Chuck Allen, 74, advocate for surfing, snowboarding
NEW YORK — Chuck Allen, who helped found two nonprofit organizations that worked to bring respect and legitimacy to surfing and snowboarding, died Feb. 14 in Redlands, Calif. He was 74 and lived in Yucaipa, Calif.
The cause was emphysema, his son Robert said.
Mr. Allen, a banker, became the volunteer surfing coach at El Toro High School in Lake Forest, Calif., after two of his sons took up the sport in the 1970s. He disliked surfing’s dropout image, so in 1978 he founded the National Scholastic Surfing Association with four other coaches to unite its disparate competitive bodies.
“American competitive surfing was associated with this beach-bum mentality,’’ said Janice Aragon, executive director of the association and a 1984 world champion surfer whom Mr. Allen coached.
“They wanted to raise the level of surfing and its place in the world of sports.’’
The National Scholastic Surfing Association requires athletes to stay in school and maintain at least a 2.0 grade point average to compete, and it provides added incentives such as scholarships and paths to corporate sponsorship.
“To this day,’’ Aragon said, the association “operates on his vision and philosophy, which is keeping kids in school, maintaining their GPA, and running a quality competitive program.’’
A decade later, Mr. Allen applied his experience to snowboarding by incorporating the United States Amateur Snowboard Association in 1988. At the time, snowboarding was banned at most ski resorts; by 1998, it was an Olympic sport.
Charles Lee Allen was born Sept. 13, 1936, in Enid, Okla. He studied geology at Phillips University for two years, served in the National Guard Reserves, and rode in rodeos.
In 1958, he married Dana Jordan, and in 1959, they moved to California.
His first marriage and a second, to Holly Lockman, ended in divorce. He married Christine Irvin in 1982.
In addition to his wife and son Robert, from his first marriage, Mr. Allen leaves four other sons and a daughter from his first marriage, Daymond, Patrick, Russell, Randy, and Sunday Johnston; a son from his second marriage, Brandon; a brother, Newell; a sister, Billie Beck; three stepchildren; and nine grandchildren.