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h o l d d o w n dean morrison comes up for air after the worst year of his life. by kirk owers
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ean Morrison is known and admired for many things but talking himself up isn't one of them. Cast as one of the all-conquering Coolie Kids as a teenager Morrison has lived in the spotlight for most of his life. While Mick and Joel hit the World Tour burning rubber and have barely paused since, Deano struggled with fame and the pressure to perform. After his one and only tour victory in 2003 he fell off the pace and began slipping off the radar. Doubts circled like vultures. In 2010 he was shoved back into the limelight as his personal and professional life burst into flames. Today the gifted natural footer is back on firmer ground and is happier and more together than during his nine years as a wellpaid, high-profile Dream Tour surfer. Morrison's lap through hell began in July 2010 when he awoke in hospital with a fractured cheekbone and eye socket. King hit from behind at the Coolangatta Sands Tavern, he was lucky to be alive. Morrison
had started the tour year badly and was in desperate need of a good result. Compounding the pressure, the ASP were trialling a mid-year elimination format so by the time the tour hit Tahiti it was do or die. The dream he'd been chasing since he was nine years old was suddenly in serious doubt. He needed to get through one heat, against Tiago Pires, and things would have been very different but it didn't happen. The siren sounded. Dean Morrison was gone. Knowing he would be hurting and keen to get away from it all good mate Koby Abberton organised a trip to Bali. Two days into the holiday Dean took a call from his wife saying she was leaving him for someone else. Around this time his sponsors began pulling back, going broke or investing their money elsewhere. His life was unravelling at a giddying pace. Then his beloved dog Ike died. "2010 was fucked," says long-time friend Simon "Shagga" Saffigna. "It was just one thing after an-
Dean Morrison has never been more focused. || joli
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Dingo – little guy who likes big barrels.|| ord
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other. There's not a lot you can do when there's just a severe roll of bad shit happening. Things just kept going down for him. We were worried he'd go off the rails. It was gnarly. At the time I was making the film (Morrison's bio-pic, A Dingo's Tale) and his sponsor actually rang me at one point and said don't bother continuing because we're going to drop him and I was like, you know what, 'get fucked'." While these last four years have been tough for Morrison they have afforded him a view of the bigger picture. He's reconnected with his immediate family, has taken his big wave surfing to a whole new level and he speaks in the measured and self-aware voice of someone who knows his hatha from his vinyasa. If the bubble of fame and the laser focus required of professional athletes encourages a form of arrested development, then Dean Morrison has grown up fast in recent years. After freefalling to rock bottom in 2010, he's had to. "There wasn't an exact day when I woke up and went, 'oh wow I'm over that'," Dean reflects. "It probably took me a good year, year and a half, until I was comfortable enough to back what I was doing. Because that's the hardest thing when you make major transitions in your life - it's backing yourself and being confident you're doing the right thing. [Not competing] was hard for me because obviously there's a lot more money and exposure in competitive surfing. But for me it's more about finding things that are out of my comfort zone that help me grow as a person." In the end Shagga was able to finish A Dingo's Tale and it was a hit. It showcases Deano's phenomenal ability on rail, in the tube and in waves of consequence like Backdoor and Shipstern's Bluff. Between surf sequences a fragile Morrison opens up about the rollercoaster ride he's been on since he was a grommet. He talks about his dad's alcoholism and violence towards his mum and why he left home at the age of 15. More broadly the film gives us a window into the flipside of professional sport: the pressure of expectation, the intrusiveness of the media and the heart wrenching cost of failure. "I love winning but everything that comes with it I fucking hate," he says at one point. Watching it you can't help but reflect on the seemingly carefree Morrison that appeared in Three Degrees which charts the rise of the Coolie Kids as they smash the junior ranks, turn 21 and bust out on to the
World Tour as the brightest hopes in Australian surfing history. Fanning and Parkinson went on to win – so far – four world titles between them, earn a mint and to dominate the sport. Morrison is still regarded as one of the best freesurfers on the planet but he never finished higher than ninth in the world and has been without a sponsor for years. Why did his path track so differently to his Coolie brothers? Former ASP president, Wayne "Rabbit" Bartholomew is more qualified than anyone on the planet to answer that question. Bartholomew knows Deano and pro surfing inside out. When Morrison's family life was imploding the youngster reached out to Rabbit who took him on as a flatmate, coached him as a protégé and raised him as a son. Dean's celebrated abilities in the barrel are in no small part a result of living across the road from Kirra Point with the 1978 World Champion. Morrison's troubled journey cuts close to the bone for Bartholomew. "I've got personal feelings there because in 1999 I came on board as the ASP's CEO and that was when those guys hit the big time. So for that entire 10-year period I couldn't work with Dean Morrison. And I kinda feel he never really moved on from that. Because right from the schoolboy days it was Mick and Phil McNamara, Deano and me, and Parko was doing training squads with Eddie Valedares. When I took on the ASP he didn't take on another fulltime trainer. The others did but Dean just started floating out there. I felt hamstrung. Dean would ring me when he'd had a shocker and here I am running the tour, watching every heat, watching him have his shockers. It was hard. It was super hard. I raised him like a son but I couldn't just coach him on the sly. I wanted to but I couldn't." Rabbit believes Dean became so accustomed to winning as a junior that he worried that he was becoming too ruthless. "It was like he felt sorry for the guys he was beating all the time. I don't know if he'd like me saying this but the way he explained it to me it was to do with his relationship with his father who he was estranged from at that point. That killer instinct just left him. He let it go. With Mick and Joel they really stepped up and the whole world became their comfort zone. Dean struggled in certain areas. He just didn't make that adjustment to the bigger world of touring." There were other differences too. "Even back then Dean was the one who'd go and spend three months
