Surf Club is making a splash after a brief hiatus from the pandemic. PHOTO CREDIT: instagram.com/urisurfclub/
After a few stagnant years, Surf Club at the University of Rhode Island has returned to the waters of Narragansett Bay.
Originally founded in 1968, Surf Club is a place for all students to come together and learn more about the sport and culture of surfing, according to President Dom Morandi, third-year aquaculture and fisheries major. Surf Club seeks to promote the sport of surfing through surf trips, instruction and general information about the history of surfing, specifically on the east coast.
Morandi explained that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Surf Club has experienced less activity than normal since 2020.
“In the past couple of years, Surf Club really wasn’t too big on campus and we weren’t like an official club on campus until about last year,” Morandi said. “Now we’re just trying to make Surf Club a bigger and better name on campus.”
Any level of experience is welcome at Surf Club, according to Morandi, and second-year marine biology major Stephen Muglia. Muglia is the vice president of Surf Club.
“We try and make it as accessible as possible,” Muglia said. “’I’d say a fair, fair amount of our members actually aren’t very experienced surfers themselves.”
Muglia added that it’s nice to see more experienced members help newer members and “show them the ropes and get them into the sport.”
“It’s overall just a good place to meet friends to surf with or go on surf trips with,” Owen Fleischer, second-year aquaculture and fisheries major, said. Fleischer serves as the Surf Club’s treasurer.
Surf Club has hosted events such as surf meetups and instructional clinics, as well as beach clean ups across the numerous coastal areas around Rhode Island. Meetings also include giveaways, trivia, Kahoots and contests. Since the club is in a transitional era, meetings are also focused on the future of the club, according to Morandi.
“What our most typical meetings are trying to figure out what people want to do with us and like, we try and gauge what and what steps to take next basically,” he said.
Morandi added that to explore more of the culture and history of surfing, meetings have also featured classic surf movies and food.
One of Fleischer’s favorite aspects of Surf Club is the fact that it is a very diverse group of students that get involved.
“We have athletes, we have you know, kids in frats and sororities, scholars and degenerates, you know we have everybody,” Fleischer said. “You meet people that you wouldn’t otherwise meet at all like we’d have no overlap within life other than the club.”
Fleischer also added that the club’s GroupMe is crucial for its success. It allows members to easily get in contact with each other and plan surf trips.
“People can find other people to go out with to surf,” Fleischer said. “If there’s a swell people will just be like ‘I’m leaving from campus at this time, there’s many seats in my car like you know, first come first serve,’ that’s probably my favorite aspect.”
More information about Surf Club can be found on their Instagram page @urisurfclub.