2X Surfing World Champion Tom Carroll

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Australian former professional surfer from Sydney. He won the Australian Junior Title in 1978, the Pro Juniors in 1977 and 1980, the 1983 and 1984 ASP World Tour, and the 1987 Pipe Masters.

Twice champion of New South Wales (Schoolboys in 1974 and Juniors in 1977) and twice winner of the prestigious Pro Junior (1977 and 1980), he joined the IPS World Tour in 1979. The world looked to be his oyster… until he took a bad fall at a Sydney pub and ripped apart a knee. His doctors told him it would be wise to abandon all thoughts of a professional surfing career. Only intense training and plenty of good luck could overcome a supposed career-ending setback. Undaunted, Tom was the first to adopt scientifically based training principles into surfing. He embarked on a conditioning regimen that not only resurrected his own surfing career, it created the benchmark for fitness in the sport.

Throughout his career, injuries kept him from full potential. Beginning with an infected fin gash in Bali in 1978, he suffered a stomach rupture in 1979, knee reconstruction in 1981, multiple ankle ligament tears, various cuts, lower-back strains and a concussion in 1996. His strict training regimen on tour saved his career several times.

He was the first surf rider to surpass $300,000 in career earnings and in 1988, when he appeared set to reclaim his crown, Carroll earned surfing’s first million-dollar contract for five years with longtime backer Quiksilver.

Tom is also a qualified Vedic Meditation teacher. “Today’s relentless cultural and social narrative directs us toward “Doing” — keeping our noses to the grindstone, focusing us on some mighty goal we might one day complete. This drags us away from the present, away from the simple state of Being.”