Holly Springs 12-year-old heads to California for national surf championships

A Holly Springs 12-year-old is headed from inland Wake County to Lower Trestles in Southern California, where the country’s top junior surfers will meet June 16-20 for the USA Surfing Junior Championships. Jacob Hepp earned his spot after winning the Eastern Surfing Association Mid Atlantic Regional, a rare path for a kid from a town far from the coast.

Jacob’s rise started on a family vacation to Kure Beach when he was 6, when he first got on a board and began learning the sport. He said he used to finish last every time, but he kept working and stayed in the water. That persistence has carried him into a national event in California, a surf mecca and the home of the 2028 Olympics, where the stakes are far bigger than a weekend at the coast.

The move from Holly Springs to the national junior stage also shows how unusual Jacob’s route has been. USA Surfing’s junior championships cover boys and girls divisions from U12 through U18, and the organization says the event is a showcase for the nation’s best young surfers. In the ESA Liveheats rankings, Jacob is listed third in Boys 11 & Under with 1,871 points, a sign that he is already one of the stronger names in the East Coast junior pipeline.

His journey has also depended on family support that looks very different from the kind most youth athletes need. His father, LJ Hepp, a former Holly Springs High School coach and Panther Creek basketball athletic director, said the most rewarding part has been watching a passion grow in a sport he cannot coach the way he would on a basketball court. Instead, he has taken on the practical work of keeping Jacob hydrated, fed and set up with the right gear.

The Eastern Surfing Association says competition begins at the district level and advances through annual regional championships, with Mid Atlantic qualifiers feeding into the broader East Coast system. ESA’s 2026 Mid Atlantic Regionals were held April 24-26 in Nags Head, another reminder that a national surf path can run through North Carolina before it ever reaches California. Jacob’s place in that pipeline makes him more than a local curiosity. It puts a Holly Springs teenager into a sport where the road to the national stage still starts with tide, travel and a lot of time in the water.