story

COREY

COLAPINTO

“I didn’t understand the concept of salvation, but I just knew I needed forgiveness, and I knew I needed to be saved from my own sin that was ruining my life. I remember crying out to the Lord and saying, “You can have my whole life”.

Could you tell us a little more about where you’re from and about your local surf spot?

I’m from San Clemente, and my local surf spots are Trestles and San Onofre. Trestles is a top short-boarding wave with the championships at Lowers every year. It’s really popular; it gets really crowded. It still has some good days though; in between hyped-up swell days you can get a few days that aren’t too nuts. I haven’t been surfing there a lot because just right down the road is a wave called San Onofre, which is a really cruisy longboard wave. And so yeah, I feel like when I go surf San O’, I get a few more waves to myself. It’s still crowded at San O’, but it’s really spread out and the waves are a bit longer. Being on a longboard, you can kinda hunt down the little ones that no one wants. I like getting away from the crowd; that’s usually my main thing.

Past San O’, there’s a nuclear power plant (it’s a landmark), and past that, if you keep going South, there’s another stretch of beach with some really good waves called Trails. That’s like a beach break, and so it’s pretty empty as well. So between Trestles and San O’ and Trails, those are the waves I surf the most. 

There are weird waves in between all the crowded, ‘important’, hyped-up waves. My friends and I, we make a lot of mid-lengths that are good for weird waves that no one else wants. So that’s kind of our goal: to be able to make boards for these waves that everyone else is weirded out by – because it’s not a shortboard wave, but it’s not a longboard wave either.

Tell us how you got into surfing?

I got into surfing through my dad. He has been surfing since he was a kid, and so he would take us down to the beach a lot, in an RV, and we would park it all day and hang out. I wasn’t super into surfing at first. I would suit up and go out and surf with my dad and I’d just catch one wave and I’d be done. I would rather look for sea creatures under the rocks at San Onofre. I got really into surfing when I was about ten. I started competing a lot with my cousins Griffin and Crosby. We competed a lot as kids and I did that whole scene until I was like 15. 

I got a little bit burned out and I wanted to surf for fun again, so I started longboarding when I was 15. I fell in love with longboarding. I had never really longboarded before as I was a competitive shortboarder. I surfed every day when the waves were small from then on.

Did you get some good results during your competitive surfing phase?

Yeah, I got a few good results. I made it to what was called the Surfing America Championships, that was at Lowers – the national championships. I think I made it to the semi-finals a couple of times.

When I was in the under-12 division, I got third and I beat Griffin.  He got fourth, so that was the last time I beat him… I was never really able to beat Griffin too much, he was always way better.

Yeah, but at least you can say that you beat him when you were 12!

Yeah, I beat the number one surfer in the world! So that’s sweet.

What got you into shaping?

I got into shaping right when COVID started. We needed something to do! There was a lot of free time when the whole world just shut down. I had always wanted to get into shaping, but I guess I just hadn’t really found the right opportunity. Then my buddy, who has a backyard with a bunch of property, had an old chicken coop that we converted, so that half of it’s a shaping bay and the other half, on the other side there’s a wall that’s a chicken coop. We called it the Chicken Coop Shaping Shack. We’d go down this hill in this ranchy area and let the chickens roam around and they would eat some of the foam dust, and we would eat their eggs. We may have eaten some foam dust too… But yeah, it’s super fun. That’s still where I do a lot of my shaping.

Is that your full-time occupation?

Well, I’ve got a few things going on right now. I do some surf lessons and there are some sponsors that are helping me out financially. I also just got a job as a surf coach at a local high school which I’m starting this year. I’m really excited for that. That’s pretty much it. And then I also make some surf videos for surf companies and other companies…little odd jobs like that.

Who inspires you as a shaper?

My biggest inspiration as a shaper is probably a tie between Tommy Witt and Ryan Burch. Tommy Witt is my friend, a local guy who I surf with a lot. He’s a really good longboarder and can also rip on a mid-length. Then Ryan Burch I see more on a shortboard, but he’s a really good longboarder too, and I just like watching people that can kind of blend the longboarding and shortboarding world together… 

Asymmetrical boards are also awesome. I haven’t been making as many of those as I would like just because they can be a little trickier to sell. It’s more challenging from a business standpoint. 

In terms of the way they perform though, yeah, I love them. I think they’re great. I’d like to get more into that.

What do you love about asymmetrical boards?

I just think they make a lot of sense when you’re flying down the line, say frontside, you get a lot of speed on your toe side. So it feels like a fish, which is awesome and really natural. Then when you hook it in the pocket, and say do a cutback and go on your heel side, it’s a lot looser. It’s a little slower, but it’s more stable for a really tight wrap. In the end, I feel like you want surfboards that just feel natural and you don’t have to think about it all the time, and they just respond. So I think those boards, when they’re done right, can be better than a standard symmetrical board. 

So, how did you come to know Jesus?

I came to the Lord when I was about 18 – that was about 8 years ago. I wasn’t raised with any beliefs. My family was not religious, so we never talked about God or anything spiritual. I never really knew what I believed. Then I had an injury that made me start questioning life…I was pretty depressed. I couldn’t surf for 6 to 9 months. I had a really bad knee injury.

“My family was not religious, so we never talked about God or anything spiritual. I never really knew what I believed. Then I had an injury that made me start questioning life…I was pretty depressed”.

My buddy was inviting me to church and I kept saying “No, I don’t know what that’s about”. I kind of wanted to go because I had friends that were going, but I was stubborn and proud, and I just wanted to do things that I knew. Then one day after my buddy had asked a bunch of times and I said no a bunch of times, he asked me whether I believed in God, and I said, “I have no idea. I don’t even know, really.” I remember I was going to say no; I wanted to fight. But then I remember I really thought about it and said, “I have no idea.” I was a little embarrassed having to say that. Then I asked him, And you? Do you believe in God? And he said, “Yeah, I do.” And I was like, Wow. That’s chill.

