Middle school surf club lets kids hit the waves with ’80 of your best friends’

At about 6 a.m. last Thursday, lifeguard Tower 11 at Huntington City Beach was bathed in darkness. The only light came from a beach maintenance truck’s headlights and the oil rigs off the coast.

But in the beach parking lot, cars started to come in one after another and gather adjacent to the tower.

The people inside them were members of the surfing club at Isaac Sowers Middle School in Huntington Beach. The group of about 80 students and their parents and club advisors meet at the city beach every Tuesday and Thursday, conditions permitting, to surf for about an hour before the start of the school day.

Physical-education teacher Ravi Sohoni, the club’s lead advisor, helped start the program about 25 years ago to introduce students to surfing and offer them a safe venue outside of school to talk with their peers, he said.

“This year, we’ve got about 18 kids that are really good surfers and about 50 to 60 that feel comfortable in the water, but they’re not the greatest surfers,” Sohoni said. “Some of them come out here and they just have a good time floating around and talking with their friends, catching whitewash waves on their stomach. … You have 80 of your best friends out here with you just having fun.”

Of the students in Sowers’ surf club, 18 to 20 are selected each year to be on the school’s surfing team, which competes in the National Scholastic Surfing Association. Sohoni said Orange County has about 10 middle school surf teams.

Seventh-grader Summer Balentine, 12, joined the Sowers surf club this school year after transferring from Talbert Middle School in Huntington Beach, which also has a surf club. She said the best time to surf is in the morning and that she doesn’t mind getting up about 5 a.m. to get in a few sets before the first-period bell at 8:35.

“I like to surf with my friends because some of them are also in the club,” she said.

Her father, Cliff Balentine, 47, said he introduced his daughter to surfing but never expected her to be an early bird on the beach.

“She fell in love with surfing and now it’s payback,” he said with a laugh. “She wakes me up every morning. You just wake up, try to drink a cup of coffee and you try to smile.”

The surf conditions Thursday morning were not ideal. There was an onshore wind, which made for choppy surf. However, the students didn’t mind, and the sounds of laughter and crashing waves filled the air.

Sixth-grader Christian Freeman, 11, just joined the club and admitted that he is not a morning person. However, he said, the thought of surfing is enough to get him out of bed.

“Sometimes the waves are better than they are later in the day, and there’s not as many people in the water,” he said.

While watching Christian surf, his father, Aaron Freeman, 34, said he doesn’t like waking up early either but that he is more than willing to take his son to the beach at dawn to support his hobby.

“It’s important for kids to stay active and busy,” he said. “I surf a lot, so I’m hoping he becomes a better surfer so we can go on surf trips. He can be my excuse to go surfing.”