Pancho Sullivan

Pancho's deal sounds like one of those sports movies, where the 30-something baseball pitcher or quarterback defies the odds of time and age to make the Big Leagues. Pancho Sullivan is 32 years old. He has been a surf star for well over a decade, always a contender in Hawaii, appearing in surf magazines and surf videos for many years, and now he makes the Foster’s ASP Men’s World Tour?

The 2006 season was Pancho's first full year on the World Championship Tour, and his results with two events left are about what you would expect for a 32-year-old surfer who is over 200 pounds. He got ninths at all the events where experience matter more than size: Gold Coast, Bells, J Bay, Mundaka. No better than ninth and no worse than 17th has put Pancho at 23rd in the Foster’s ASP Men’s World Tour with two events remaining. He's not on the WQS radar at all which suggests Pancho is a bit of a gambler, trusting his ability in the Big Show to get him through, and maybe staying home with wife and family as much as possible, and no time or interest to do the WQS.

Wife and family are what Pancho's campaign is all about. Married to Haunami with a daughter named Kirra and a boy on the way, Pancho went out on the road to bring home the poke. Pancho has already earned over $44,000 on the tour, but after travel expenses and taxes that is not as good as it sounds. But with sponsorships, it's a living and one that allows Pancho a lot of water time to counter all the travel time.

Pancho was born on Kauai, where he learned to surf and kept going when he moved to the North Shore with his mom at five years old. He played soccer and baseball but let the ocean take over completely as a teenager. Sullivan came up as an amateur in the Hawaiian Amateur Surfing Association but a 15 he moved to Oregon to live with his dad. He missed Hawaii, as you would expect, and was back within a year, surfing and playing golf for Kahuku High. "I didn't want to end up without any options," he said to Jason Borte for www.surfline.com.

In the winter of 1992, Sullivan was 19 when he made a beach entry into a pro event at Sunset, made it through eight rounds and won $1,800. That changed the course of his life: "I couldn't believe I could make money doing something I loved," Sullivan said to Jason Borte.

Within two years, Pancho was into his 20s and known as one of the best Hawaiian freesurfers in the world. He had trouble with competition, but left to his own devices he was one of the most exciting guys in the water at Sunset, Pipeline and Haleiwa. Always a big guy, Pancho struggled in small gutless waves, but in waves that required guts, he excelled. As a Hawaiian competitor, Sullivan took down the Xcel Pro at Sunset twice, and won the Hawaiian Pro Am Circuit in 1998, 1999 and 2000, taking down the Xcel Pro at Sunset twice, proving he could compete when the surf had some girth. During the 1990s pro surfing shifted its attention from power spots like Sunset to beachbreaks like Sao Paulo and Pancho wasn't interested: "I'm turned off by the type of surfing they're promoting, the contradiction of it," he said to Jason Borte. "I don't want to devote three or four years of my life to surf 2-foot waves."

But pro surfing began to shift back at the Turn of the Century, as the ASP began focusing on the quality wave venues like Bells Beach and Cloudbreak and Pancho's beloved Teahupoo, and once again Pancho was a 19-year-old kid on the beach, thinking, "This looks interesting."

Pancho did the WQS grind in 2005, missing his home and ohana (family) but doing it for both. By making the tour he became the oldest surfer to qualify and as the 2006 season was coming to an end, he was in danger of falling out. But at the end of the season there are several WQS events at Sunset and Haleiwa and the Pipe Masters to end the Foster’s ASP Men’s World Tour. Winning Pipe and the Triple Crown have always been Pancho's goals, and this is the year he needs to do it.