Writer: Chris Ahrens | Photographer: Aaron Chang
The 2006 Women’s World Longboard Surfing Champion, Schuyler McFerran never tried to be an outsider. She never worked to carve out an image or have the longest word in the dictionary apply to her. She was merely being herself and surfing with her mom and dad in Encinitas, California. When genetics and drive fully kicked in about the age of 16, she looked like a title contender. Three years later, she fulfilled her destiny in the 3-foot waves of Biarritz, France.
    Competitive surfing is essentially divided into four categories: big wave surfing, small wave surfing, shortboarding, and longboarding. Longboarding, which is Schuyler’s specialty, is performed on surfboards over 9 feet long. It is a traditional art form based around style and flow, a ballet to shortboarding’s slam dance.
    Schuyler’s graceful maneuvers and endless noserides, which often peak in hanging ten (putting ten toes over the end of the surfboard), separate her from the masses of wave riders. Few longboarders hang ten; fewer still attain such amazing grace. But it’s something anyone can attain, kindness and goodness, that are her most remarkable traits. So where does that leave an interviewer? Having known Schuyler for a few years, I am prepared for her nonconformity, but imagine some smut-raking investigative reporter interviewing the new Women’s World Longboarding Champion for the first time.

Reporter: So when did you first use performance enhancing drugs?
Schuyler: Thank you for asking, but I never have used any illegal drugs. Wait, I did take three St. Joseph’s Baby Aspirin once, but that was because I thought they were vitamins.
Reporter: What other crimes have you committed?
Schuyler: I once tried sending a letter with a canceled stamp I peeled from an envelope. Am I in trouble?
    In a world where defiance among youth is the norm, the final act of rebellion may be nondefiance: eating all your vegetables, avoiding foul language, and saying your prayers before bed. With all other forms of rebellion tried, this may be the last countercultural act, a true rebellion that carries a risk of alienation from the mainstream.
    Schuyler took her World Championship win with emotion and humility. Wondering if the title would change things, many of us watched carefully, as days later she landed back in California, paddled out at her home break, Swami’s, and hung ten without a care in the world. If you asked about it she would tell you of her victory. Otherwise she was quietly content to surf with friends and family, chatting and laughing between waves, and perhaps unaware that she was the best surfer in the water.

RISEN Magazine: You seem sincere and friendly; how does that translate to competition?
Schuyler McFerran: Well, I have to leave that personality on the beach. Not to say that I get all agro, but I realize I can’t sit out there chatting the entire heat. I have to think about getting waves.

RM: Do you ever get in situations where people are trying to break your concentration, or break the rules in order to win?
SM: [Laughs] The few times that’s happened, I’ve thought, Well, if they wanted the wave that badly, the can have it. Go for it and I’ll wait for another one.

RM: You trained really hard for a world championship last year and didn’t do that well. This year you didn’t train, and you won.
SM: This year I was mentally there. I wasn’t running on the beach every day, like I had been.

RM: How do you mentally prepare yourself for world-class competition?
SM: I was getting really nervous about it, saying, OK, it’s the world title, you have to do good, Schuyler. But I didn’t freak myself out. I just took it heat by heat, thinking, If I win, I win, if not, hopefully there will be another year.

RM: Are you competitive outside of surfing?
SM: I definitely am, especially if I’m playing my little brother in ping pong. [Laughs] I do have my moments of being really competitive, but only in sports, really. Everything else, I think I’m pretty mellow.

RM: How would you describe surfing to someone who had no concept of it?
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