I didn’t know you could just say that. I was raised in this school system where it’s all like evolution, so I thought it went against science. Those were just the beliefs I was raised with.

I started going to church and I was like, Woah, this is really rad.

I still had a lot of questions, so I started reading and researching apologetics and other faith-related things. Because I said, if this is the truth, I want to know and I have a lot of questions for it to answer. So I read C.S. Lewis, like Mere Christianity. And it follows the argument from a moral side, how that points to God. I read a bit of the Bible too, but it was just a little confusing for me at the time.‎ Then it started to make more and more sense, and eventually I became a Christian four or five months after going to church that first time.

From the very first time I went to church, my heart was crying out to the Lord, being like “Lord, I need you to save me!” 

I didn’t understand the concept of salvation, but I just knew I needed forgiveness, and I knew I needed to be saved from my own sin that was ruining my life. I remember crying out to the Lord and saying, “You can have my whole life”. You know, the things that I think it takes to get saved. I was there offering my life and holding it out and coming before the Lord. 

So maybe I was saved then. 

“I didn’t understand the concept of salvation, but I just knew I needed forgiveness, and I knew I needed to be saved from my own sin that was ruining my life. I remember crying out to the Lord and saying, “You can have my whole life”.

It wasn’t until later that I really understood it, but I don’t think you need to understand a lot. You hear the gospel, and you already know the truth – that we need a saviour and we need forgiveness. Jesus died for that, and we can receive that by His grace through faith. I feel, when you hear that, you have enough conviction. I was just really curious after that, so I started digging into Christianity far more. And I remember being like, “Whoa, this is so rad and so real. How did I not see it before?” All creation points to God.

That’s a really amazing story. How did it impact your family?

I think they thought of it as a phase, you know. But they’ve always been really supportive and kind, and they’ve come to church with me a few times since, but they’re not really interested. I’m always praying for them. They’re just kind of indifferent. They would tell me, okay you’re the religious one, you should pray for our food… And I’m like, okay. It’s so funny.

I had this perception that you grew up in a Christian home. I don’t know why I felt that way. ‎You seem like somebody who grew up knowing Jesus‎. It’s interesting that you’re telling me you grew up completely non-religious. But I wanted to ask, I often hear you playing guitar in the background of your Instagram surfing clips, and it seems like it’s Christian-oriented?

Yeah.

What inspired you to take such a bold step?

When I first got saved, I was putting a lot of like, yeah, Christian music from some bigger artists into it ‎and it was really fun and I always loved doing that. Then I started wanting to play the guitar more too.‎ So I started just wanting to get a little more rootsy with it and have some more creative control and ‎kind of keep it raw. So I started putting my own stuff to it. ‎. 

Much of the music is also from my friend, Mike Murphy, who is a really talented musician and one of my best friends. He plays a lot of those songs and they have really rad, thought-provoking lyrics. 

It’s so cool to see you take such a bold step. Have you ever experienced persecution or negative comments or anything like that?

Yeah, for sure. Every time I post something that’s a little bit more strong and maybe something that goes really against the culture, you know, like something about the hot topics like gay or trans or LGBTQ or abortion, stuff like that, kind of just standing firm on what the Bible says, I’ll get a lot of flack. So I usually just post that stuff on my stories, and then I’ll get a lot of messages. But I actually kind of like getting those messages. I mean, I don’t like it, but it is an opportunity to witness and I just try to respond with love. 

For a while it kind of shook me, or I was like Oh, no! People don’t like what I’m doing! All that fear of man stuff. So I wouldn’t respond. ‎And all of a sudden I was like, Dude, what am I afraid of?‎ I’m just going to respond and be loving and kind. 

Sometimes people will come at me all hot and I’ll just be like “Oh I’m sorry you feel that way. I really believe this is the truth that God has told us in his Word,” and I’ll be like “Well, why do you believe what you believe?” And I’ll just try to turn it into a conversation. 

I’ve had a lot of good conversations come out of that, where people are like, “Wow, okay. I didn’t know that’s how you looked at it.” ‎

 What does it mean to you to be a follower of Christ?

To be a follower of Christ… I think that’s synonymous with being a Christian: you’re born again, the old has gone, the new has come. There are a lot of powerful things that happen at conversion. 

It’s never out of your own ambition and strength and will and power. It’s always from His kindness and His love and His grace and His spirit coming to you, That’s what I see a lot of the Scriptures pointing to: it’s grace received through faith. 

As a Christian, the cross should be at the forefront of our minds, always. Because every day I need to remind myself that Jesus, he paid the ultimate price. He paid my punishment, so I don’t have to fear the punishment. The Bible says perfect love casts out all fear. When you think about God’s perfect love casting all that fear out of you, remembering, Oh, Christ took the punishment. We all know we’ve done wrong and that punishment is the negative consequence. But Jesus took it.

That’s what I think is beautiful about Christianity. In other religions forgiveness may come either through working for it or, even if you do work for it, it just gets wished away. But in Christianity Jesus gave us a tangible reality to know, the punishment has been taken and our sins have been forgiven. Not through a thought or our works, but through God’s ultimate sacrifice. 

That is God’s great love for us.

PowerFUL stuff! If you could leave someone reading this, maybe a grom, with one last parting thought, what would you say?

I would say, what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul in the process. Those are the words of Jesus. Asking, what good is it if you get everything you’ve wanted in this world? You know: pro surfing, the best waves, the best boards, you get all of it, but at the end of the day you lose your soul. The question is, is there anything more valuable than your soul?