Connor Baxter has been at the top of his sport since he was 15. He has set the pace along with Kai Lenny and a few others and tends to be one of the guys to beat at every big race. The schedule and training are grueling and there is little time for fun. What is Connor doing to stay competitive and motivated? Who's is he as a young man in a rapidly growing sport? What makes him tick? We all have preconceived notions of who these big name paddlers are as people, but you might be surprised about who Connor really is.
Connor Baxter is 15 years old when he gingerly holds his first $4,000 check. His arms are about as thick as a carbon-fiber paddle shaft, his legs not much more so. He weighs just north of 100 pounds with a patch of sun-bleached blond hair and a baby blue cap perched on top. A small, humble smile escapes his lips. Next to him is a lineup of standup paddling's early elite downwind paddlers: Dave Kalama, SUP godfather; Livio Menelau, Maui-based downwind savant; Mark Raaphorst, revolutionary downwind shaper; and early SUP pioneer Ekolu Kalama. None of them are smiling.And they have reason not to be. Baxter, literally half the size of some of them, just beat them all on a 26-mile paddle in the first-ever standup Maui 2 Molokai race, often won that very same race, Maui 2 Molokai, against a stacked field of the world's top downwind paddlers, for the eighth time in a row.
