As we approach the beginning of February, some pivotal actions have taken place in the new school year. Throughout this cold winter season, there have been different types of clubs and events brought to the Lodi High School! One such narly event is a Surfing Club. Yes, that wasn’t a joke, it’s true!

Our famous art teacher, Mr. Nicolosi, is the man responsible for creating this club for the school. After dreaming of being able to bring this to a school, Mr. Nicolosi was able to fully accomplish this goal and make the students of Lodi High School have an ecstatic time learning how to surf on the water. Instead of traveling about an hour down to the Jersey Shore, Nicolosi was able to create a trip to guide them on “riding the waves” at the American Dream Mall. The mall, itself, has a water park where people can do this; this was the first surfing trip of Lodi High School!

After the trip, one Rampage member, Olivia Martin, who had also went on the trip, asked four students that were along with her two questions. The questions she asked:

1. What was your experience on the first surfing trip?
2. If you’re going to continue to be a member of the Surfing Club, what do you expect and what are some goals from you?

The first student she asked was sophomore Jaden Herrick.

Question 1 response: “It was fun. There was a lot of things, I guess…”

Question 2 response: “I don’t really have much. I just had fun, that’s all.”

The second student she asked was sophomore TJ Hammond.

Question 1 response: “It was fun, I mean I would definitely do it again. There’s things that I still wanna improve. I mean, overall, that was a good trip.”

Question 2 response: “What I expect from myself is to just like learn new skills, get a little bit more better at surfing. And, uhh, from the group, nothing really. Just… have fun!”

The third student she asked was freshman Jamie Fuentes.

Question 1 response: “Well, at first, it was hard because I never surfed before, but it was pretty fun.”

Question 2 response: “I hope I get better at it as well, but I hope we go to more places, instead of one place.”

The fourth student she asked was freshman Macarena NietoSeguara.

Question 1 response: “It was really fun and I got a lot of experience doing new things.”

Question 2 response: “I wanna get better at surfing and standing on the board and waiting for more trips.”

Then Olivia proceeded onto asking Mr. Nicolosi, himself. The first question was the same, yet the second question was different. The second question: What was your idea of all this coming out?

Question 1 response: “Amazing and it exceeded my expectations. The kids were so pumped and you know teaching high school, teaching high school students. They have the facade, the, “I’m so cool!” They were acting like little kids. They weren’t trying to be cool high schoolers. They were just having fun, it was just like pure, just fun. And it was so awesome to see and I was in the water with them and they were surfing towards me. And everytime I got to see the smiles, the faces. Sometimes they’d fall, sometimes they’d make it. When they got a good ride, it was just awesome. Everybody was so pumped.

Going forward, I just wanna do more trips… The goal is to go back to the American Dream wave pool, to go down to the beach! To get you guys in the ocean. My dream for next year going forward would be to get some other schools in the area to also start surf clubs. And we can maybe like have fun events with other schools. Just friendly competitions. And my dream, one day, would be to have a North Jersey surf league where we would compete against other schools in the area at the wave pool… So I think it’d be really cool to have a surf team that is 50 miles from the nearest ocean.”

Question 2 response: “It was actually a dream of my old job at Elmwood Park, but I knew it was like too far fetched. And at that time, there was no wave pool, so we’d have to drive all the way to the beach. And there’s no way they would’ve gone for it.

And then in May of 2022, I went to the wave pool of American Dream; I surfed it. And one of my first thoughts was that I gotta do this at Lodi because like we’re literally 15 minutes from this mall-this amazing wave pool! That’s how that came about and it took a little while… and Mr. D’Amico was totally on board with it, so it was totally on him that this took place. Otherwise, it would’ve never happened.”

The response to the first surfing trip was very positive among the students. Even getting a spot on the trip was very difficult because so many people wanted to do it. The trip was a spark for the Surfing Club to be one of the most defining clubs of Lodi High School. A lot of students have joined ever since, and the ones that already went on the trip, are currently staying in the club because of their amusing time at the water park. In spite of this, even the staff members of our school want to be a part of the next upcoming trip. The entire Surfing Club is very excited for the next trip, but all of this occurred due to the actions of the man himself, our crazy, yet beloved art teacher, Mr. Nicolosi!

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