Corky Carroll

Corky Carroll is an American surfer, born on 29 September 1947, who is regarded as a pioneer of professional surfing. He started competing in 1959 at the age of eleven, placing third at the first U.S. Surfboard Championship in Huntington Beach, and in 1964 became the first surfer paid to surf. Between 1966 and 1970 he won the United States Surfing Championship, he won the International Surfing Championship three times, and he took more than one hundred contests before retiring from competition in 1972. In 1968 his peers voted him the number one surfer in the world. He helped design the first authentic surf trunks and a production short board for Hobie, later recorded nine albums, wrote several books on surfing, opened a surfing school in California and works as a color commentator for surfing events.