Shahab Kousheshi In a school with countless talented athletes, it’s not often that one can truly separate themself from the crowd — but somehow senior Callum Bondy, a nationally-ranked wakesurfer, is able to do so. On September sixth through eighth, Callum missed school to attend the Wake Surfing World Championship in Ogden Valley, Utah, an hour outside of Salt Lake City. And it all started when, in 2013, his parents randomly bought him a wakesurf board for his birthday. “I actually started wakesurfing on the complete wrong side of the of the wave with the wrong foot forward. Although I wasn’t amazing at first, I had a lot of fun with it so my family found ‘Off the Grid Surf School’ and from there out it just became my passion.” Callum primarily practices his wakesurf skills over the summer in Kelowna, British Columbia, where his family has a summer home. Senior Patrick Dwyer is one of the few Latin students to have seen Callum’s skills firsthand. In the summer of their freshman year, Callum took Patrick to Kelowna and taught him how to wakesurf. “Since it was my first time, I wasn’t very good,” Patrick explained, “but when Callum went up to show me an example, it was actually insane. Even though I ended up giving up on it after I wiped out watching Callum do a bunch of tricks, it was crazy.” Before the championship, Callum was ranked 9th in the world in the second most competitive division, Men’s Outlaw — the tournament strictly included only the top eight surfers in the world. Unexpectedly, one participant dropped out and Callum landed with a surprise invite. The morning didn’t go as well as hoped, finishing last in a heat of four. But things turned around in the afternoon when he won a Wildcard spot in the finals and placed third out of five. “That was the best run of my career,” Callum said. For all his accolades, Callum still doesn’t know where wakesurfing will take him in the future. “My immediate goal is to win Outlaw Worlds next year, that is what I will be working towards all summer. Long term, the rules are if I place as one of the top three ranked surfers for the year 2019 (which is different from placing top three in the world tournament) I can no longer compete in the Outlaw division and if I choose to continue competitive wakesurfing, I have to move into the professional division” he says. “I will only make the shift to professional if I am forced and felt prepared to make the jump.” ]]>