It's not his fault. Just try thinking about Bonga Perkins, for a moment, without considering the types of surf craft he has mastered. A supremely dominant competitive surfer—a world champion who over an eight year period never finished lower than fifth place in the international rankings. A dominant Hawaiian surfer who has carved out a place for himself in the world’s heaviest lineups: Haleiwa, Pipeline, Backdoor and Sunset Beach. Equally skilled in waves from two-foot or twenty. Welcomed and respected at beaches from Chiba to Cote du Basque. So why has Bonga Perkins never had a skate shoe named after him? Simply because his total mastery of the surfing art has placed him outside the narrow confines of contemporary surf stardom. Longboard, shortboard, stand-up paddle, paddleboard, canoe racing and surfing, tandem—riding ancient Hot Curls in 12-foot Sunset—Bonga does it all and in most cases does it best. All with that disarming combination of intensity and humility that characterizes Hawaiian surfing at its essence. So it's not his fault—Bonga is too much of a surfer to be a surf star. He’ll have to settle for legend.