Remember This Grin From Stab Innocents?

If you’ve surfed the Alley down at Cronulla a handful of times, you’ve probably seen a blonde-haired goofyfoot kid, with an ear-to-ear grin, tear the place to bits in run–off-the-mill slop and wondered why you even bothered paddling out. 

That kid would be Jarvis Earle. 

The nulla has no shortage of talent, grain for grain, the 3 kilometers of beach stretching from the Alley to Greenhills has nurtured some of Australia’s top surfers for the past half century including: 99’ World Champ, ‘The Occ’ Mark Occhilupo, Matt Griggs, Richard ‘Dog’ Marsh, Bobby Brown, Jim Banks, Dylan Longbottom, and Connor O’Leary to name a few. 

When the Duke first visited Australia in late 1914 and 15’, he first exhibited surfing at Cronulla (South Sydney) and Freshwater (North Sydney), to the delight of thousands of spectators, and on that bedrock, several generations of surfers emerged who made a dent in global surf culture. 

Jarvis Earle is still just a kid, he’s 17. We first met Jarvis on the Stab Innocents trip to the Telo Islands in 2019, where Craig Anderson mentored six of the hottest up-and-coming surfers under-16. “If Jarvis Earle isn’t careful, he might just dethrone Stephanie Gilmore as the smiliest surfer on earth,” remarked trip narrator, Eric Zupancic.

Jarvis has a lot to smile about too, as a winner of the Australian Junior Championships, Australian Open of Surfing, Skull Candy’s Oz Grom, scholar at the Australian Institute of Sport’s High-Performance Centre for Surfing, #1 in Surfing Life’s ‘Hottest 100’, Jarvis also signed with Red Bull after catching the attention of Julian Wilson. 

“Jarvis as a surfer loves charging and going for big airs, I love watching that stuff. I’m so excited knowing what’s ahead of him” said Jules of the young buck. Finishing #46 on the Oceania regional QS in 2021 after jumping 441 places from the year prior, Jarvis’ ascent to the world stage most likely be as radical as his punt-game, which to borrow a term from Jed ‘Smivvy’ Smith, is pretty ‘hhhhhmmad’. 

Keep Mr Earle on your radar, and watch his clip above by Jules Hattonward.