At six in the morning, a group of Pepperdine surfers wait in their cars at Zuma Beach before first light. The sun is still far from coming up when the 12 students congregate on the sand to begin practice.
A typical Pepperdine surf team workout consists of 45 minutes of dry land exercises, including running, strength training and stretches. They then suit up and paddle out for at least one hour and 15 minutes of surfing.
Coach Gino Mesinas watches from the shore, occasionally calling the surfers in to critique their form. Mesinas is a surfer himself, and sometimes paddles out with the team to catch a few waves of his own.
The Pepperdine surf team has a long-standing history, but was just recently revived after a long hiatus.
“It was a thing way back when Pepperdine first started,” super senior Captain Liz Lutz said. “It was cool to look at black and white pictures [of the team] from the 1960s.”
Lutz and a group of her friends brought the team back during her junior year. After inquiring about Pepperdine’s lack of an official surf team, the girls were told they could have a team if they committed to being in charge of it.
“Last year (2014-15) was all about getting organized,” Lutz said. “We picked up some competitions, but we didn’t have a full team.”
The start of the 2015-16 school year brought a more organized team and the recruitment of valuable members, including junior Moorea Maguire and freshman Sierra Perry, both of who are said to be valuable assets.
“I didn’t join the team my sophomore year because I knew I was going abroad to Argentina [second semester],” Maguire said. “This year, I was really able to commit.”
Maguire, a Malibu native, formerly surfed with the Malibu High School surf team and is no stranger to competitions. She, Lutz and Perry are among the Pepperdine surf team’s nine members who travel to compete at National Scholastic Surfing Association (NSSA) collegiate competitions.
Pepperdine is one of 32 teams that compete in the NSSA’s Southwest Conference. Each team is allowed to bring six male competitors, two females and one longboarder to contests.
Perry, the team’s longboarder, said that the girls’ heats have seen the best waves in the conference’s two competitions thus far.
“For a longboarder, a good wave means you have lots of control and relaxation,” she said. “You have to show that you have the ability to step on the nose and make clean turns.”
Lutz said that since the new, small team competes against larger and more established programs, she encourages her teammates to stay focused on their individual performances. “We look less at the schools and more at personal growth,” she said. “Our goal is to try to get third or higher to advance past the first heat.”
The team also makes sure to have some fun while traveling, despite experienced competition.
“The coach has a Volkswagen camper van that we take to competitions sometimes,” junior Emmett Pierson said, “and just being at the beach is hard to beat.”
Outside of practice, the team has a barbecue and movie night every Wednesday and is in the early phases of planning two mission trips this summer.
Members of the team will travel to Nicaragua in June to implement clean water filters as part of the Waves for Water campaign, and in July, some members will join a mission trip to Indonesia facilitated by the Surfing the Nations organization. Both trips will incorporate teaching surf lessons to local children.
“[Indonesia and Nicaragua] are places where we can reach out and help, but also have amazing surf,” Lutz said.
Lutz said being part of a surf team was one of her lifetime dreams and she is encouraged by the dedication of her teammates and the vision they share.
“I’ve been really proud that people are motivated to waking up three times a week when it’s cold and dark and there are a lot of other things going on,” she said. “[Starting the surf team] showed me that nothing is too out of reach or too impossible. The moral of the story is to work at something if you want it.”
The Pepperdine surf team will resume competition on Jan. 23-24 in Huntington Beach — the first of two competitions remaining in the regular season.
To support the Pepperdine surf team’s mission trips, contact Liz Lutz at 720.254.7701.