mr."RABBIT"(retro movement cont.)

Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew Bio

Etching a storied path from meager Gold Coast beginnings, Aussie regular footer Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew battled through the amateur ranks to realize glory among the royal reef breaks of Hawaii’s North Shore. Scrappy and raw in the water as well as on the sand, Rabbit’s persona was more Jagger than Bowie, becoming immortalized on film as the rock and roll harbinger of the “Free Ride” generation. His formula of equal parts aggression and effortlessness would influence future superstars (most notably competitive juggernaut Tommy Curren) as he parleyed both image and performance into a (then unimagined) multifaceted career in surfing. Eventually, his titles would include world champion, author, contest organizer and environmental crusader. Finally, over two decades after his perceived peak, Bartholomew was elected President of the same professional surfing tour that allowed him to live his dream in the first place, thus completing a sort of full-circle journey.

Long before his ascent to the top of the surfing world, little Wayne Bartholomew wasn’t even a blip on the radar in a country rife with wave riding talent. The son of a school teacher and a dance instructor, he earned his legendary nickname for his speed on the soccer field, but “Rabbit” soon applied his athletic speed to the ocean, learning to surf at age 11 at Snapper Rocks. Bartholomew’s parents soon split, resulting in instability that left him searching for something to grab on to. And he found that almost religious devotion upon his move to Kirra at age 13, where he learned to effortlessly thread the winding tubes of one the world’s premier right-handers. Even amongst the most progressive modern surfers, the legend of Rabbit’s early years at Kirra reverberates today. Although Bartholomew was still a good student and a promising athlete, he would later tell stories of hustling tourists for cash and stealing wallets to put food on the family table. At the same time, Rabbit turned his eye on the science of surfing: wave dynamics, surfboard design, and competitive strategy. Any perceived lack of natural talent for competition would be eclipsed by his workhorse mentality and thus drive him through the amateur ranks to lock horns with the best surfers in Australia.

By 1972, Bartholomew secured a win at the Queensland State Juniors and finished second runner up at the Australian national titles. The following year, he was the Queensland state men’s champion (a feat he’d repeat in 1974 and 1976). Battling the likes of Michael Peterson and Peter Townend, Rabbit finished fourth in 1974 and third in the 1976 at the national titles. But scrapping it out with his countrymen ad nauseum was not to be his legacy. In the book Bustin’ Down the Door, Rabbit writes of a moment years earlier at age sixteen. He sat in the Capital Theater in Coolangatta, Gold Coast, Australia studying a new surf flick “Five Summer Stories.” He watched as warriors chased glory in the giant Hawaiian surf. He was nagged by a fantasy that one day he would surf the world and get paid for it. As most Aussies idolized Nat Young, Rabbit looked up to the Hawaiians surfers who braved the dark caverns of the North Shore and could imagine his own lines drawn across those shimmering blue walls.

On his way back from the 1972 World Contest in San Diego, Bartholomew made a stop-over in Hawaii. One session in, and IT was on! At 18, he worked part-time and scraped together enough cash for a return ticket to Oahu. After a particularly gnarly Pipe session with the more seasoned Ian Cairns in which Rabbit scored a single bomb of a wave, he made it his point to “attack the North Shore like I was Attila the Hun. That was my way.” Although his compatriots already had invites to the big events, Rabbit’s North Shore surfing began turning heads, a goal that would dominate his early years.