Maui will host Hawaiʻi’s first state championship for high school surfers next year

Hawai’i Gov. Josh Green donned a Maui Interscholastic League surfing hat for his news conference on Monday at the State Capitol in Honolulu.

The first state surfing tournament of the Hawai’i High School Athletic Association will take place May 1 and 2 of next year at Ho’okipa Beach Park on Maui, a nod to the three-decade effort of Maui’s Kim Ball to finally make the official state sport of Hawai’i also a statewide high school sport.

“The Maui Interscholastic League is our pioneer, sanctioning surfing since 2014,” Green said in his opening remarks. “So they’re going to proudly host this inaugural event.”

All five of the state’s high school leagues will participate, according to Keith Amemiya, chairman of the governor’s sports task force and a former executive director of the Hawai’i High School Athletic Association.

“The Maui Interscholastic League is super excited to be the host of the inaugural Hawaiʻi High School (Athletic) Association State Surfing Championship,” Ball said. “We’ll have short boarding, body boarding, long boarding for boys and girls.”

State Rep. Sean Quinlan sponsored Bill 133 to make surfing an official high school sport. It passed the State Legislature before it was sent to Green, who signed it into law as Act 141.

Surfers from the Interscholastic League of Honolulu competed in an MIL meet at Ho’okipa in April in a meet that also attracted administrators from other leagues to observe how the MIL leaders put on the meet.

Ball generated a budget that outlined costs for the needed 26 contests for all public high schools across the state to hold a season of five contests per league (the MIL, Oʻahu Interscholatic Association, Big Island Interscholastic Federation and Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation). The all-private Interscholastic League of Honolulu will fund its own meets without state funds.

Ball said in written testimony that the total budget was $685,870 annually and covered transportation, judges, security, water safety, equipment rental, contest director, beach marshal, contest judges, live score operator, team jerseys and coaches’ salaries.

“This bill obviously had a ton of public support from our student athletes, from our coaches, from parents and administrators on Maui, but obviously across the state as well,” Ball said in the news conference. “So you can imagine the enthusiasm and excitement after 29 years that we’re finally going to have a state championship. The County of Maui and our MIL surf crew will do all we can to make it a memorable event.”

The effort began back in the mid-1990s, when Ball, now 72, started the sport in the Maui Interscholastic League as a school club activity. In 2014, the first sanctioned season as an official high school sport also happened on Maui.

It took 11 more years for Monday’s official announcement to arrive.

“I’m excited and gratified that high school surfing will finally become a reality next spring, as Kim Ball, Carissa Moore, and I have been advocating for it for over 10 years,” Amemiya said. “Mahalo to Gov. Green and Rep. Sean Quinlan for helping us over the finish line, and to the Maui Interscholastic League for showing the rest of the state that surfing is a viable, successful, and popular high school sport.”

The 2025 Maui Interscholastic League surfing championships were held May 3 at Lahaina Harbor, the first public event of any kind in the Lahaina Wildfire burn zone.

The sport on a statewide basis has missed some impressive names in the game.

“Back in the club days, Ian Walsh, Cheyne Magnusson, Billy Kemper were all competitors here in our program,” Ball said. “Cody Young was our first official MIL champion. The next year, he signed a contract, and then he couldn’t compete because he wasn’t eligible again as a professional.”

Surfer Carissa Moore, the 2020 Olympic women’s gold medalist and a five-time world champion who graduated from Punahou School in 2010, said she wished she had the opportunity to compete in the sports as a high schooler in Hawaiʻi.

“I couldn’t be more thrilled that Hawaiʻi school systems are supporting surfing,” Moore said. “In a very fast-paced world, it will encourage the next generation to slow down and connect with something bigger than themselves.”

Moore added: “That, to me, is truly crucial to living a life of joy and purpose. It’s not about competing, it’s about growing, building confidence and strengthening our community. I can’t wait to see the first state champions in 2026 and the positive impact this will have across our islands.”

“Surfing is more than a sport in Hawai‘i, it is a way of life for our people,” Green said in a news release shortly after the news conference. “This historic milestone celebrates our culture, creates new opportunities for our keiki and ensures that the next generation of surfers can compete on the same stage as other student athletes across the state.”

Quinlan represents the North Shore of O’ahu, where several of the top professional surf contests in the world take place.

“Hawaiʻi, known as the birthplace of surfing, is the perfect location to establish surfing as an interscholastic sport and host a state championship event.” Quinlan said. “This will help cultivate the next generation of champions and, most importantly, expand access for students who might not otherwise have the opportunity to participate in this sport.”

Chrislyn Simpson-Kane won Maui Interscholastic League surfing titles in 2022 and 2023 for King Kekaulike High School. She graduated in May after finishing second in her final high school event, the MIL championships at Lahaina Harbor. 

Simpson-Kane is a world-ranked big wave surfer who was the youngest female ever to successfully surf Peahi or Jaws on Maui’s North Shore when she was 13.

“I am over the moon,” Simpson-Kane said last week of the impending announcement. “When I was scrolling through Instagram (last May), I knew it was definitely going to happen. But when I was scrolling through Instagram, and they announced that it was officially statewide, I cried.”

Simpson-Kane said she attended King Kekaulike for her final three years of high school after making friends on the surf team as a home-schooled freshman. She is currently taking a gap year before enrolling at the University of Hawai’i at Hilo to study marine biology and Hawaiian studies.

Her older brother Ty Simpson-Kane was a two-time MIL boy surfer of the year, in 2019 and 2022. His middle two seasons while competing for Kamehameha Maui were wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

He recently won an award for the “best wipeout” for the 2024-25 big wave season, presented by the Big Wave Challenge. He was also a finalist for the biggest paddle-in wave as well as the biggest tow-in wave. All of those recognitions came from an epic day at Peahi on Dec. 22, 2024.

Ty Simpson-Kane said he will never forget the single season he spent in MIL surfing with his sibling when he was a senior and his sister was a freshman.

“Being from Hawaii, Duke Kahanamoku is the founding father of surfing, so it should have been seen as a sport from the very beginning in high school,” Ty Simpson-Kane said. “As for Hawaii as a whole, a lot of good comes from this happening. A lot of more kids will be a lot more psyched to get into the water. They’ll see it as a sport, being with their friends. It’s great too, because it’s a team. The team aspect adds a lot.”