Unconstrained by WCT schedules, Dean has been able to follow swells around the world on a whim. || FRIEDEN
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Dingo is a contender for the title of the most tubed man on the planet. || joli
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in Hawaii or he'd be looking at the maps and chasing a phantom swell to Teahupoo. Mick and Joel were really tuning into the World Tour which is a totally different mindset." Later there was the additional pressure of being measured against two of the most successful surfers on the planet. "When Joel and Mick were contending for world titles he sort of became the forgotten amigo. Even though he had this beautiful style and was incredible at tube rides and unbelievable at reef breaks and was this real surfer's surfer he didn't have the same [media] push. Even in the local papers they talked about Mick and Joel and Dean wasn't mentioned. It got to the point where he was never mentioned," says Rabbit. Professional sport is littered with Next Big Things who don't reach their expected heights but the psychological toll this can cause is rarely acknowledged. The general public tend to envy pro athlete's physical skills, pay cheques and glamorous lifestyles. It's hard to imagine they'd have much to complain about. Australian author Christos Tsiolkas tackles these vexed issues in his latest novel, Barracuda. Researching the book (which focuses on Olympic swimmers) led him to this stark observation. "Failure is lacerating. Failure is isolating. Failure cuts you off from the world. Failure is shame. Failure is humiliation… I spoke to former athletes who all spoke about the cost of failure. The sense of shame they felt in not reaching their potential. In not achieving success. They talked about failure as the moment when their courage failed. When their faith in themselves failed. They talked about a moment when no matter how hard they worked, or practised or trained that their skills or will or talent would never be equal to their dreams. And that at that moment of failure they wished that everyone would disappear and their world would disappear." Morrison is more circumspect about his own experiences. "When I qualified there was just a lot to handle coming into it so quick. There was definitely some pressure [around being a Coolie Kid]. After being so dedicated and focused for so long and then all of a sudden it all happens and you're like 'whoa'. I think now there were a lot of other things I needed in my life to be able to be present in the moment and just enjoy it. Coming out of the situation that I was in - leaving home when I was really young - it felt like there was something missing there. I think over time to be able to be comfortable inside yourself and to become a man you need that time to find yourself. It was like I needed to find some values for myself." On the issue of media hype and public expectation he's realistic. "I think there are big expectations on athletes in any sport. Everyone wants to see the next generation do something really rad and take surfing to the next level. But that expectation comes with anything. It's whether or not the individual is able to get the best out of themselves. Everyone just wants to write stories about the next generation of surfers and the evolution of the sport." As Shagga points out when things went sour for Deano he had bigger things to worry about than media hype and public expectations. His entire life had been up-ended. "He was in a pretty dark place for a fair while there. I guess he's still trying to work out what to do next. It's hard after being a paid pro surfer for so long. You've got the life and it's all good then you have
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a bad year and the wheels come off and everything goes pear shaped. But in saying that I think that what happened in 2010 made him deal with a lot of things that he hadn't had to up till that point. I'm sure he still loves competing but he's more driven just to improve himself. He's surfing bigger waves than he ever has, pushing himself to the next level. He's more about self-improvement rather than kicking someone's arse. He's super into his yoga. He's like a semi Yogi. Parko calls him the Zen Master. After all he's been through … it's helped him. He's definitely developed his spiritual side." Rabbit agrees. "Dean's a strong guy. He was definitely lost for a while but he's got inner strength. He had to come through from a very dark place. His whole family rallied around him and it ended up being a healing time for them. When he moved in with me it was at the point of disintegration of the family unit but now he's close to his mum and he's close with his dad again. Like really close. And I feel really good about that. That's something that's really pleased me. I had dinner with them last night. His mum cooked dinner and his dad was organising tickets for the family to go and see the Titans and the Broncos. His sister and brother-in-law were there with their young son and Melissa is due again in July. It was great to be there and see this fractured family unit become one again." The seed for this story was sewn in Hawaii last year. It was a big year for Australian surfing – the first time an Aussie World Champion had been succeeded by a fellow countryman since Lynch and Hardman in 1988. On December 15 when Joel Parkinson presented the big trophy to his good mate Mick Fanning it felt like a warm and