basement called a "wetsuit". I was very intrigued by it. I would later find out the hard way that this was a crucial component to surfing in the Pacific.
After graduating high school, I made the decision to attend music school. Two choices were foremost: Berklee School of Music in Boston, or Musician's Institute in California. This was not really a hard decision; more harsh winters, or California...you see where this is going.
After making the choice and moving to Hollywood to attend school, I quickly figured out how to get to the nearest beach, which happened to be Venice. Technically it was Santa Monica, but Venice had better surf and was just down the street. My great friend Derek Anderson joined me on this adventure, and obliged my insatiable desire to be in the ocean and waves, joining me on the hours long bus rides from Hollywood to the beach and back daily. Thank you Derek!
I am not proud to say that I did more surfing than studying. I had no surfboard at this time. I body surfed without a wetsuit, even into the winter months, staying out until my teeth chattered and my lips were purple. It didn't bother me, as the freedom and joy the ocean and waves provided me was all I needed. That and Liz's car.
Liz loaned us her car while she went home for a holiday. We went to Venice and enjoyed the ocean all day...until the end of the day when we realized we didn't know where the key to her car was. We were pretty sure we lost it in the sand. We sulked back home on the bus, only to return the next day and scour the beach the entire day for the key. Dejected, and knowing we would have to spend our rent money on a laser cut key, we were again sulking back to the bus stop, when out of the corner of my eye I bought a glimmer of light off an object in the sand. Call it fate, call it luck, call it karma: we found the key to Liz's car; the logo on the key caught the sun at just the right angle, at just the right time for my eye to catch it. The ocean giveth, and the ocean taketh away I guess.
- Thanks again Liz!
After music school in California I returned home to Springfield with my newfound love of surfing. I worked in restaurants (which will come in handy later) and played with my band mates, whom had all returned as well, in shows around our area. Years went by, people moved, moved on, and lives were lived. It happens.
The band slowly fizzled out, and we were dispersed to the winds of time, but my love of surfing never wavered. I was determined to find a way to either return to the ocean, or somehow, bring surfing to me. It was around this time that I heard about Kelly Slater's intention to build his Surf Ranch. This was exactly what I was thinking about over the years! Now there could be a way to surf consistent quality waves inland. What could be better? You don't have to take time off work, or the kids away from school. You don't have to travel far away and all that goes with that, AND there are no sharks! Not that that is necessarily a good thing as sharks are really cool. Frightening sometimes, but cool.
This led me down a road of trying to find a way to bring surfing to the midwest through some kind of artificial wave technology. I looked high and low, discovering many different systems along the way. There are many different methods of recreating waves outside of the ocean, but I think that Wave Garden has figured it out best. If you don't know about Wave Garden, look them up. They have an amazing product.
Surfing is now an Olympic sport. Olympic athletes will actually be competing in the Olympics on Wave Garden installations rather than the open ocean, as it can be ensured that each person get the same number, quality and size of waves, while not having to have a holding period, or be dependent on weather or swell.
Olympic athletes require training facilities, especially ones that simulate the conditions they will be competing in. It is my opinion that if the Midwest is able to create such a facility, that we could draw not only Olympic athletes to our region to train as we have a low cost of living, but also create a Surf Tourism sector, and create an entirely new economic sector of surf shops, shapers, manufacturing, retail, recreation, and the jobs that will be needed to support it.
That leads us up to today. My aim is to prove that surfing is a desired activity in the Midwest through presenting eFoiling to our communities who may not have the ability to travel to the ocean, or may not realize that they love something they have never had: surfing. If electric hydrofoil surfboards can be a thing, maybe we can look to the future where we can drive down the street to catch some excellent tubes in a corn field.
Who knows when or if it will ever happen...but one can dream, and should, right?
Matt