Nov 21 2008
EXPN Can’t Interview Surfers – Their Interview with Kelly Slater
Photo: Quicksilver
EXPN’s Jon Coen interviews Kelly Slater asking him some pretty ordinary questions and gets some pretty ordinary responses. I’m personally not dying to hear Kelly’s opinion on Obama and Ralph Nader or the economy which seem to be the focus of the interview. Kelly does talk about his Kelly Slater foundation that raise money for good causes such as cancer. However, Kelly also calls terrorism a “played out, over-rated threat” suggesting because it only kills a small number compared to cancer and cardiovascular disease its deserving too much attention and money. That’s a hard argument to swallow. While he’s right that a large number of people die from cancer and cardiovascular disease every year, it doesn’t simply negate any other physical threat to our people. Secondly, the threat of terrorism is an ideological threat as well, an attack on humanity and on freedom.
Time magazine actually does a worse job interviewing Kelly here. What is it with surf interviews? Surf magazine’s feed them dumb questions about partying and jetsetting and conventional new sources ask them questions about the economy and beauty products. WTF?!
In the end, Jon Coen only ends up asking Kelly a couple of surf related questions.While I admire Kelly’s commitment to philanthropy, he makes some very broad and generalized statements about the war and terrorism that do more to distract from his accomplishments as a surfer and philanthropist and do him as service.
Here are a couple of questions (among others) I’d like to ask Slater:
What’s the scariest situation you’ve been in surfing?
Who’s the most under-rated surfer on tour?
What happened to Andy Irons this year? Is he a threat for next year?
What else would you like to accomplish with your life?
Where will the ASP tour be in 10 years?
Where will surfing be in 10 years?
What Questions would you like to ask the Champ?