Feature Interviews
Feature Interview with Rabbit Bartholomew - Surfing Warrior - DailyStoke.com
Rabbit Bartholomew’s sparse desk looks like any other office desk. Email, phone calls, paperwork (and more email) roll in, like set waves. You might confuse it for your own office desk, except that this desk happens to overlook the Superbank and the man occupying the desk is one of surfing’s elder statesmen, whose graying hair comes with the wisdom of battles fought and wipeouts survived. Of course, Bartholomew is no desk warrior (though some of his battles have been fought there.) He’s been on a trend-setting journey from Kirra Point, around the world, and back to Australia again. Rabbit Bartholomew has evolved from a brash yet visionary warrior, hell-bent on creating pro surfing, to the warrior-king atop the Association of Surfing Professionals, hell-bent on breathing new life into the sport. Says Bartholomew in a recent interview with DailyStoke.com: “I’ve always been a warrior, it’s true.”
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Bartholomew’s first battles were fought in Australia, but he soon bested his peers and sought the bigger challenges that Hawaii offered. “I was really just a skinny kid from Australia out to make a name for myself,” he says. It was his fierce surfing with which he built his name. Bartholomew, of course, led the backhand attack at Pipeline over a series of winters in the 1970s, doing the impossible but paying a toll on his body in perilous wipeouts. Tim Baker, co-author of well-received biography of Bartholomew, Bustin’ Down the Door, explains: “There might have been other surfers blessed with more natural ability, but Bugs had the capacity to build himself up to such a point that he felt and believed he was unbeatable.” His surfing showed just what was possible at Pipeline, truly bringing a warrior spirit to change the way that wave was ridden. His moves on land gained him some unwanted notoriety.
After a couple of winters in Hawaii cast as the outsiders, Bartholomew and his fellow Aussies and South Africans gained more than a foothold in Hawaiian surfing. Bartholomew appeared in Surfer Magazine in Everlast Boxing robes, an iconic evocation of Mohammad Ali. The photos were coupled with a (supposedly) controversial piece written by Bartholomew entitled “Bustin’ down the Door.” Reading the original article that appeared in Surfer Magazine (recently resurfaced here) it’s hard to argue that the pen is mightier than the surfboard. Bartholomew agrees, adding: “Never in my life have I written anything derogatory about the Hawaiians.” Bartholomew admits to taking too many waves, being guilty of over-exuberance, and even naive and ignorant with his foray into Hawaii. No different, really, than any other top surfer or young guy out to get the best waves. “I don’t think people got past the title of the article,” Bartholomew continues. “I copped a licking for others, that’s for certain.”
Bartholomew has said that he was half the man from the previous winter. The set back didn’t stop him, however, winning the world championship through sheer determination over Shaun Tomson and Mark Richards, among other ground-breaking surfers. Says Baker: “Rabbit was the ultimate warrior. To come back from the beating he copped in Hawaii in 1976-1977 and win the world title the next year in 1978 speaks volumes about his strength of character.”
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I am a Viking warrior king about to conquer a new world. I am Alexander the Great leading my horsemen over the plains of Sidon. I have the expert cunning of Rommel leading his tanks into another desert foxtrap. The power and the glory pulsate through my veins. The great prophecies resound deep in my soul. Live your life like a warrior, as if every day is your last. This is truly being. I AM the legacy to all ancient warriors and kings. I’ve passed through dark caverns of fear, I’ve overcome the pain barrier and fully acknowledge my ability to fly through cliffs and shoulder the mountains themselves. I lust for the cherry blossom moments of today. I stand on the edge of the universe. This is the meeting of minds. I take a handful of sand and feel each grain squeeze through my clenching fist like the sands of civilization. A primeval scream from deep within is silenced by the master.
– Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew, writing about surfing waves bigger than you ever will, Tracks Big Book of Big Waves.
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It is said that God plants a seed of fear in your mind only when you have something to lose. In the case of surfing huge waves, that means at best - your teeth - and at worst, your life. “I don’t know if surfing big waves came especially easy or naturally to him at first, but he had the psychological strength to push through all his fears,” says Tim Baker, author of Bustin’ Down the Door. Upon reflection, Bartholomew admits that “in your forties and fifties, you start to lose your courage in big surf.” Fear also creeps up when, deep down, you realize that you’re responsible for someone away from the water, like your son. It may be age, as Rabbit suggests, but it may also be becoming a dad. Bartholomew has two sons of his own and still shreds, but some of the pleasure he gets from surfing is by passing his skills to his sons. “My son Jagger started surfing in his mother’s womb, at Snapper,” Rabbit says. “I remember that he took quite a wipeout once!” Jagger, now seven, comes out the back at Snapper with Bartholomew. “You first push them into waves only a couple of times, and then they’re own their own. It’s pure joy,” Bartholomew says. “In fact, now my sons just 
tell me to leave them alone!” Bartholomew is inspired by Michael Ho and his children, Mason and Coco. “I see what they’re accomplishing and think that’s the ultimate.” When will his sons join the ASP World Tour? “I’m not going to force my sons to be pro surfers,” Bartholomew explains. “But one thing is for certain, they’re going to play sports – they’ve got so much energy!”
