Stealing the Wave The Epic Struggle Between Ken Bradshaw and Mark Foo

by Martin, Andy

• ISBN13: 9781596913806
• ISBN10: 1596913800
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781596918528
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-05-29
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA

Summary

Like Norman Mailer'sThe Fight, this gripping page-turner from journalist Andy Martin chronicles a classic duel between two phenomenal and sharply contrasting athletes. In the mid-80s, Ken Bradshaw and Mark Foo took big-wave surfing's spiritual home, Waimea Bay on Hawaii's legendary North Shore, and in their relentless quest for supremacy turned it into an arena of personal combat. Bradshaw was in pole-position. The muscular, square-jawed Texan already commanded respect through a combination of strength, gritty determination, and infamous temper he was known to bite chunks out of fellow surfers' boards whenever he felt disrespected in the water. Mark Foo was the new kid on the block, and his polar opposite. The icon of the next generation, openly challenging the old guard, this slim Chinese-American wowed Waimea's winter crowds with his prowess, speed, moves, looks, and thirst for the biggest waves. But Foo's talent for self-marketing was anathema to surfing veterans and purists, and above all to Bradshaw. Foo was driving surfing in a new, commercial direction, while Bradshaw saw himself as the heir and guardian of a great tradition. And then one fine day Foo stole a wave from right under Bradshaw's nose, arousing his wrath, and firing up a feud that would span a decade. Their unforgiving rivalry would ultimately evolve into a grudging mutual admiration which was, however, doomed to end in death on a giant swell at Maverick's, just south of San Francisco, on Christmas Eve of 1994.Stealing the Waveis the intimate history of the conflict between two remarkable men that gets to the heart of what it means to compete, and examines what happens when competition, passion and belief go too far.

Author Biography

Andy Martin teaches at Columbia, Rutgers, and Cambridge universities.

Table of Contents

Idols	p. 1
The Longest Ride	p. 7
The Perfect Day	p. 22
The Boy of Steel	p. 31
Once Upon a Time at Waimea Bay	p. 42
Foo-Foo	p. 50
The Haole	p. 61
Cover Shot	p. 78
The Brotherhood	p. 95
As Famous as Mickey Mouse	p. 108
The Unridden Realm	p. 115
Foo's Brazilian System and Bradshaw's Revenge	p. 139
The Eddie, Part 1	p. 156
Judgement Day	p. 170
Beyond Waimea	p. 186
Maverick's	p. 203
Code Black	p. 226
Twilight of the Idols	p. 241
Bibliography	p. 244
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.