The University of Rhode Island Surfclub has been around for quite a long time. It all began with a man with a vision and some help from his college friends.

It has been rumored that Surfing Legend Peter Pan founded the URI Surfclub back in the 1960's. The club continued for a number of years and into the late 70's and early 80's where we estimate that the club started to go down hill. The club lost recognition from the URI Senate and was no longer a club but all hope wasn't lost.

The surfclub restarted many years later in 1998. The people who placed a lot of time and hard work into restoring the surf club were President Jamie Leiter and Lauren Fontaine. With the help of the students on campus they were able to assemble the surf club once again. Dave Pavone and Peter Webster helped to produce the surfclub's first web site and email listserve. The club started off strong. The surf club went to Cape Hatteras, NC for it's first year. The surf was incredible. The club became fairly popular over its first couple years back.

In the 2000-2001 school year came a new president. Peter Webster. Not only was Peter President but he was the only person holding the club together. The members in the club dropped dramatically from the previous year because many of its members had graduated or dropped out. Once again the club was in trouble and to make matters worse the memorial union, which ran the club web site, changed servers and said that the surfclub's web site was too large than the amount allowed. The web site was lost. Pete was the heart and soul of the surfclub. He did the best he could to balance his busy schedule with his surfclub duties. Pete, the rest of the club and the Surfrider Foundation put together a movie night at Edwards Auditorium as a fundraiser and to renew peoples interest in surfing. The entire school year was a tough one. Pete was constantly fighting with the Student Senate to regain money from the club's budget that had been cut the previous year. Too make matters worse unproven rumors were damaging the club's reputation and Senate once again cut the surf club's budget almost in half. Pete had had enough of the arguments, the paper work and became too busy with school work to be able to continue as the club's President. Two of the club's members stepped forward to help.

Colin Hynes became the new President and Ben D'Avanzo became the new Vice-President of the surf club as sophomores. The 2001-2002 school year came around and most of the people in the club from the previous year abandoned it. Still, hopes were high on the year's freshmen turn out and over the summer the club had been ranked 7^th in the nation by swell.com. About 40 freshman showed up to join the club in the fall and membership seemed to increase each month.

Colin and Ben began the 2002 fall season with a trip to Long Beach Island, NJ and a Skate Competition in South Kingstown. The club is making great progress and an even better freshman turnout is expected each year. Since Colin and Ben have taken over the surfclub has changed dramatically. Many events are run each year. The club has new activities, a new website(thanks to Dennis M.+Dave P.), a message board, a new Surf Team, the first real collegiate competition in the works and currently helps raise money for the Surfrider Foundation. URI is currently the top school on the East Coast for great surf proximity and the club is one of the best in the nation(Sept. issue of Surfing Mag). Who knows what is next? Shaping their own boards..hmm theirs an idea...lol. Come join in the fun that is the URI Surfclub! Many thanks to Tim Swart of Clive Biggs for the Surfing Magazine plugs. In Fall '03 the club had 52 members and traveled the East Coast. They had just finished trying to form a new Collegiate Surf League with 8-10 other surf clubs/organizations on the East Coast. In Spring '03 some dedicated freshman emerged and volunteered to step up and take over the club before Colin and Ben went into their last year of school. The great part about the new freshman taking over was that it was a group of friends and not just two people who had to shoulder the load.

Dave Bonanno (Fall '04 Preisdent), Eric Scottaline (Fall '04 Vice-President), Evan Lindsay (Environmental chair+Historian), Brian Thompson(Photographer+Comp. Committee), Gifford Plume (Comp. Committee) Kirk Smith and Tom Pomposelli (Social Chair) were the new club leaders in Fall '04. Kiernan Britalik was part of this crew, but unfortunately had to transfer. He was a leader in the water and will not be forgotten. Mad love to Kiernan.

Things got off to a slow start in the fall 2004 but the club still managed to put together some trips to Montauk, Block Island and Nantasket. The leadership transition proved to be a slow learning process for many. As spring '05 aproached many members started to become more adjusted and ideas began to fly about the potential events for the following year. Andy Ryan, Eric Scottaline and Evan Lindsay all stepped up to the plate to take on new leadership roles before the end of the spring semester.

Colin Hynes, the former 3 1/2 year president of the URI Surfclub, graduated in spring '05 and now remains the unofficial local advisor to the club. Meanwhile Dennis Murphy (club alumnit) reconstructed and updated the URI Surfclub website once again into a kick ass work of art. He now has the privelage of working for Surfline.com.

In fall '05 the club remained together for just a few months under new leadership before falling apart. It's taken a full year for the club to get back on it's feet, but now it's back. Ashley Baron is the new president of the club has been doing a tremendous job of keeping things together. Once again the club held it's annual "Learn To Surf Day" back in late-September of 2006.