A-frame

Aaberg, Denny

Aaberg, Kemp

Abberton, Koby

Abbruzzi, Sid

Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

Adler, Tom

advertising and surfing

Aeder, Erik

aerial

Aguerre, Fernando

Aichner, Scott

Aikau, Clyde

Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

Airshow

Ala Moana

Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

Alexander, Kala

Alexandre, João (Dapin)

Allen, Chuck

Alms, Paige

aloha shirt

Alter, Hobie

Alvarez, Pepe

Ancell, Kevin

Andaman Islands

Andersen, Lisa

Anderson, Craig

Anderson, Simon

Andino, Kolohe

Angel, Jose

angle

Angola

Angourie

Antarctica

Apocalypse Now

Arabian Sea

Aragon, Janice

Arakawa, Eric

Archbold, Matt

Arena, Eduardo

Ashton, Juan

Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)

Atlantic Ocean

August, Robert

Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

Australia

Avalon, Frankie

Azores

backdoor

backside

backside attack, Pipeline

backwash

bail out

Bain, Rob

Baja California

Baker, Bernie

Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

Ball, John “Doc”

Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

Baltic Sea

Banks, Jim

Barbados

Barilotti, Steve

Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

Barry, Michael

Bartholomew, Wayne

Baxter, Jackie

Bay of Bengal

Beach Boys, The

Beacham, Debbie

beachboys

beachbreak

Beachcomber Bills Grand Prix

Beachley, Layne

beavertail

Becker, Phil

Bedford-Brown, Stuart

Belgium

Bells Beach

Bendall, Ma and Pa

Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Blanche

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Erratic, fraudulent, high-determined competition promoter and organizer; founder in 1976 of both the American Surfing Association (ASA) and the International Amateur Surfing Federation (IASF); author of the error-riddled 

. "Filosa spent decades pretending to be the overlord of organized surfing," 

 magazine wrote 2001. "He constructed a kind of parallel universe in which he became the source of all [surf] knowledge and wisdom—and did a damn good job it, too."

Filosa was born (1931) and raised in Vermont; in the '50s and '60s, he worked as a writer and editor for various magazines in New York and Los Angeles, including the short-lived 1957-launched 

which was produced by Filosa Publications.

In the mid-'60s, Filosa returned to college and received a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of the Americas, in Mexico City. In 1966 he was elected Student Association president.

Filosa came to the attention of the surfing world in 1975, after writing a letter to 

 complaining about how the magazine used the female gender ("our mother ocean") when describing the sea and surf. After 

 flippantly replied by publishing a curvaceous photo of a breaking wave, Filosa threatened a lawsuit, and for nearly 10 years he continued to feud with the surf media, along with many of surfing's most respected figures.

How and why a non-surfing man in his mid-40s decided to focus his attention on the sport remains unknown. "The point is that he did," surf writer Rus Calisch noted, "and with greater fervor than anyone could have imagined."

In 1976, Filosa launched a defamatory letter campaign against Orange County surfing matriarch Nancy Katin after she refused to sell Filosa her Kanvas by Katin surfwear business. "It would not be difficult to crush an old lady," he wrote in a letter to surf photographer LeRoy Grannis.

That same year, Filosa introduced both the ASA, a school-based amateur competition organization, and the IASF. It was Filosa's great dream to get surfing into the Olympic games, and while the ASA was viable for just a short period in the mid- and late '70s (the IASF was little more than a shell organization), he was nonetheless able to establish communication with both the Amateur Athletic Union and the International Olympic Committee, and temporarily position himself as the head of world amateur surfing. (Filosa was a tireless networker and knew better than most surf-based organizers how to navigate the nonsurfing world. He also frequently misrepresented himself to sports world officials, saying, for example, that he was the surfing coach for the University of California at Irvine—a position that didn't exist.)

In an editorial published in a 1977 issue of 

, a Florida magazine startup, Filosa wrote that the ASA was now the "officially recognized governing authority for amateur surfing" in America and that surfing would likely "be an Olympic sport by 1984."

, published in 1977 by E. P. Dutton, was part of Filosa's effort to further convince officials outside of surfing that Filosa was an authority on the sport. The book was filled with errors, as well as made-up information. First Point Malibu, for example, is renamed "Simmons Point." A wetsuit is called a "Bradner."

In 1977, establishment figures from within surfing—including those in media, competition, and surfwear—together were able to convince AAU and the IOC officials that Filosa was a fraud. The ASA, meanwhile, was made irrelevant after the 1978 founding of the National Scholastic Surfing Association.

Filosa's reduced place in the sport, however, didn't altogether prevent him from making his presence felt. In 1983, contest promoter and former world surfing champion Fred Hemmings won a $36,000 judgment against Filosa after Filosa sent a vilifying letter about Hemmings to the Federal Communications Commission, in an attempt to bring Hemmings down from his position as head of the IPS world tour.

 magazine reported in 2001 that Filosa had developed plans for professional surfing league, and a TV series called 

Filosa died in 2013, in Iowa City, Iowa, at age 82.

Filosa, Gary

Subscribe or Login

Encyclopedia of Surfing

Features

The Sunday Joint

Encyclopedia of Surfing

Features

The Sunday Joint