Whether he is sitting in an empty lineup on a frigid January morning or synthesizing organic molecules in chemistry class, Wrightsville Beach surfer Michael Casper approaches life with dedication, said Dylan McNamara, University of North Carolina Wilmington surf team coach. That dedication earned Casper the 2016-17 UNCW Surf Team Scholarship.
Wrightsville Beach residents Robert and Nina Berke created the scholarship in 2012 to honor a surf club member who showed exceptional commitment to surfing and academics.
The UNCW surf team is one of the best on the East Coast, Robert Berke explained, but it gets almost no funding from the university. As a surfer himself, he created the scholarship to recognize that talent and encourage even more skilled surfers to join the team.
Berke was pleased with the choice of this year’s scholarship recipient, saying, “Michael’s a good kid.”
McNamara, who is also a UNCW professor, agreed.
“He represents everything that this scholarship is meant to reward,” McNamara said. “He has a very challenging degree as a chemistry major and he’s performing exceptionally well, doing research as an undergraduate, and he’s interested in going to graduate school, which I’m sure he’ll do.”
Casper approaches surfing with the same commitment.
McNamara described himself as an avid surfer also, and recalled many mornings when he would walk onto the beach to check the surf and see one surfer out there already.
“Ninety-nine times out of 100, it’s Michael,” he said, “even if it’s the dead of winter or the conditions aren’t even that great. … He came out here before the sun came up so he can squeeze a surf in before his 8 a.m. class.”
Regularly finding ridable surf at Wrightsville Beach requires determination — and a loose definition of ridable surf, Casper admitted.
“Lowering my standards for waves is big,” he said. “It’s not a secret that the waves aren’t the best here.” But he can almost always find a wave breaking, he said, if he looks hard enough.
“It’s about having faith that somewhere on the island, there’s going to be a wave,” he said.
Surfing has been his passion ever since he learned to ride waves in middle school, he explained. His dedication to the sport has helped his academic performance, he added. He avoids procrastinating so that when good waves do arrive, he doesn’t have any incomplete schoolwork preventing him from taking full advantage of the swell.
Being a member of the UNCW surf team has also provided him a group of friends he might not have met otherwise. The team travels to New Smyrna Beach, Florida, every spring to compete in the National Scholastic Surfing Association (NSSA) East Coast Regional Championships, and the trip creates camaraderie between the teammates.
“We caravan down there, and it’s just a really good bonding activity,” he said. “I’ve definitely gotten to know some of my best friends through the surf team.”
As a rising senior, Casper has one more year on the team. He anticipates being “swamped with school,” he admitted, but he would love to help the surf team win the regional championship, a feat they accomplished for six straight years — 2009 through 2014 — before placing second the last two years.
The team’s new talent could help them reach that goal, Casper said, and earn a trip to the national championship in California.
“We haven’t done that in, I think, three years,” he said, “so I would be incredibly down for that, and to put in the effort to make sure we do that.”
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