The University of North Carolina-Wilmington’s Frother’s Surf Club is riling up the competitive spirit of students and faculty on campus.

Now in the final two of the Red Bull Bracket Reel, a surf video competition, the only thing standing between the members and an all inclusive trip to the ultimate tide heaven, Hawaii, is Monmouth University’s Surf Club.

“We have recruited the best surfers in this school to be apart of this video,” said Josh McCoy, a UNCW and campus Red Bull brand manager. “They are great guys, a lot are locals that have been surfing for a very long time.”

Currently the Frothers Surf Club are in the lead by a wide margin, providing some solace for the nerves of the seven members.

“The Monmouth Surf Team had some good filming and a little bit of an edge with the props made available to them for their videos, but our surfers are more talented and have better techniques,” McCoy said.

Social media has been the driving force enabling the team to excel in each round of the competition. The team has utilized outlets such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to attract voters.

“We wanted a big social media presence to try and promote the video. Local surf shops in Wilmington have tweeted and instagrammed, spreading the word about us as well,” McCoy said.

With a segment by the Time Warner Cable Company aired in fourteen cities and support from local surf shops like Aussie Island, SweetWater and Surf City, UNCW’s team is a force to be reckoned with.

In effort of promoting the cause, the surf team has taken action to involve the campus.

“We are working on promotional things. We’ve been in front of Randall Library lately handing out refreshments and providing computers for students to vote on,” said Shane Burn, a decorated surfer and team captain. “We will continue to do so until the competition is over.”

The filmmaking process has been high paced. Each team was given three months to complete all three of their short surf films, and with a limitation of seven people per team, all hands were on deck.

“It’s been crazy; it came on very quickly. We even had to film two of three of the videos in one day,” McCoy said.

The Frothers are immensely grateful for all of the support they have received in the community. In the first round of the voting based competition they faced The University of Southern California, which boasts a student population of 43,000, almost three times the size of UNCW. With numbers as great as those the Frother’s were skeptical.

“It was nerve wracking because it’s a voter based contest and USC was massive in comparison to us,” Burn said.

However, due to the student outreach, promotional stints, and support from the community, seahawk pride reigned. Our campus produced enough votes to earn the Frothers the spot, beating the sizeable USC.  

To continue to support the The UNCW Frothers Surfing Club in their efforts to win the Red Bull Bracket Reel video contest, please vote at http://redbullbracketreel.com/.