Matt Mcgillivray

I was the first in the car park, as often happens in the EC in winter. A freezing morning temperature made even lower by the northerly wind whistling down the valleys and wafting the lips in the offshore breeze. I was over it – too hardcore for me. I decided to go back home to the wife and family and do all the normal things that one should be doing at 7h30 on a Tuesday morning.

Just as I was turning the kombi around I spotted another car pull up alongside me. It was none other than Graeme Hynes. “What’s it like?” he enquired, mind as sharp as ever. “Can we coach today?”

I looked back at the sets, then at Hynesy. “Of course. Who’s coming to be coached by the legend?”

“Matt McGillivray,” said the 81-year-old Hynes. I knew the kid. “I’ll paddle out and surf with him,” I answered. “It’s going to be lonely out there otherwise.” I pointed to the cold offshore conditions through the early morning freeze.  

Sometimes surfing is an inspiring sport. Between the company failings and the takeover bids, petty industry squabbles and world tour failings. Through the death of a world champion, through the abysmal local South African surf administration and their total lack of financial transparency, through egos and self-importance, the sport can still be great. Early morning, one icy cold winter morning, and an 81-year-old legend is coaching a 15-year-old kid with braces and a huge smile on his face at an empty and cooking pointbreak. Waves are pouring down the point. It’s the start to a weekday that very few people in the world actually get to experience, that even less can actually comprehend. We suit up, and Matt and I walk to the jump spot.

There are about 10 different routes to about 10 different jump spots, making a hundred variables to get into the water, with each route related to the movement of the tide. I know my way around and choose Centre. Matt chooses Far Right, a strange choice on a solid swell and a mid tide. I look closely at his board as he prepares to lunge into the water. “What size is your board?” I shout across our little generation gap of a channel. “Five three by seventeen by two,” he shouts back. It’s hard to comprehend a board that small. He jumps and paddles. I jump and paddle.

Matt gets the first wave. Of course he does. He’s 15 and I’m 43 and it’s early in the morning. My old bones haven’t woken up yet, and he’s been up and amping for hours. I see spray flying from behind as he rips the wave through to the inside, watched carefully by his coach Hynes on the beach.

“I’ve got the Billabong Pro Junior coming up next, which is here,” said Matt, sitting in the lineup alongside me. “I want to really do well in that event.”

“What’s after that?”

“Well, then we have the Hurley SA Junior Champs, and that at Point in Jeffreys.”

“That should be good,” I add.

“Yes, if we get swell it should be great,” said Matt. The waves are pouring down the point for the two of us and the two other surfers in the water. A double-up appears but it also looks like it’s going to be quite an effort to catch it so I send Matt on it. That 5’3 by 17 by 2 Safari that he’s riding catches it with ease. There’s a bomb behind it however, and there is a sudden flurry of waves. We all get a couple and it takes a while for Matt and I to regroup and get chatting again.

A question that often makes young surfers squirm is the question, ‘who are your heroes..’ many kids haven’t established heroes yet, and are too busy recognizing themselves as the centre of the universe to pick up that there are other legendary people out there, but Mat gets it, and answers without blinking that his heroes are Kelly, and Dane. When it comes to South Africans he looks no further than Jordy Smith for hero worship. That’s a good trio of surfers to be looking up to.   

“So, I guess your obvious goal would be to get on the World Tour,” I state to Matt. “Get on the WQS and then aim for the WCT.”

He hesitates, for just a fraction, before relenting. “I would like to get onto the World Tour,” he replies, “but I would also like to do some sort of surf missionary work.” I then remember seeing Jesus amongst the Hurley, Oakley, DaKine and Skullcandy and other sponsors on his board. Matt is really well spoken. He says yes instead of ja, and he looks at you when he speaks.  

“You’ve been brought up with Jesus,” I confirm. “You and your whole family, all your brothers and your sister, you’re all into it.” Matt nods with a smile, a stoked smile like he’s totally onto something.

Yet another perfect wave appears and Matt is on it and racing down the line at top speed, looking for a section to boost, or a lip to hit. He’s chasing six-point scores this morning as part of Hynesy’s coaching program.  

As my story tapers off, with me on the beach chatting to Hynesy and debating tail slides vs power turns and the merits and giant demerits of surfing coaches in our country, I find myself looking for an ending to my morning story. Clichéd endings appear to me as always, about the sunrise and the empty line-up and the joy of surfing as seen through a 15-year-old’s eyes, but nothing sticks. I wave my goodbyes to Hynesy and to Matt’s mom, and as I leave I see Matt paddle for the wave of the morning.