Community Corner

Surf Fans Meet Idols at Unsound

Red Bull team signs autographs at East End shop.

Justin Bieber is so yesterday. At least that was 14-year-old Brooke Lowenfels’s sentiment on Sunday, when she met her idol, Julian Wilson, whose posters are plastered across her bedroom walls.

Wilson was one of five pro surfers who autographed posters and fans’ surfboards and clothing at Unsound Surf, a Long Beach surf shop that sponsored the trials for the Quiksilver Pro New York surf competition earlier that day. He signed Brooke’s baseball cap and posed for pictures with her.

“It’s amazing,” Brooke said immediately after meeting Wilson. “I’m speechless.”

Wilson joined fellow Australian Mick Fanning, Michael Bourez of Haiti, Travis Rice of Wyoming and John Jackson of California, a surf team sponsored by Red Bull, at the autograph session in the back yard of the East End surf shop that was teeming with fans.

“It’s been cool,” Wilson said about his first visit to New York. “Everyone’s been so welcoming.” About the Long Beach surf, he noted: “I’m surprised at how warm the water is up here.”

Brooke became interest in surfing and Wilson through her friend Chandler Gregor, who was the first to have a crush on him. In April 2010, the two girls were part of group of students at Long Beach Middle School who collected 27,000 pounds of food during a Thanksgiving food drive contest and won a private show with Justin Bieber. On Sunday, Chandler, now a member of the surf team at Long Beach High School, was very excited to meet Wilson.  

“I was shaking,” the 15-year-old said. “One of the most amazing things ever.”

The autograph session at Unsound was the next in a series that surfers have done throughout Long Beach. Maritime Surf, a shop on West Park Avenue, hosted another team of surfers for an autograph signing that drew a sizable crowd Saturday.

“The people are awesome,” Fanning said about his time in Long Beach. “It’s great to come to a place and people are so stoked.”

Jackson expressed a thought that other top surfers seem to share as they participate in the first big surfing competition on the East Coast.

“I started to imagine what a beach would be like in a big city,” he said. “But it has the full beach vibe.”

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