"Lisa Andersen defined a new era for women’s surfing and changed what men thought of how women surfed.”
-- Kelly Slater
[Placeholder for Lisa Andersen surfing history]
From: "Runaway to Respect," The Surfer's Journal
Her parents did not want her to surf. They associated surfing with drugs, alcohol and a 'beach bum' lifestyle. "They thought there was nothing productive about sitting around on a surfboard. But then there was nothing productive about the way my family lived."
Her dad was an alcoholic who lost his restaurant business. Her younger brother was in and out of jail. She crawled out of her window and ran away from home so many times that her dad had to board up the windows.
Eventually, she was placed in juvenile detention. When she got out, her father destroyed her board in front of her. This time, she ran away for good - leaving a note that read 'Gone surfing.'
Arriving in California, she moved in with a friend in Huntington Beach who, it turned out wanted more than just friendship. After three months of abuse, she left.
She slept rough, sometimes under park benches. Other times, she would find an empty beach house, wait until nightfall and then crawl up to the verandah and make a cubby hole under her surfboard. She'd have to change her sleeping spot most days.
Throughout it all, she kept surfing - winning 35 National Scholastic Surfing Association trophies in eight months. Each week, she would cut out the article in the local paper mentioning her name - and send it home, without giving her address. She wanted her family to know that she wasn't in jail, that she was doing well.
A year later, at age 17, she won the girls' division of the U.S. Surfing Championships, placed third in the World Surfing Championships, and turned Pro - earning the world tour's rookie-of-the-year honors.
In 1990, she won her first tour title, but had difficulty with the rigors of week in and week out competition. Finding increased determination and improved concentration after the birth of her first child, she rose to win four consecutive World Titles from 1994 to 1997, making competitive history as a single mom.
Along the way, she became the first woman to cross over into surfing celebrityhood. Blond, smiling Andersen was seen in full-page magazine ads, on posters, in promo videos and magazines around the world. Outside Magazine wrote that she had achieved "a dominance that made the pig dudes shut up and take notice."
With her run of world titles, she raised the profile of women’s surfing to a global level, shattered stereotypes of female surfers, inspired a whole generation of women to get in the water, and was the face that sold a million board shorts for the Roxy brand.
Andersen was a six-time winner of the Surfer Readers Poll Award, was voted "Female Athlete of the Year" by Condé Nast and was listed in Surfer's "25 Most Influential Surfers of the Century" article. In 2000 she was ranked #76 in Sports Illustrated for Women's "Greatest Sportswomen of the Century."
She's appeared in dozens of surf movies and videos, was inducted into the Surfer's Hall of Fame, named Waterman of the Year in 2007 and has had a bio written about her.
While women surfers trail behind men in terms of pay and coverage,"there is no doubt that female surfing would have missed a crucial burst of progress without the style and performance of Lisa Andersen."
In the end, she reconciled with her father and has found peace. Like the film that chronicles her life, "this is a story of how one person can overcome a wayward youth and serious adversity to achieve greatness."
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The Surfer's Journal 2023 Soundings interview with Jamie Brisick:
https://www.surfersjournal.com/editorial/soundings-lisa-andersen/
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