PATHWAY S A DA M GRIMSON
Being a grommet with talent also comes with dreams and aspirations to be the best you can be. Ask any top performing grommet out there and they will all tell you, they want to qualify for the World Tour and win the World Title. Yet there comes a time in everyone's life where you stand at the crossroads where your next decision can lay the pathways for the rest of your life. Sometimes those dreams have to be sacrificed, while the reality of life beckons. After all there are only so many World Champions and only a very select few making a professional living from surfing, for the rest there comes a time to move on. For Gisborne grom Adam Grimson, he recently faced these very decisions.Early on in his career he showed great promise and represented his country internationally, these obviously lead to big dreams for the grom, then a serious injury followed and top level competition was missed for a complete season. His recovery coincided with a work experience course through his school and Adam impressed enough to be offered an engineering apprenticeship. It was decision time. We catch up with the boy for a little chat on 'moving on'.
So how did this new career path come about and
what are you doing? I have been accepted to do an apprenticeship in engineering which will take me three years and after that I'll be a fully qualified engineer and be able to work anywhere in the world. I started this year at school not knowing what I wanted to do in terms of a career. So I started doing this 'Gateway' programme which is once a week work experience through my school. I did two weeks at Gisborne Engineering and they liked the way I worked so offered me a two week trial period to see if I liked the type of work. They then offered me a three month trial, so I left school and took up the offer and now I have a full on job and have just signed into my apprenticeship. You've gone from a point where surfing was basically your life, where you surfed before and after school, sometimes during school, and have travelled all around the country and the world with your surfing, to working full time, how's the change been? It's been so fast! I've gone from surfing every day to around once every two weeks, or if the surf is good most weekends. I've been pretty knackered after work so I haven't had any energy for after work. I'm pretty unfit aye! But I had a one and half hour session the other day so I was pretty stoked with that. When you were younger was becoming a professional surfer one of your goals? Yes it was, I was hoping to make a career out of surfing and a lifestyle, but times have changed. Now I've got a job and I'm loving it at the moment. You received support from a few sponsors and along with those perks and making the NZ Junior Team and representing your country, is that something you will always look back on and treasure? Yeah I couldn't be more thankful, so a big cheers to Quiksilver, FCS, Gorilla Grip, Tommy Dalton and Mum and Dad, I've been lucky to have been a spoilt little shit. I'm very lucky to have been almost all around the world, I've been to Mexico, Peru, Chile, Australia, Indonesia, Tahiti, and yet there are some people out there that have never left NZ, so yeah I'm bloody grateful! When does the point come in your career when you had goals of becoming a pro surfer and to follow the dream that you've chased for so long and then come to the realisation that you just have to get on with life? Well it's happening right now for me, it’s hitting me now. At this moment all my focus is about doing my apprenticeship and hopefully once I get that out of the way, I'll look at maybe going overseas and go and do something and experience a few places. I'll still be surfing in between. My parents were so supportive of me chasing my surfing dream so there was never any pressure from them to get into a career, it kind of just happened. They always said to me if I wanted something badly then they'd support me along the way, as long as they saw me trying, then they'd try. The other day mum was cleaning the house and she found this report I did at Primary School when I was 10, and it listed my goals for the future and it read "Make the World's team, make every final, and win the under 19 title" and I almost achieved all those goals, and I'm not 19 yet so I still have time to do that yet. You're obviously a talented surfer, do you think there will be a time in the future when you'll return
to the sport in a serious manner? Yes and no, that's a long way away, that's three years of my life. Yes I'm hoping to make a return of sorts but anything can happen between now and then. But to be honest that's not really my goal anymore, life has moved on and now my goal is to finish this apprenticeship. I'd still love to win a national title and I've still got a lot more years to be able to do that!