What is the NSSA? The National Scholastic Surfing Association, explained

The NSSA is the National Scholastic Surfing Association, a California nonprofit that runs amateur surf contests for student surfers across the United States. It says it runs more than 80 events a year, ending with the NSSA National Championships each summer in California. It is also one of the few national youth sports organizations that requires its members to keep up their grades in order to compete.

For a family in Southern California, the NSSA means the Southwest Conference. It has two separate seasons, Open and Explorer, plus team contests for colleges, high schools and middle schools. Each season leads to the West Coast Championships in May and then to Nationals at the Huntington Beach Pier.

NSSA membership is open to anyone who wants to surf competitively as an amateur. There are no tryouts. The catch is school: a surfer 18 or under has to be a full-time student with at least a 2.0 GPA, or to have finished high school. Private school, independent study and home school all count, as long as she is in a full-time program. Surfers over 18 have no academic requirement in Explorer.

Girls’ and women’s divisions

Explorer has no girls’ division between 14 and under and Women, so a 15-year-old in Explorer surfs with the women. A surfer can also choose to move up into an older, more competitive division. Boys have their own divisions in both seasons, and Explorer adds adult divisions up to Duke, for surfers 55 and older.

School and college teams

The NSSA also runs interscholastic team surfing, where surfers earn points for their school. There are College, High School Varsity, High School Junior Varsity and Middle School teams, and every team has places set aside for girls. A college or varsity team is four male shortboarders, two female shortboarders, one male longboarder and one female longboarder. A junior varsity or middle school team is six boys, two girls and one longboarder of either gender.

At the 2026 Interscholastic State Championships in Cardiff, the results listed 9 high school varsity teams and 6 middle school teams, with individual titles for High School Varsity Women, Junior Varsity Women and Middle School Girls. A student at a private school, a home school, or a public school with no surf team can sometimes join another school’s team with a letter of approval from that school.

• School comes first. The NSSA has held since 1978 that “athletics and scholastics go hand in hand.” Surfers have to keep a 2.0 GPA to compete.
• Good grades are rewarded. Members with a 3.5 GPA or better earn Surfer/Scholar honor awards, and the NSSA runs a scholarship fund for education after high school.
• There are two levels. Explorer is where a newer contest surfer can find her feet. Open is there when she wants the strongest competition.
• She can surf for her school. Middle school, high school and college teams compete for state and national team titles.
• It leads to a true national final. Surfers from the West Coast, the East Coast and Hawaii meet at the National Championships at the Huntington Beach Pier.
• It has a track record. Carissa Moore won the NSSA National Open Women’s title in 2004, at age 11.

The NSSA is split into regional conferences. The Southwest Conference covers Ventura to San Diego for the Open Season and Huntington Beach to San Diego for the Explorer Season. North of that, the Gold Coast Conference runs Explorer contests in Ventura. Open and Explorer are separate seasons with separate rankings. A surfer can enter one or both.

• Surfers earn ratings points at each contest based on where they finish. Those points set the season rankings and the seeding for the next contest.
• To qualify for the West Coast Championships, she has to actually surf five of the seven Open contests, or four of the six Explorer contests, in her division (2026–27).
• She has to surf the West Coast Championships to qualify for the National Championships. Everyone who competes at a regional championship can register for Nationals in the same divisions.
• Her home conference is decided by where she lives, and that is where she has to qualify.

Southwest Open Season, 2026–27

Southwest Explorer Season, 2026–27

2027 championships

Surfers compete in heats of four or six. Early-round heats are 15 or 20 minutes and finals are 20 or 25. At least half the surfers in each heat move on to the next round.

• Judges score every wave from 0.1 to 10.
• Her two best waves count.
• There is a wave limit: 10 waves in a 15-minute heat, 15 in a longer one. Extra waves do not count.
• Getting in the way of a surfer who has the right of way is interference, and it costs her part of her score. The NSSA follows the World Surf League’s priority rules.
• Check in with the beach marshal before the five-minute warning, or her spot can go to an alternate. If she misses her heat, the entry fee has to be paid again to get into another one.
• The contest jersey stays on until she is back on the beach. Taking it off in the water is a $25 fine.

Our guide to how surf contests work covers judging, priority and what to bring in more detail.

1. 1.Buy the West Coast membership first. It covers the Southwest, Gold Coast and Northwest conferences, and entries are not processed without it. Memberships are sold one surfer at a time on the NSSA’s 2026–27 membership page and are not refundable.
2. 2.Enter contests online at shop.nssa.org. Pick the season (Southwest Open or Southwest Explorer), then her division, then the event. You can enter one contest at a time or the whole season.
3. 3.Pay the entry fee. For 2026–27, Open is $145 a contest for most divisions, $125 for Mini Groms (under 12) and $115 for under 10. Explorer is $105 for most divisions and $95 for Super Girls and Super Groms.
4. 4.Enter by 5 p.m. on the Tuesday before the contest. After that the price goes up and she only gets in if there is space.
5. 5.Tell the conference director if she cannot make it. There are no refunds or transfers after the deadline without a doctor’s note.
6. 6.Check the heat draw. The NSSA posts heat draws, live scores and results on LiveHeats.

Board rules worth knowing

The rule book sets a minimum for longboard divisions: the board has to be at least 9 feet long. Not sure what board she should be on? See our surfboard buying guide.

Inside the NSSA, the path is conference season, then the West Coast Championships, then the National Championships. In 2026 the West Coast Championships were at Seaside Reef in Cardiff and Nationals were at the Huntington Beach Pier.

The NSSA is separate from USA Surfing, but its championships feed into USA Surfing’s events:

• USA Surfing Prime. Slots for the girls’ under-14, under-16 and under-18 Prime divisions are handed out from NSSA National and Regional championship results, starting with the Open divisions. Regular-season rankings are not used, and a surfer has to have competed in the National Open Championships to be considered.
• USA Surfing Championships. If USA Surfing keeps the same rules for 2027, the top two in most Open divisions at the West Coast Championships receive slots, and third place is an alternate.
• Middle school and high school team results are not used for either one.

The full path from a first heat to the 2028 Olympics at Lower Trestles is in our guide, So you want to compete in surfing.

The NSSA was formed in 1978 in Huntington Beach, with student surfers as its focus. Linking surfing to schoolwork has been its philosophy from the start. The Encyclopedia of Surfing calls it the gold standard of American amateur surfing, especially in the 1980s, and lists world champions Tom Curren and Kim Mearig among its alumni.

Its national office is still in Huntington Beach, led by executive director Janice Aragon, and Nationals are held at the city’s pier.

Yes. Southwest Conference contests are held on the sand at well-known beaches like the Huntington Beach Pier, Salt Creek and Oceanside Pier, so a family can walk down and watch. There are girls’ and women’s divisions at every Open and Explorer event. If you can only pick one, the National Championships at the Huntington Beach Pier in late June bring in surfers from Hawaii and the East Coast too.

Upcoming contests are on our events page, with dates and a link to the details. You can also follow heats live on LiveHeats.