Luke Stedman

Here is another Australian legacy deal, dad and lad, like Troy Brooks and Rod Brooks. Luke Stedman is the spawn of 70s surfer Shane Stedman, a veteran of the Australian surfboard industry whose Shane and Spyder labels have been underfoot for more than 30 years. Young Luke grew up on his dad's boards, on the northern beaches of Sydney, where even the kookaburras surf, and one of his earliest memories had to do with riding waves: "The best wave I have ever had is a day out at Mona vale Basin when I was knee high to a grass hopper and I dropped in on my Dad," Stedman said to the www.mambo.com.au website. "I got tubed and my dad hit the reef and dinged his board. I thought I was such a rebel."

When Luke was 12, he got 15 stitches in his head and the doctor left some fiberglass in his head for a year, so he literally and figuratively has surfboards in his blood. As a surfer, there is a lot of family pride, Aussie pride and northern beaches pride flowing through Stedman. He claims to not be naturally competitive, or naturally talented, but is determined to be, "the best I can be in the water, I want to beat myself every time I get in the water."

Stedman did not have a silver plated amateur career like many of the other Australian 20 Somethings, and he did not walk on water to make the WCT. Stedman got to the show the old fashioned way, through grit and focus and hard work, and it's made him a truer shade of blue.

On the www.aquabumps.com website, a surfer named Uge described Stedman's reality: "Luke is a pro surfer totally dedicated to his work. It ain't all about getting shacked all day...there's 5 - 6 hours of training a day, fine tuning his body for this year's tour. Luke's ambitious as hell to crank it up the ladder after a promising 3rd on the WQS last year. Special diets, 3 yoga sessions a week, chin-ups, flexibility stretches and a hell of a lot of surfing are his daily regime. If you live up the northern beaches you'll see his mauve 70's Jaguar pull into the Avalon car park...like it had driven straight outa Mad Max movie set. Out glides cruzee Luke, a tall lanky figure with a giant smile and huge mop of hair, checking the days' surf before going to work on a couple of Av bumps."

Stedman looks like what most people think a surfer looks like, with his shaggy blonde locks and handsome face. In 2005, he upped the ante when he bet his friends that if he made it to "the business end" of a WCT event he would shave his blonde locks and, like Samson mixed with Spicoli, lose his preternatural power over women. At the J Bay event, Stedman made it to fifth which was business enough, but what he lost in girl-pulling-power he gained in points and money and credibility, and he finished the year third on the WQS.

Mission accomplished, for now, although Stedman knows that staying in The Show is just as hard as getting in the Show: "Falling off the tour is a fear of mine," Stedman said on the www.reachout.com website. " and I face it by not letting a minute go by where I could be doing something positive to make sure I am doing absolutely everything I can to be improving myself in any way possible.

Sounds okay, and it's hard to feel too envious of an Aussie guy who believes in giving back. He is an ambassador for the Inspire Foundation (www.inspire.org.au) and has a hand in giving a hand to troubled Aussie youth who need some direction. For the last five years, Stedman has organized the Reach Out! FUTURE event on the beach at Avalon, which brings some of the hottest surfers and the skateboarders to Sydney's northern beaches to show kids what is possible with some focus and hard work.