Kim Mearig – Biography
Californian Kim Mearig was the 1983 ASP world champion and obvious harbinger of the explosive surge in performance that would later launch women’s surfing out of the “dark ages” Seemingly, Mearig possessed all the qualities inherent in a classic success story: talent, poise, determination, style, and (taking modern sensibilities into account) looks. But authors like to pick and choose the “importance” of contributors to the greater narrative that is surfing history, and it’s safe to say that for women, the timeline tends to jump from Margo Oberg to Frieda Zamba, leaving out Kim Mearig as the crucial link in the chain. Maybe it didn’t help to be sandwiched between women who literally dominated the sport, most importantly her successor and four-time world champ Zamba. While Mearig’s story lacks meltdowns and painful twists of fate that make for great biographies, it instead illustrates a quantum leap in performance on the brink of a watershed moment in women’s surfing.
Born 1963 in Apple Valley, California, Mearig’s family moved while she was still a baby to the sleepy Central Cal surfing paradise of Santa Barbara: the same hero factory that would also produce superstar Tommy Curren. Those windswept pointbreaks and sandbar tubes provided the perfect training ground for Mearig’s global wave riding repertoire. At 12, she stood on her first wave at famed sandbar Sandspit and rode it all the way to the beach. She was hooked, and (as with skateboarding years prior) her athleticism shined brightly and quickly. She was soon urged toward competition by her parents and local shaper (and future surf industry icon) Al Merrick.
Mearig took to contest surfing easily although her cool demeanor seemed at odds with the cutthroat mentality of competition. In 1981, she convincingly won the US Championships and turned pro the following year. Finishing the pro tour 18th that first season was disappointing for the teenager. Mearig admits, “Back then, there were no priority buoys and I was just getting hassled the whole time. Some heats I would paddle in without even catching a wave. I was the new kid and it was frustrating.”So when the newly formed ASP added “priority” to its rules the following year, Mearig could let her surfing speak for itself. She finished first in 4 events, won a car, signed with a major sponsor and went blow for blow with future legend, Frieda Zamba, to win the title. Kim Mearig became world champion just one year out of high school.
Based on raw talent and now quantified in ratings points, she was the best female surfer in the world. The over-used expression is as fitting here as anywhere: Kim Mearig surfed “like a guy.” Her aggressive approach tempered by a buttery smooth style that linked maneuvers without superfluous gyrations was not the norm in women’s surfing at the time and definitely a result of the roots that grew from those long Santa Barbara point breaks. But she also learned to play the business of surfing. Realizing this young sport was fast becoming a corporate and advertising machine akin to tennis, she crafted an image complete with surfboards and wetsuits color-coordinated in pink, yellow and blue, a feminine touch with obvious purpose. With a flash of those colors, photographers and fans alike knew when Mearig was up and riding and so did sponsors. Like her school mate and fellow world champ, Curren, Mearig also signed with Ocean Pacific, and while income for women was still minimal in contrast to the men, Kim Mearig was getting paid better than any female before her, thus raising the bar and opening financial opportunities for the next generation of girls entering their first contests.
In 1984, Mearig finished second by a hair to Zamba and then fell to 6th the following two years before surging once again in 1987 to finish the tour 2nd to Wendy Botha. That year, she came within one event of clinching her second title. Mearig finished her last full years on tour in a respectable 5th place before retiring to raise her son Justin with husband Brian Gruetzmacher. She momentarily hopped back into the fray to win the 1993 OP Pro at Huntington (one of the most competitive venues on tour at the time) before having her second child, daughter Kaitlyn, the following year.
All in all, Mearig made 22 finals, garnered 9 tour victories, won the 1984 Surfer Magazine Poll and was inducted into the Huntington Beach Walk of Fame in 2002. However, it seems that history remains focused on who came before and after Mearig.
In Surf’s Up, Louise Southernden leaves out Mearig altogether. She writes, “Women’s surfing really started taking itself seriously in the 1980’s.” But continues by maintaining that Zamba brought an “athleticism” to the sport and gave new meaning to “performance surfing.” World champ a year prior, Debbie Beacham later distinguished herself through her contest organizing, but Mearig appears lost in the cauldron between the sport’s trailblazers of the 70’s and the new performers of the mid 80’s.
But some like author Drew Kampion attribute the rise of power surfing during the 80’s to Mearig. Kampion writes that “[the new female surfers] were led by powerful surfers like Kim Mearig…who ripped strong slash-backs and with lip-smacks that were damn near as potent as the men’s.”
As part of the American stronghold on the world title, Mearig was every bit the accomplished athlete and total media package, but alas time was not on her side as the dark ages of women’s surfing was yet to be shed. But the next generation of women as far forward as Lisa Anderson site Mearig as an influence. To further illustrate Mearig’s place in surfing, Frieda Zamba later tells of a moment when Japanese fans approached her with Kim Mearig Posters yelling “Kim! Kim!” Zamba graciously signed the posters of her arch rival. A silly but telling moment in that we glimpse a time when Kim Mearig was the best surfer in the world.
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