
"First is first and second is nothing." That's how Shaun Tomson saw the world as a '77 world champion in our final edition of Raw Files from our Mental Health chapter. Victory meant silence. Strength meant swallowing loss. But when his 15-year-old son died playing a schoolyard game, no amount of competitive grit could fill the void.
Today, Tomson walks into maximum security prisons, board rooms and surf competitions with twelve blank lines. Each starts with "I will." The toughest inmates break down, writing "I will forgive myself."
Through his own darkest hours, Tomson discovered that real strength lives in vulnerability - a revelation that mirrors professional surfing's evolution from forced stoicism to a world where champions dare to say "I'm not okay."
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