Hot Seat: Carissa Moore

Cute little girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice, right? Well, Meet Carissa Moore, the sweetest little darling to come along since Shirley Temple…until you draw her in a heat that is, because this 11-year old sensation is already blowing up beyond belief. Last month during the Roxy pro at Haleiwa she knocked out a handful of seasoned pros, and a few months before that she made the finals of the hotly contested Boys division at NSSA Nationals. Bottom line, many insiders are already touting this little phenom as the big threat to surfing’s gender barrier. So we figured if she can hang with the big boys and girls she shouldn’t have any problems with the Hot Seat. – Jake Howard

SURFER: So Carissa, let’s start way back at the beginning. When did you start surfing?

Carissa: Umm, I was four or five.

SURFER: And how old are you now?

Carissa: 11-years-old.

SURFER: So you’ve already been surfing for six or seven years. What do you like most about surfing?

Carissa: I like surfing with my dad…oh yeah, I also like surfing with my friends. It’s fun.

SURFER: Sounds good to me. What’s your favorite thing to do when you’re surfing?

Carissa: I like riding the waves, just riding them is real fun.

SURFER: What’s the newest trick you’ve learned?

Carissa: 360s, I like doing those.

SURFER: The word on the street is you’re a pretty good surfer. I heard you surfed against the boys at NSSA Nationals this year. I also heard you took down Jon-Jon.

Carissa: I did?

SURFER: I don’t know, that’s just what I heard.

Carissa: Oh yeah, I went to California this year and surfed in the finals against Jon Jon, but he beat me. My dad said I had more NSSA points than him at the end of the year. Do you know what NSSA stands for? National Scholastic Surfing Association.

SURFER: Does it now?

Carissa: Yep, it sure does.

SURFER: You know what else I’ve heard? I heard you took down some of the big girls at Haleiwa. How was that?

Carissa: Well, it was cloudy and it was windy and it was big.

SURFER: Was it hard out there?