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EasternSurf.com: Since longtime ESA
Allstar Coach Brian Broom stepped down in 2007, things have been a little
obscure about who’s taking his place and where the organization is heading. Can
you clear things up for our readers?
Pat Emery: The ESA brought in a couple
potential coaches two years ago that they thought would be great for the team.
Jason Motes and Kai Dilling are both great competitors with good ideas they
were willing to run with. Unfortunately, Jason ran into some personal problems
throughout the year and, of course, the economy was starting to unfold. So he
had to step down and resign. I stepped in as an interim and coached the kids in
California for a week. Then the ESA board went through the whole selection
process to choose a new coach for 2009. My ballot was in there along with Kai’s,
and out of ten applicants, it came down to myself, Kai, and one other person.
They chose Kai, and I felt they chose the right person for the job. He has a
competitive background and does training in his own town with his surf school
[Sol Surfers Surf School], so I feel they made the right decision. Kai had
taken hold of everything and set up a couple training programs. But with having
a family, he couldn’t do the things with the team that he wanted to do. He
overextended himself, and decided to send out a notice that he was stepping
down. Once again, I got the call to step in as Head Coach, and being second on
the list last year, that was a no-brainer.
ESM: So
it’s official?
PE: Initially, I was an interim
coach until September of 2009. A mass e-mail went out to actually vote me in as
Head Coach for 2010, and they were like, ‘Why have Pat in for two months and
then replace him with a new coach? The kids are gonna be completely confused.” And
for the past two years the kids have been just that — completely
confused. So now I’ve officially stepped in as the coach.
ESM: What can we expect from this
round of Allstars?
PE: This 2010 season with the new
team and some of the returning members is gonna be a new era for the ESA
Allstar Team. There will be a lot of camaraderie and teamwork and tradition. We’re
gonna be on the beach in force. I want us to not just be a threat on the East Coast,
which we are, but a threat in the nation. That’s what my whole perception is
with this team.
ESM: The time and energy required to
devote to this position is pretty daunting. How will you be able to balance
this with your own livelihood in New Jersey?
PE: With running my own business at
home, it isn’t easy to devote my time to the team. But my background has been a
history of champions. I grew up in an area where nobody surfed. The biggest sports
were football, wrestling, basketball, track and field, stuff like that. So the
coaches that brought me up were all former champions. Rick Thompson in
wrestling, Ned Bolcar in football at Notre Dame… these were names I looked up
to coming through those programs, and there’s a lot of tradition where I come
from. Every Thanksgiving Day, we play high school football with the rival town
across the river from us, Easton-Phillipsburg Football, and that’s been going on for over 100 years. It’s
one of the oldest rivalries in the nation. Two years ago, it was this huge
media event on ESPN.
ESM: What kind of competitive
credentials do you bring to the table?
PE: Basically, my surfing career
started late in my life. I’ve always had a passion for surfing, but I never
really got into the contest scene as a grommet or a junior or even the Men’s
division. I actually started out in the Masters division, and my amateur career
kinda took off from there and I racked up a couple titles. My first year at
Easterns, I was disqualified. I vowed to come back the next year and win it,
which I did. The following year, I focused on winning the U.S. title, which I
did. But let me just say that I love this organization. There’s so much
positive energy here. The coaches before me, when they went through their
respective programs, they were champions. And they came back and became the
coaches. That’s the perception I got from them. You go though the program, and
when you’re done doing what you can do, you come back and shed some light and
try to better the organization. In my short period of time here, I’ve seen some
things I can improve on. And that’s exactly what I’m gonna do this year.
ESM: What’s number-one on your
agenda?
PE: Definitely the training. I
already told some of the kids that massive communication through e-mails will
be required of them. That’s actually in the contracts that they sign. Obviously
they’ll be required to attend all the training sessions and the team trip. It’s
all mandatory because this is either gonna be the program that’s gonna make
them WQS or WCT surfers and help them get to the avenue they need to get to, or
it’s not. So these are my guidelines, and hopefully by doing this, it will be
bring the cream to the top.
ESM: And
who’s the cream at this point? Who are the Allstars of the Allstars?
PE: It’s a very extensive team and
there are some real quality surfers with a whole arsenal of tricks they can
pull out at any moment, from what I’ve seen out in the freesurfs this week. I
want to perfect that, and have them be able to draw that out late or early in a
heat. Surfers like Mason Barnes, Corey Howell, Cole and Cam Richards… Nick Rupp
has obviously been a strong point, being in the Allstars for so long. He’s been
through four coaches now. Then some of the girls — Nikki Viesins is a
former U.S. champ and U.S. Team member herself, Mallory Turner, the current
U.S. Longboard champion, and then Chelsea Gresham, Savannah Bradley, Brittany
Hickey from New Jersey… We have some really good girls.
ESM: Where
are you targeting for the team trip?
PE: I’m
looking at potential sites in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, somewhere really
consistent. We have a couple prospects that people have offered to make it
affordable for us, which is essential. We’ve had offers for houses in Puerto
Rico, but it’s kind of overcrowded there, and if I show up with a team of 40
people, that’s not gonna go over too well. Plus, the old team never really got
a trip this year, so I want to do a trip and invite the old members to join the
new team. I think that would be beneficial for both teams, because the old
members will feel like they got something out of the ESA Allstar experience, which
will promote the Allstars in the future, and the new team will gain a lot of
knowledge from the older Allstars who understand that this program is essential.
It’s one avenue that you can go to if you want to become a pro surfer on the
East Coast. I want kids to come to us and want to work with the finest coaches that
will groom them to become champions. Because that’s what I came from, and
that’s what my coaches did for me.
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