Matteson Kai Morey is one of the four sons of Tom and Marchia Morey. He is seeking help to create a documentary on his father's contribution to the action sports industry.
Tom Morey is one of the most relevant personalities in the history of surfing. But his legacy goes beyond the invention of the boogie board.
Throughout his life, the Detroit-born aeronautical engineer became a superb musician, a surfboard shaper, and an active entrepreneur. Matteson aims to highlight his career with a film featuring interviews with pioneer athletes, businesspeople, and historical footage.
"Our story follows my father and his friends introducing action sports to the world back in the 1950s to its status today. It's an exciting story for entrepreneurs, athletes, historians and Americans alike," Matteson Kai Morey tells SurferToday.
"My father is one of the major contributors to the movement, inventing wakeboarding, professional surfing, boogie boarding and more, and his friends helped introduce skateboarding, BMX, snowboarding, motocross, skimboarding, windsurfing, and kiteboarding."
"In those early days, it was unheard of to have any profession, industry, company or job in one of these pastimes and, as they did come about, it was often looked down upon or not taken seriously to work in them."
This made it difficult for the founders, many of who started off in their garages or less. And so they had to dream up tactics to introduce these new concepts to the masses.
Inventing magazines, movies, music, clothing, contests, events, teams, sponsorships, shops, dealers and other tactics that did or didn't stick.
"These founders took major risks that proved worthwhile for only a select few of them that survived, bringing us to the largely divided market we have today," adds Matteson.
"More than providing an amazing untold story of our American history and setting a guiding light for future entrepreneurs and athletes, our goal is also to unite the action sports companies by reminding the various industries that we all come from the same pack of radical youth looking for that rush, we are one family."
The Influence of Tom and His Peers
A lot of surfers that saw him or surfed with him at the time went on to have prominent futures in the industry as well.
Many would work with Tom and ask him for advice, creating some of the first skateboards, windsurfers, snowboards, and shortboards, action sports clothing, films and magazines, wave machines and more.
This consortium of individuals and industries would go on to influence the culture of America throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, introducing a radical youth culture that would sociologically open the mind of America and rebrand the country as the generation of the future through fashion, music, and lifestyle.
"If available to tell their story, we are looking to work with past and present legends in specific industries. Many are associates of or friends of Tom," notes the son of Tom Morey.
Matteson Kai would love to have Corky Carroll and Tony Hawk discussing the evolution of skateboarding, and Hoyle Schweitzer and Robby Naish talking about windsurfing.
Covering boogie boarding, everyone from Mike Stewart to Tom Morey; Travis Rice to Sherman Poppen discussing the snowboarding revolution from the monoski and snurfboard till now.
Tex Haines and other Laguna Beach legends could talk of the stories and progression of the skimboarding, while Darin Shapiro could share his ideas on the invention of wakeboarding.
For clothing, Duke Boyd of Hang Ten, and Phil Knight of Nike. Bruce Brown's relatives would be invited to discuss the introduction of motocross and BMXing, alongside Robbie Maddison and Dane Beardsley.
To discuss the hippy movement Mike Hynson of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love to the musical legends Brian Wilson, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Jann Wenner. Plus Kelly Slater and a multitude of other surf Legends to share the surf history that shaped so many industries.
Tom's life story not only strings together the birth and growth of these action sports activities and industries, but it also encompasses the radical changes in youth culture from fashion and music, to spirituality and lifestyle.
If you're a fan of Tom Morey's work and want to help perpetuate his life story, support Matteson Kai Morey's crowdfunding campaign at Indiegogo.