The name is one you won’t soon forget, but that’s not why a swell of interest in the Big Island surfing committee has developed around Pepeekeo 10-year-old Diesel Butts, who has been winning competitions at a rate that has long-timers wondering how far he can go.
“It’s hard to predict something like that,” said Dave Riddle, one of Butts’ coaches for Volcom, one of the youngster’s eight sponsors, “but if you were to make a list of the top 10-year-olds out there, from Hawaii to Australia, California, France, there are a bunch of them competing hard and Diesel stacks up with all of them, he’s in that group.
“You can never tell if someone will keep going and going, but he has the right attitude, that’s for sure.”
There were hopes earlier last week that Butts would get to compete in the 32nd annual Quiksilver/Big Island Toyota Pro-Am Trials at Honoli’i, but some big, prolonged winds came in that caused a postponement at least until next weekend.
These days, Diesel talks about wanting to surf everyday. You ask him if he surfed every day for a week or two weeks, long hours each time, would he get to the point that he wants take a day off and just chill, just be a kid and goof off at home?
“I’d rather surf,” he said. “I want to surf every day because the more I surf, the more I learn, the better I get.”
His parents are feeding the desire, but it hasn’t been easy. Mother Laurie always wanted keiki with names that all the other kids didn’t have, so she named them, in order, Ocean Reef (9-year-old), Diesel Storm (10), Rumor Star (13-year-old daughter), and Stone Cole (14).
Laurie is a manager for a Big Island tour company, father Quinton is a taro farmer, when time permits, he also does landscaping and carpentry, but his work load has been diminished in the last year or two as Diesel’s surfing interest has propelled him to competitive victories here on there Big Island, at Oahu and on the mainland.
When you ask how many competitions he’s won, dad rolls his eyes and starts counting on his fingers. Four in a row of this tournament, four in a row of that tournament, the one in California, the list goes on an on.
“Just to be safe, let’s say it’s over 25,” Quinton Butts said. “I would have to go home and research, but I guarantee it’s been more than 25.”
Most of these stories start out with mom or dad having been fully immersed in surfing and tossing the kids on a board at an early age, but in this case, it was Diesel’s grandfather, Quinton’s dad, who made the suggestion.
“Just over three years ago my father, who had surfed a lot, said he thought Diesel should enter a contest,” Quinton said, “but he didn’t know Diesel had never been on a board. Three days before, I took him out and got him on a long board, a soft top, and he got up right away and loved it. Three days later he won his first competition and off he went.”
Quinton has had to take time off from his taro farming to get Diesel to and from surf competitions, so he’s tried to make up for the income shortfall by doing shorter construction jobs — “more money, less time spent working,” as he put it, until he can get back to seven-day-a-week taro farming.
Surfing isn’t like a lot of other sports in that professionals don’t sign multi-million dollar contracts, you basically live on your winnings and a little bit from sponsors, which mostly supply equipment. Still, there are hundreds of professionals making more than $100,000 a year, maybe 50 or more making $500,000 a year.
Diesel turned 10 in January and isn’t having money thrown at him, but he has drawn the interest of sponsors, such as Volcom, Body Glove, the Mauli Ola Foundation, Basic Image, Orchidland Surf Shop, Northshore Surf Shop, BJ Penn and Da Hui Surf Wax.
Most of them contribute equipment, only a few help with funding, an issue for those mainland competitions, which figure to only grow in number if Diesel keeps excelling.
“He’s pretty special,” said Stan Lawrence of Orchidland Surf. Lawrence runs the pro-am competition and has since it began 32 years ago. He’s seen them come and go and he has a ready answer when he’s asked to compare Diesel Butts to the best 10-year-olds from the Big Island he’s seen
“Shane Dorian (Kailua-Kona, longtime pro tour veteran, finished fourth in WCT in 2000), Myles Padaca (Pahoa, WSL veteran, won Van’s triple Crown), and Noah Johnson (won Quiksilver, Eddie Akau in 1999), were at about the same level. I think (Diesel’s) potential is unlimited, it just depends on whether he sticks with it and makes it important in his life.”
The surf community on the Big Island has always maintained there is a great reservoir of hidden talent here because of the focus on Oahu’s North Shore and at other more well-known spots, but as Diesel continues to succeed, he may be inspiring others. Quinton said his son has given away “at least a dozen,” boards to friends he thinks have ability and only need equipment an opportunity.
“The thing about him,” said Riddle,“ is that Diesel is very mellow, really a humble kid for his age, but you put him on a board and he turns into something else. He is absolutely fearless, his interest is more waves, bigger waves, in that sense, one he gets out there, he’s almost unbridled, you have to watch him.
“There have been times he would want to go out to the big waves, I mean the big ones where the adults go, and I’ve had to reel him in,” Riddle said. “I tell him, ‘You can go there one day, but not today,’ and he seems to get it.”
That one day may not be far off for the Big Island’s surfing prodigy.
