On land, Dane Reynolds sometimes looks like a deer caught in the headlights. All he wanted to do was surf and he begged and pleaded his parents to move back to the coast from Bakersfield. Since then, Reynolds has been going up and out like Charlie in the Great Glass Elevator and he seems a little shocked by, embarrassed by, and uncomfortable with all the fame, money and pressure that his talent has attracted.
Reynolds was born in Long Beach but when he was five, his family moved to Bakersfield – in California’s Central Valley, with the accent on Valley. If Dane Reynolds had stayed in Bakersfield and never moved to the California coast, who knows what he would have been up to: wakeboarding on the lakes, snowboarding, or skateboarding maybe. Dane got to spend time at the beach during his summers, but when September rolled around, he had to roll back to Bakersfield which was a torture worse than anything they dished out at Abu Ghraib. A job transfer landed the Reynolds family back on the coast when Dane was 10 and he has been expressing his joy ever since - on the rise as one of the most talented California surfers in many years.
Reynolds seems a little shocked by his success; going from emulating Taylor Knox in the Taylor Steele movies to having his own segments in Taylor Steele movies and having kids emulate him. What they are emulating is Reynold’s loose, fast, stylish-free surfing which has been inspired by local Ventura surfers like Geoff Brack to Tom Curren, Kelly Slater, Parko, Taj Burrow and Mick Fanning. “I like how those guys can be so loose during a heat,” Reynolds said. “I get tired of seeing the same thing, heat after heat.” Reynolds has been allowed to mature at his own pace by his sponsors and his surfing was captured in the Young Guns videos and also Dane Reynolds: First Chapter – a video that is considered a taste of what is to come in pro surfing.
Reynolds took on the World Qualifying Series for the first time in 2007 and finished second overall to move up to the World Championship Tour. That being said, Reynolds is still not entirely comfortable with all the attention. He feels he is just a normal guy and is still unwrapping the gift that nature has given him, but those in the know – like Kelly Slater - feel Reynolds will be the leader of the Next School of pro surfing. After Slater won the 2008 Bell’s Beach event he said, “Dane is the best surfer in the world right now.” In an Aussie magazine interview, Slater repeated that when asked who his favorite surfer was. What Slater and a lot of others see in Reynolds is that he may be “The One” to take this wild style of aerial freesurfing and make it fit into the box of competitive surfing. Reynolds has been going up and out since he was rescued from the oil fields and it’s going to be interesting to see just how high he can go.