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The Inertia

There aren’t many careers that you’re able to retire from at the ripe old age of 34. After nearly a decade on Tour, however, Kerr hung up the jersey to enjoy the fruits of his labor. “Retirement,” however, doesn’t mean Kerr’s sitting around playing boggle in the old folks’ home. “It’s funny,” Kerr says. “People always take that retirement concept in surfing pretty literally. They think you’re going to retire and just go full Tommy Bahama style.”

When you’re 34 years old, you’re by no means a creaky old man. Kerr is still at the top of his game. “I can do better things with my time than being on Tour,” he said in 2017 once he’d decided he’d be hanging it up. “I think I can make a lot more use of the world around me, rather than just traveling to all the Tour events.”

So what’s he doing? Well, whatever he wants, basically. “That’s why I retired,” he says while looking at a firing lineup. “So I can come and be at places like this!” It’s not all about waves, though—Kerr’s family is the real gold watch. “It was like, ‘how can I work out a world where I get to stay with my family and transition into that side more?” he asked himself. And that’s exactly what he did.

 
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