By Paul Kandarian

Peter Panagiotis ’71, better known as Peter Pan, started URI’s Surf Club in 1968. He’s long since become a surfing legend, famous for finding the most out-of-the-way waves. He’s inspired and influenced local surfers through his long-running surf camps and competitions, his radio surf reports, and as the owner of several South County surf shops—but mostly through his infectious love of surfing. Pan lives by the mantra, “Surf first. Everything else second.”

Ask Peter Pan if there’s any better surfing on the planet than the Narragansett, Rhode Island, waters he loves best, and you do so at your own risk. It’s like asking Santa Claus if he’d live anywhere but the North Pole.

Pan, who doesn’t gladly suffer foolish questions, says, “Nahhh,” with a disgusted wave of the hand. And in the nasally, cackling tone he’s famous for, responds, “Narragansett—it’s the best place. People say, ‘Oh, it’s great in Westerly,’ or, ‘It’s great in Newport.’ I tell ’em, ‘OK, if it’s so good in Westerly and Newport, terrific; stay there. Just stay the hell out of Narragansett; it’s crowded enough as it is.”

Studying in the then-new art program at URI back in the day, Pan so loved surfing that he started the University’s first Surf Club, still in existence, though its activity fluctuates from year to year.

“I started it in ’68,” Pan says. “We started competitions with other clubs, and I still run contests for them every once in a while.”

Never one to mince words, Pan fought for money to kick off the URI Surf Club, using a nifty bit of logic.

“I remember going to the Student Senate and fighting for money, and finding out they gave out like 400 bucks for rope for the mountain-climbing club,” Pan recalls. “I said, ‘Hey, you gave 400 bucks for rope, you can give us 400 bucks for trophies. We always got money after that.”

Manhattan-born, Pan was Rhode Island-raised, coming here as a baby with his Greek parents. He took up surfing as a kid, and at 69 is still a kid at heart: He works when he has to, teaching mostly fitness classes or snowboarding or whatever pays the bills. But every spare moment, he’s out on the water.

“He just loves surfing and wants to share the stoke with everybody.”
—Emily Clapham ’02, M.S. ’04, Professor of Kinesiology and Director, Catching Waves for Health

In addition to his work with the URI Surf Club, Pan helps URI kinesiology professor Emily Clapham ’02, M.S. ’04, who runs a surf therapy program for kids with disabilities, called Catching Waves for Health. She’s run it for 10 years, and Pan has helped since the beginning, including designing wetsuits that are easier to get in and out of than standard wetsuits. “That’s huge for these kids, some of whom have a hard time waiting,” Clapham says. “This way, they’re in and out of the water much faster.”

Pan also loans boards and gear to the kids’ parents and caretakers when they want to get into the water with their kids.

“Without question, Peter’s an integral part of the success of our program,” says Clapham. “He’ll come and watch from afar and then call me up later to give me advice on what board would work better for each child. And on the last day of the program, when we give out medals, he’s the one handing them out.”

As to his overall legend, Clapham says, “He just loves surfing and wants to share the stoke with everybody.”

Rachel McCarty ’10 was president of the URI Surf Club from 2009–2010, and vice president before that. Growing up in the Washington, D.C., area, McCarty, whose parents attended URI for graduate school, had heard of Pan before she came to Rhode Island.

“Peter’s great,” says McCarty, who learned to surf as a youngster back home. “He’s always been so good to the URI kids. We’d go to his shop, Narragansett Surf & Skate Shop, and pick his brain, and he’d give us breaks on gear.”

If not for the URI Surf Club, says McCarty, now soft goods buyer for The Kayak Centre of Rhode Island in Wickford, “I don’t think I’d have made it past my first year of school.”

She had applied to another college, her first choice, but didn’t get in. She came to URI, she says, “kinda bummed out, but my dad said, ‘Go for a year.’”

She soon discovered the URI Surf Club. McCarty says the club, along with waves to surf almost literally right outside her door, “made a huge difference in my life. I stayed at URI, loved it, and haven’t left the state since.”

Make no mistake, she says, the Power of Pan is quite real.

“I knew how to surf when I got to URI, but his influence on me was mainly just seeing him on the water. He’s amazing, always stoked,” McCarty says. “And it’s a miracle if you can see him at all, because he’s always finding these out-of-the-way spots where the best surf is. Just spotting him is almost magical.”

Pan’s daughter, Tricia Panagiotis ’01, who now runs Narragansett Surf & Skate Shop, is understandably one of her dad’s biggest fans.

“It’s great having your dad around all the time, surfing with him,” she says. “I remember at 13, it was like minus 17 one day. I had ice on my suit, and Dad’s out there with me, all pumped up. He gets so excited; you can’t help but catch it.”

To look at Pan the man is to feel jealous that someone pushing 70 can look so good. Pan shrugs at the compliment, admitting, “Hey, I’m an old fart now.”

He feels his age from time to time, especially when he teaches fitness classes all day and then surfs.

“If I was smart, I’d surf first and then teach,” he says in that nasally chuckle. “I tell ya though, if the waves are good, I do go surfing, and then teach class. Then I’m just dead at night, but who cares. I’m surfing, that’s all that matters.” •