Surfing

10 things you should know about Jake Marshall

You don’t want to know Red Bull’s newest surfer. You need to know Red Bull’s newest surfer.
By Brian Roddy
3 min readPublished on
Jake Marshall, barrelled

Jake Marshall, barrelled

© Jimmicane

Red Bull and Jake Marshall, it’s a relationship to get obsessed with. We recently teamed up with the young Californian and figured that a proper introduction was only right. Here are 10 things that you need to know about Jake so that you can root for him on the WCT in a few years.
He’s 15 years old and lives in Encinitas, California. Let’s just get the basics out of the way before we dive deep. Fair enough, right?
He’s a champ. Jake has won four NSSA National Championships and two USA Prime National titles – acronyms aside, that means he’s really good.
He’s got East Coast roots. And they run deep like cedar. “My dad’s family is from Rhode Island. I was born in Encinitas, but we moved back east for a few years when I was super young. It’s rad over there and we visit all the time.”
His favourite wave is Macaroni’s. No forehand, no problem. “I love how that wave will let you do everything. There are barrel sections, turn sections and air sections. I like going backside, too, so it’s perfect.”
And his favourite surfer is Kelly Slater. “What I love about Kelly is that he is good in every single type of condition. Think about every tour stop on the WCT and there isn’t even one event that Kelly couldn’t potentially win. That’s what I like most about him… and the 11 world titles.”
You need to see his rail turn. What sets Jake apart from the other whippersnappers is his focus on power surfing. Jake can carve in a fashion that would make kids ten years older than him blush. And his style! It's so smooth.
His thumb is so green. "We grow a lot of our own food at my family’s house. We have a bunch of fruit and vegetable crops – we even used to have chickens for eggs, but coyotes got them one night.”
His brothers live in a tepee. The Marshall household is less like a house and more like a fortress. “My younger brothers really wanted to build a tepee, so my parents helped them build one. They live in it all summer.”
He’s smart. Jake loves to read. Always has, always will. He goes to homeschool, but he actually goes to homeschool. “I recently had to read Animal Farm for school and I loved it. I'd pin it up there with some of my favourite books ever."
He knows better than to jump straight onto the WQS. “For the next five years, I really want to focus on my surfing. I just want to surf as much as possible, enjoy it and perfect it as much as I can. And once I feel like I’m ready, I’ll hop on the WQS and try to qualify."
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