Kolohe Andino recently announced that he’d signed a deal with Team O’Neill. The San Clemente native was “the next big thing” for a long time. In 2010, when he was just 15 years old, he signed with Target, a company that was definitely not an endemic surf brand. Target had, just a year prior, signed a 16-year-old Carissa Moore. Those signings were harbingers of what the world thought the two would do in the future. Andino was groomed to be the next world champ. And while it hasn’t happened (yet?), Andino’s career has been phenomenal.
He holds the record for most NSSA titles won with nine overall. He qualified for the tour at 18 and since then, he’s proven that he can be valuable to a brand, whether he’s free surfing or competing. In 2020, he was the first American to qualify for the 2020 summer Olympics in surfing. Through the pandemic, he directed, produced, and starred in his latest film, Reckless Isolation. He’s a busy guy, and his addition to one of the most iconic surf teams ever makes perfect sense.
“The thing that gets me the most excited about the brand is being aligned with a company that has its roots planted in surf,” Andino said. “To me, O’Neill feels like one of the most core brands in the world. In my life, everything revolves around surfing and being in the ocean and those two priorities bleed through the O’Neill brand.”
The O’Neill camp released a short video welcoming Andino to the team, and it’s clear that Andino is not even close to hanging up the jersey. Not that anyone thought he was.
