Hey there Surfin’ Birds, I’m glad to say that I won a GOLD Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Wisconsin Journalism Award (in the “Best Sports Story” category) for my article “Surfing the Fresh Coast,” from the July 2023 issue of Milwaukee Magazine. This is my third gold and fourth overall Press Club award. The article examines the local scene of people who surf the waves of Lake Michigan.
As always, I want to take a moment to thank some people and speculate on the win.
Thanks: This article idea was brought to me by my editor Chris Drosner, and I immediately knew this would be a good fit for me. I appreciate Chris’s faith that I’ll dig in and find a good story. The rest of MilMag’s editorial staff is great to work with, too. Magazine articles need to be visually appealing in addition to being well written. It’s not surprising that MilMag also picked up gold for their design team. Incredibly talented photographer (and surfer) Andrew Feller provided the fantastic photos for this article.
And, of course, thanks to all the surfers who kindly made time to talk with me.
Why I think this one was a winner:
A couple things– first and foremost, I’m a sucker (and I think a lot of readers are) for stories of people following their dreams, whatever that might be. Take for example Jake Bresette, who was working as an insurance claims adjuster in Madison– a job he was good at but had no passion for. Jake would dream of surfing the lake, and I like this paragraph describing his dilemma:
To feel a little bit alive, some days Bresette would wake up at 4 a.m., drive to Milwaukee, get in a little surfing, then drive back, take a shower and clock in at work by 11 a.m. It wasn’t enough to satisfy him. While voices would drone on into his earpiece about deductibles and liabilities, he’d pop open a window on his computer. “There are webcams on the beaches in Sheboygan, Port Washington, all over the lake. I’d be on calls assisting people, looking at the waves. I called it cubicle torture,” Bresette says. Sometimes he’d see people surfing. “I wished I was there.”
This led to a pretty big leap of faith for Jake– opening up a surf shop in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Lake Effect Surf Shop is now the hub of the local surf scene. In addition to Jake, I got to round out the story with an eclectic cast– Eric “The Teacher” Gietzen, Ken Cole, Jennifer Vice-Reshel, and Keliana Licup. I think one skill I have as a writer is an ear for a good quote, but that only works if the person you’re interviewing has something interesting to say. Well, the surfers shredded in the good quotes department!
I’m a fan of a well-placed sidebar, and this article has a couple on Milwaukee’s surf band The Exotics, and I talked to surf legend Larry “Longboard” Williams about Sheboygan’s legacy as the “Malibu of the Midwest.”
It was a fun and interesting assignment, and I greatly appreciate this recognition. You can read the article here: https://www.milwaukeemag.com/all-about-milwaukees-surfing-scene/
See also: My other three Milwaukee Press Club Awards:
“Reporting Live from the Street,” Gold, Short Hard Feature, 2020
“The Last Frame,” Gold, Short Soft Feature, 2022
“Wanna Buy a Famous Tugboat?” Silver, Soft Feature (online), 2022
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