The Eastern Surfing Association’s All-Star Team is kicking it up a notch and moving in a new and exciting direction. The organization’s best competitors will now be trained by some of the world’s top coaches, enabling them to take their competitive skills to the next level.
“Our All-Star Team members are nominated and chosen based on their dedication to competitive surfing,” says ESA Executive Director Michelle Sommers. “It’s imperative that we offer them the training they need in order to reach their personal and professional goals in surfing.”
International Surf Services Director and Coach Erik Krammer will be coming to the ESA’s Easterns® this year to provide surf training for 2014 All-Star Team members throughout the week-long event. He will also provide coaching assistance during heats, as well as sportsmanship and judging information that is crucial for every competitive surfer to know and understand.
“I am really looking forward in getting back to the Outer Banks to work with the ESA again this year at the Easterns®,” says Krammer. “Last year I was more involved with private coaching and educating the general public about the finer details of competitive surfing, and this year will be even better as I will be able to directly reach some of the best surfers on the East Coast through the ESA All-Star Team.”
Krammer, who has vast experience at the professional level, will be able to provide the All-Star Team with what they are looking for when working with a surf coach. Krammer adds, “Drawing from fifteen years as a competitive surfer, eleven years as an international judge on the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Championship Tour (WCT), and the last six years as a private coach/trainer, I have created a program that will give the ESA’s younger surfers the tools they need to take their surfing to a higher level.”
The ESA All-Star Team is an elite group of athletes who are nominated and inducted based on their surfing results, as well as their actions outside of the waves. “The surfers on the All-Star Team are role models for all our members,” states Jeanine Montgomery, Chairperson of the newly developed All-Star Team Committee. “To be an All-Star, one should be a strong competitive surfer, demonstrate outstanding sportsmanship skills, and be dedicated to the ESA and represent the organization in a positive manner.”
The All-Star Team has kicked off an annual fundraising event this year entitled “The Road To Easterns®.” Team members have been selling raffle tickets for a Jeep that will be given away at the 2014 Easterns®, scheduled for September 14-20 at Jennette’s Pier in Nags Head, North Carolina. Tickets will continue to be sold until the time of the drawing, which will be held on Saturday, September 20. All proceeds from the raffle will go directly to the All-Star Team to help with costs associated with team travel to Hawaii in 2015, along with training and other team expenses.
“This is such an exciting time for the ESA All-Star Team, and I am thrilled that the athletes will have the opportunity to work with many of the best coaches and trainers in the surf industry. After all, succeeding in competitive surfing is about becoming the best you can be all around.” Montgomery adds, “The best is definitely yet to come!”
The ESA, which is in its 47th year, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit amateur athletic organization dedicated to the sport of amateur surfing. The organization promotes amateur competition for surfers of all ages and abilities, and is dedicated to the establishment and preservation of free access to a clean shoreline and ocean environment.
Press Contact:
Michelle Sommers
302-988-1953
[email protected]