How Dryrobe® Gives Team USA a Competitive Advantage

Team USA's Coral Sky Berry uses her dryrobe Advance to give her a competitive edge at a contest. Photo courtesy USA Surfing

Ask any competitive surfer what can ruin a contest day, and somewhere near the top of the list is getting cold between heats.

Being cold can tighten muscles, burn energy, and increase any underlying nervousness. Wet and sticky sweatshirts and towels don't do the trick; they only add to the stress of it all...

That's where dryrobe comes in, and it's part of the reason why USA Surfing just renewed its partnership with the brand that is absolutely booming worldwide.

With LA28 on the horizon and USA Surfing back in its role as the sport's national governing body, the organization is focused on giving its athletes every edge it can. This includes continuing their partnership with dryrobe and their gear built for competitive and non-competitive surfers alike.

Their partnership goes beyond words on paper. dryrobe created a special USA Surfing edition of its Advance model for the organization's athletes, and when it was released to the public, it quickly sold out, with all the funds going to support USA Surfing's mission.

We sat down with USA Surfing's CEO Greg Hulsizer to talk about how dryrobe fits into a long competition day and why surfers are the toughest critics of any product. He also talked about why he's convinced that dryrobe gives athletes a competitive advantage, and why it can do the same for you.

Your partnership with dryrobe is a renewal. Why did you decide to continue working with them?

Well, you're exactly right. We renewed because the best partnerships really are ones that make sense naturally, and dryrobe and USA Surfing, it's just a natural fit, because dryrobe understands surfers, they understand the environment that our athletes compete in.

We don't just compete in the summer when it's warm… it gets cold at many of the events. Our goal is to make sure that we give our surfers the best tools and coaching and support we can give them so they succeed. And that's where dryrobe comes in.

For all our partnerships, but particularly with dryrobe, we want a partnership that's more than just a logo or banner on a website. We want partners that really contribute to the success of our athletes and their experience. dryrobe does exactly that.

What are some specific ways that dryrobe supports USA Surfing's athlete development?

Athlete development doesn't just happen when they're sitting on their surfboard in the lineup. Day in and day out, when they're at the beach, surfing, freesurfing, or whether they're training with a coach, they need to be comfortable, they need to be warm. dryrobe keeps them warm.

I can attest to it myself. I ride my e-bike down to Trestles every day, and I gotta tell you, without my dryrobe… before I had my dryrobe, I would ride down with a sweatshirt and a pair of shorts and sandals, and now that I have my dryrobe, I'm so much more comfortable.

And so the ability for our athletes to stay warm and dry and comfortable is a key component of their training regimen.

And then, of course, because our partnership generates financial support for USA Surfing, it helps us invest in the programs and resources to support our athletes.

Just as you said, a portion of the proceeds of the partnership goes to benefit USA Surfing. How is this helpful for USA Surfing?

Our partnership and the financial support from dryrobe is very meaningful. Most people don't realize how much it takes to develop our athletes and hold national teams, coaching and competition and all that. We have to work with partners to raise the money to do that.

It really works on two levels. First of all, our athletes receive a product that's genuinely useful, that helps them excel and succeed. But when someone purchases through this partnership, obviously they're helping support USA Surfing. And so for someone who already wants a dryrobe and also cares about American surfing, that's a nice combination.

How does dryrobe fit into the routine of a competition day?

Competition days can be long. If you make it through all those heats, by the end of the day, it's been a long day. And during that day, our athletes are in and out of the water, they're waiting for heats, talking with coaches, warming up, and trying to be physically and mentally ready.

If they're cold, they can't be physically or mentally ready. So the dryrobe helps them keep them in good physical and mental condition for those long days when they have a lot of heats.

It gives them a warm, protected place to change and to recover between those moments.

dryrobe has become part of the routine preparation process for competition with USA Surfing.

For some USA Surfing athletes, they may have never used a dryrobe before. What's been their reaction and, collectively, the reaction of all the surfers?

Our athletes absolutely love it. You should see their face when they're new to the team and they get their first Team USA dryrobe. They're stoked beyond belief.

Surfers are pretty good critics. If something doesn't work, they're gonna let you know. They can sense when something's promotional or something like that…

So if something doesn't work, they're going to tell us. And if something works, they're gonna use it and be on the beach on any given day.

I'm at Lowers all the time, and there's dryrobes all up and down that beach.

The best compliment that you can get and that we can get is when the athletes actually want to have their dryrobes with them, which they do. That's the proof. Just go down to the beach on any given day, and you're gonna see our athletes proudly wearing their dryrobes and thankful that they have them.

Does dryrobe provide a competitive advantage and help athletes surf better?

It's another tool that they have to help them prepare and be prepared for their competition. dryrobe is the best product of its type out there. So why wouldn't we and why wouldn't we give that to them to increase their success? Because if you're cold and you're shivering, you can't concentrate. In my mind, it's an essential tool for our athletes to have so that they can perform their best.

dryrobe is another piece of performance equipment. It just happens to be a piece of performance equipment that you use out of the water. When most people think about the equipment that a surfer needs, you need a board, traction pad, wax, leash, but dryrobe takes USA Surfing athletes beyond that.

If you show up at the beach and you're already cold, you're not going to surf that well. If you come in between heats or between sessions and you get cold, you're not going to surf that well. In fact, you could injure yourself.

So being able to stay warm and dry and comfortable in your dryrobe gives our surfers a competitive advantage in the competitive environment and on a day-to-day basis.

There was an old commercial that used the line "Don't leave home without it." Our athletes don't leave home without their dryrobes, because it's such an integral part of their surfing experience now.

As we move into fall, winter, and the new year, what will USA Surfing be focusing on?

We have all our events lined out for the rest of the year, including our parasurfers competing in the World ParaSurfing Championships in the new Desert Surf wave pool in Coachella Valley. I'm really excited to see that because it's going to be a controlled environment. It's going to be a fantastic environment for the surfers.

We'll be competing in the ISA events this year and next year, including the World Games.

And we're building towards the Olympics, LA28. We've reassumed our role as the national governing body for surfing earlier this year, and since that time, we've been working hard to strengthen our organization, and also our support for our athletes and coaches.

What I'm proud of is the momentum that we've created around USA Surfing and our athletes.

When you spend time with these young athletes, you realize that we have an incredible pipeline of young and experienced surfers. And we're going to coach and support them, because at the Olympics, we want to take home gold medals.