Kemp Aaberg

Regularfoot surfer Kemp Aaberg was in 1940 in Peoria, Illinois. Aaberg spent his early childhood in Boston, Massachusetts before moving with his family to the Pacific Palisades in West Los Angeles, California in 1948. He attended University High School in Los Angeles, California. Kemp began surfing in his mid-teens in 1956 in Malibu, California: He started out initially as a goofyfooter before eventually switching to the regularfoot stance in order to face the long right-breaking Malibu waves. Well known for his exceptional back-arch stance, a photo of Aaberg's perfect back-arch was run in the second issue of Surfer magazine in 1961; a duotone of this iconic image became the magazine's first logo later that year and was reprinted on the magazine's 25th Anniversary issue cover in 1985. Although not an especially competitive surfer, Kemp nonetheless won the stock division of the grueling 32-mile Catalina-to-Manhattan Pier paddleboard race in 1960 and placed highly in triathlons in the mid-1980's. Moreover, Aaberg not only wrote articles for such surfing publications as H20, Surfer, and Surf Guide, but also penned a monthly column called "Surf Scrolls" for the Santa Barbara Press which ran from 1989 to 1992. Kemp graduated from the University of California in Santa Barbara with a B.A. in social sciences in 1966. In 1991 Aaberg was inducted into the International Surfing Hall of Fame. Outside of surfing, Kemp is also an accomplished flamenco guitarist.