This episode we are reading Jamie Brisick's short story Young, Loud and Shameless from the book: The Eighties at Echo Beach. It captures the wild, neon-soaked, punk-influenced surf scene of early ’80s Orange County and dives into the youthful chaos of the Echo Beach crew, kids who surfed hard, partied harder, and defined an entire aesthetic of the 1980s surf world. It's nostalgic, fast, stylish, and slightly bittersweet showing how a tight knit group of teenagers shaped global surf culture.

If you’d like to help support the podcast, you can visit buymeacoffee.com/thesurferslibrary. Your support helps cover the platform fees that keep the show going each month so any little bit truly helps.

Also, if you would like to sponsor the podcast or have any story ideas or feedback for the podcast please contact us on Instagram or at thesurferslibrary@gmail.com

Let’s paddle out.

This episode we’re diving into one of the most powerful stories in modern surf history, the rise and tragic loss of big-wave icon Mark Foo. In Matt Warshaw’s story 'Death of a Legend', we trace Foo’s journey from a driven, stylish Hawaiian charger to one of the most recognizable names in big wave surfing. Foo wasn’t just talented; he was relentless, competitive, and completely committed to proving himself in the heaviest waves on the planet.

The story leads us to Mavericks in 1994, a cold, foggy, still-mysterious Northern California break. Warshaw takes us into the lineup that day, describing the conditions, the atmosphere, and the fatal wipeout that stunned the surf world and changed big wave surfing forever.

In the end, Warshaw looks at how Foo’s death transformed Mavericks into a global stage, and how it elevated Foo himself from a gifted professional to a larger than life legend. This story is part of a compilation of 32 stories in a book called The Big Drop edited by John Long. You can find this book currently at Amazon.com.

Just a quick reminder, if you’d like to help support the podcast, you can visit buymeacoffee.com/thesurferslibrary. Your support helps cover the platform fees that keep the show going each month so any little bit truly helps.

Also, if you would like to sponsor the podcast or have any story ideas or feedback for the podcast please contact us on Instagram or at thesurferslibrary@gmail.com

Let’s paddle out.

This episode features a story from Matt Warshaw’s book Surfriders: In Search of the Perfect Wave. It’s called “Morning at Freshwater.”

When this story was written in the 1990’s, most people believed Duke Kahanamoku introduced surfing to Australia in 1914. Today, we know there were earlier examples of wave riding in Australia, but Duke’s visit to Freshwater remains a defining moment that helped surfing take root and grow into a national passion. With a board he shaped by hand during his first two weeks in Australia, Duke paddled out and showed the crowd on the beach something most had never seen before — the pure art of wave riding.

If you’d like to help support the podcast, you can visit buymeacoffee.com/thesurferslibrary. Your support helps cover the platform fees that keep the show going each month, so any little bit truly helps.

Also, if you have any story ideas or feedback for the podcast please contact us on Instagram or at thesurferslibrary@gmail.com

Let’s paddle out.