Ross Williams To (Supposedly) Coach John Florence This Season

The WSL rumour mill is steaming right now. From a reliable source–who prefers to remain nameless–a colourful bit of yarn was pushed across Stab’s desk last week: Ross Williams is set to be John Florence’s 2017 coach.

With that, we thought the commentary team might have just lost their most respected surf analyser which would leave Pottz as the only remaining ex-CT authority, followed by 2011 BWT champ and current commish, Peter Mel. We reached out to the Dave Prodan, VP of WSL Communications, who bluntly assured Stab, “Ross remains part of the commentary team.” We then asked if there’s a WSL rule restricting the staff from coaching the athletes on tour, to which we received a “No comment”, comment.

We contacted Ross, who played coy offering zero information. So as of now, this remains a partially substantiated rumour, which only Ross can fully confirm. A Williams x Florence collab would prove dangerous as Sir Double John surely has a few more titles in him with or without Williams. Not to mention that if Ross were to leave the commentary booth, it’d be a substantial blow to the quality of the webcast, being that nobody can quite articulate the subtleties of scoring and heat strategy the way the sandy blonde-haired, Ohio born, Hawaiian shirt wearing gent of the Momentum gen can. Will he double dip? Or is that too tall a task for one man? Well, the initial Dawn Patrol of 2017 kicks off in a few short days, and time’s an honest bastard.