fuzzy end to a pretty amazing fairy tale. But it also felt a good time to consider the plight of the third Coolie Kid. What had become of Dean Morrison? I didn't have to wait long to find out. A week after the Pipeline Masters finished, Mick and Joel were back on the Gold Coast, and Dean Morrison was in his element. A huge west swell swallowed up the horizon and Pipeline pumped all day long. Most of the pros had vacated the beach houses but Pipe specialists were out in force: John John, Reef McIntosh, Jamie O'Brien, Damian Hobgood, Kelly Slater, the Ho dynasty and Anthony Walsh among them. Backdoor was an enormous shuddering closeout down to Rockpiles but every so often a lone surfer would see an opening and streak through a 10-foot hummer. The crowd would holler for the surfer on the logo-free board: Dean Morrison. "He's the best Aussie to surf out there for sure. I don't think anyone would dispute that," Joel Parkinson, no slouch at Backdoor himself, says of his good mate. Morrison's relationship with Backdoor hasn't always been so tight. At the end of his rookie tour year he speared head first into the lava reef and was rushed to hospital, gushing claret. It rattled him for years but he worked at it, wave after wave, season after season, chipping away at it his fear. "It wasn't a plan or anything," he reflects. "You just get some good waves out there and you realise no other wave gives you that same feeling so you keep going back for more and you become addicted to that rush. It's the best feeling ever when you get a good one." Hawaii has remained a constant in Morrison's turbulent life. He goes two or three times a year and
Wave-slayer in a slouch hat. Digger Atkinson for battle on the world tour.|| teeth
H O L D
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n is ready
By both his pro surfing peers and the astute Hawaiian observers, Dean is recognised as one of the best in the world at Backdoor.|| joli
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Dingo celebrating his victory at the Quiksilver Pro, 2003. || joli
clocks up months of big tubes, contest or no contest, sponsor or no sponsor, cameras or no cameras. "I remember times in Hawaii when we were making A Dingo's Tale and the surf'd be massive and everyone would be hitting Waimea and we'd try to find Deano then you'd hear he gone and paddled out at Phantoms with one other guy. No cameras or anything just doing it for himself. That's what he's like. He's just going. Doing his own thing. Whatever it may be he just wants to experience new things and it doesn't matter if anyone's watching," says Shagga. Now that he's no longer competing Dean prefers to wait until the crowds have settled down before he wings it across the Pacific. Last year he flew in early, eager to see Fanning battle it out for the World Title. But then the swell came up from the West and, well, spectating has never been Deano's strong suit. So when his Coolie mate was paddling out for the first of his do or die heats in the Pipe Masters, Deano was paddling his 10'6" towards the humping horizon at Jaws. "I've surfed it four or five times and I'm keen to chase it more," he says of the world's premier giant wave. "I mean you've seen those waves that Dorian got. For paddle-in waves and huge barrels – it doesn't get much better than that place. It's definitely a spot where you can push yourself and learn a lot about yourself." In March this year Morrison had his biggest paddle session to date at Jaws. He surfed for eight hours straight, pausing only to chug water, chomp energy bars and reinflate his vest. It was big, windy and mega crowded and there was carnage galore. A boat capsized, local surfer Dege O'Connell was rushed to hospital, and Dorian was held down for two waves, amid other calamities. At the end of the session Morrison learnt more about himself than he may have liked to. "I'd been surfing for seven hours and it felt like the swell was dropping. The crowd had dropped off and we were sitting on the inside when all of a sudden this thing broke so far out. The first was one was like 20-25 foot and the next one was way bigger. I've
never been caught by a 30-foot wave in my life and it's a whole different ball game. I came up after it had cleaned us all up and I was the only one who didn't take my leash off. Everyone was washed in, so I sat out the back by myself and waited for a big one. When it came I took off a little too deep and the white wash just engulfed me. I was thinking: 'oh no I'm in it here'. Then my board smacked me in the head so hard and I nearly blacked out. My vision was going and I couldn't make out where I was. I remember telling myself: 'Ok, you've just got worked and there's another wave behind it'. The next one rag-dolled me really violently. Luckily there was a ski right there after that to pick me up. I didn't know what was going on at that point." Ever since he was a kid Dean has relied on gifts from the ocean. It's got him through hard times when his family life was imploding. It's been his solace, his source of joy and inspiration. Surfing has been his one and only provider and his career path. It's provided direction and has taught him to face fears that no normal human will come close to and to conquer those fears. It's no surprise that he still sees surfing as his job and his identity. Pushing himself further in huge waves is a goal but it's not the only one. "I want to do trips to places that people haven't seen. I want to get barrelled in pumping waves and I want to do another movie." Not so long ago a surfer of Dingo's calibre wouldn't have had much trouble transitioning into the role of a hard-charging freesurfer but today's endorsement market is much tougher. To make his ambitions come true he will need a backer. But even if that doesn't eventuate you get the feeling that he'll always find a way to chase swells and to grow as a surfer. He'll turn up in Indo and Hawaii and WA and go mad when the swell of the year is on. It's who he is. As Rabbit says, "I used to say years ago that by the time Dean Morrison's 40 years of age he'll have ridden more barrels than anyone in the history of the world. And I think that predictions on track."
C H E C K O U T T R AC K S S E P T E M B E R I S S U E F O R A N E W F I L M B I O O N D E A N M O R R I S O N