Other than his sons, solitude is his preferred surfing partner. “I’ve always been a bit of a loner,” he says. Indeed, he shares this trait with many surfers who value peace in the water while on dawn patrol or otherwise. “People often want to have ‘meetings’ while we’re out surfing,” says Bartholomew. He tries to surf every day. Does he ever pull out a tanker – say a ten foot longboard? Or a SUP? Says Bartholomew: “That’s certainly one thing that I’ve learned from the Hawaiians. If I were walking around the beach carrying a log, people would look at me like I was crazy. But if it’s two feet high, I’m going to use whatever watercraft that suits me.” That doesn’t mean, however, he actually does bring out a log: “I actually find it quite boring pretty quickly,” Rabbit says with a hearty laugh.
His land life has never been boring. Bartholomew has been in command of the ASP since 1999, perhaps allowing him more of an opportunity to surf for the sheer enjoyment of it. “I enjoy surfing perhaps more now than I ever did,” says Bartholomew, noting the health benefits. “I do it to set up the day at the office.” And it’s at that office, in the seat of the Presidency, where Bartholomew has been destined to sit, some twenty years after taking the surfing crown itself. “Hard decisions had to be made,” 
says Bartholomew of his first decade behind the helm. “I put on the war paint.” Upon taking the helm, he promptly moved ASP’s headquarters to its natural home in the Gold Coast. He’s negotiated TV deals with IMG, the ASP is both web and media-savvy. Bartholomew has put professional surfing on the map in the way he may never have conceived, but for which he had the original vision. These days, rules changes are in order. Relevance is a top priority. Bartholomew has got a lot of arrows in his quiver. The results are clear. Says Evan Slater, editor of SURFING magazine: “He was there to build the foundation, and now he’s on hand to keep renovating and improving pro surfing to new levels.”
Bartholomew has turned his gaze to other domains, as well. Notably, he has worked to restore Kirra Point, where, in 1996, 100 yards was removed from the point, with sand being dredged up. As documented in Steven Kotler’s West of Jesus, the surf would rise up just in time for the series of contests he spearheaded there, showcasing a prized possession of Australian surfing. There is no way Bartholomew is going to let Kirra Point become Dana Point. Says Tim Baker: “I’ve heard him hold court on alternative energies, the environment, politics, youth issues, and I’d love to see him take that warrior spirit into the political arena.” The fight for Kirra Point (and to fix the point by replacing the lost groyne) may very well be the stepping stone.
Where is Bartholomew drawing inspiration these days? 
“My peers are such heroes to me now. Shaun Tomson, Mark Richards. They were not heroes to me [in Hawaii],” Bartholomew says with a laugh, “but they are now.” This is somewhat ironic, given the role these surfers played in the development of the pro tour. Says Evan Slater of this group, for which Bartholomew was the captain: “[They] transformed surfing from a counter-culture pastime to a sport.” Bartholomew also lists greats outside of surfing, including JFK, tennis greats Jimmy Connors and Rod Laver. “I think you try to grab a bit of their traits and mix it up with yours,” Bartholomew says.
And what of comparisons of him to Mohammad Ali?
“I don’t think there’s any doubt that Kelly Slater is the real Mohammad Ali of surfing,” Bartholomew asserts.
No matter – Rabbit Bartholomew is an original warrior cut from the same cloth.
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Live your life like a warrior, as if every day is your last.
- Wayne ‘Rabbit’ Bartholomew
[Editor's Note: Special thanks to Tim Baker and Evan Slater, editor-in-chief of Surfing Magazine for their contributions. Tim Baker wrote the definitive biography of Rabbit Bartholomew, Bustin' Down the Door, with Rabbit's collaboration and is out with a new book this fall about Mark Occhilupo, appropriately titled Occy. Read more about Tim Baker - a surfer's writer - by clicking on the link. Look to DailyStoke.com for a review of this much-awaited biography later this fall.]
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