“If the waves are good, if there’s a good show coming to town, if it’s a sunny, beautiful beach day, I just try to get amongst it.”
Chris Coté interviews Australian surfer Ethan Ewing at the 2026 Outerknown Tahiti Pro. (Credit: World Surf League)
“I go to Pannikin Coffee and Tea at least once a day, sometimes twice,” says Chris Coté via Zoom, adding: “I’ve already been there twice today.”
Is that how this high-energy action sports media personality stays pumped up and positive all the time? I wonder if Pannikin also explains his nine jobs.
One of the busiest – and most likable – guys working in the action sports industry, Coté is a commentator, journalist, and media personality whose enthusiastic on-air announcing spans multiple sports – surfing, skateboarding, and snowboarding comprising the core – and multiple media, including broadcast TV, digital media, print magazines, and podcasts.
Talk about versatility. Coté can jump between surfing, skateboarding, and snowboarding with equal ease, like an infielder who plays all the positions. His hosting and on-air announcing gigs include World Surf League and International Surfing Association contests, Vans Park Series skateboarding, Red Bull surfing and snow competitions, and Dew Tour skateboarding.
In addition to surf-skate-snow, he also handles announcing and play-by-play duties for parkour (Kings Of The Concrete Parkour) and free-running. He doesn’t just talk action sports; he actively participates, often with his sons.
“We surf together all the time, and I’ll go out and ride mountain bikes sometimes with my son, but he’s at a level now where everything is too scary for me to do.”
Nothing, I would venture, has shaped Coté more than his hometown. He recalls late 1970s and 1980s Encinitas as an “idyllic heaven for any kid, like you’d see in the movies.” Coté’s older brother was a big influence: “We grew up surfing, skateboarding, going to La Paloma to watch surf videos. We were basically raised on the beach.” In high school, he got really into surfing. After graduating with San Dieguito High School’s class of 1994, he continued competitive surfing. “I guess you could say, I became like a B-level pro-surfer, mostly doing California surf contests.”
Meanwhile, he was writing for surf magazines, experience he was able to parlay into more industry jobs. He’s been gainfully employed in the action sports industry in one capacity or the other for almost 30 years.
One of the benefits of working for the World Surf League and the International Surfing Association is that you get to travel the world. In August, Coté was in Tahiti for the 2026 Outerknown Tahiti Pro. Microphone in hand, he sat in the channel at Teahupo?o, one of the most fear-inducing waves on the planet. “It’s one of the most powerful forces of nature that you’ll ever see, feel, hear,” he says. “It’s like the Niagara Falls or seeing the Grand Canyon, it kind of has that magnitude. The entire ocean just basically collapses and unloads onto this nearly dry reef, and somehow these surfers can paddle into these waves and get barreled and come out at 100 miles an hour.”
Coté MC’d surfing’s first Olympic appearance at Tokyo 2020 and was the main announcer for the surfing competition at Paris 2024, also at Teahupo?o. Coté said he hopes to have a role at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. The surfing portion will be held at Lower Trestles, just north of Oceanside. Soon he’ll be heading off to Brazil and Peru.
Here’s the thing, though. As much as Coté enjoys traveling the world to bucket list locations – and getting paid for it – he seems happiest at home, in Encinitas.
It’s where his heart and his home is. It’s here that he’s surrounded by the community and people for whom he holds great affection, like his girlfriend Kelly and his two boys that he’s raising (Some fans call him Rad Dad). He keeps his family close. “My mom lives across the street. My brother lives just around the corner. So, we’re always together.” Coté may work globally but he lives locally.
Besides Pannikin Coffee and Tea, you can find him up and down PCH at North County haunts like Lou’s Records, DJing vinyl records at local spots Leu Leu, Corner Pizza, and Belly Up.
Another local gig is the popular “Monday M.A.S.S.” (Mud-Air-Snow-Skate) podcast that he co-hosts with snowboarding legend Todd Richard. It’s recorded most Mondays in Encinitas.
Coté is also a musician and singer. “I’m constantly out there playing music with my band SUNBENDR.” It’s a group of friends that’s been playing music together for 30 years, four as SUNBENDR. They play the Belly Up and the Casbah, and just performed at the first annual Lou’s Records Labor Day Block Party (Check them out on Spotify).
Chris, second from left, back in the day
The deep connection Coté feels with the North County surf town is reflected in the pages of “Encinitas Magazine,” which he and a group of friends relaunched and now publish bi-monthly. It’s a print magazine which he describes as a “love letter to Encinitas.” It’s designed not for tourists but local residents and people who just love Encinitas. They’re currently working on the October-November issue.
Coté knows something about publishing. In 1999, he co-founded Transworld SURF Magazine and served as its editor-in-chief from 2005 until 2013, when the magazine stopped publishing. His “Encinitas Magazine” collaborators are people he worked with at Transworld SURF.
I ask him about his energy level. A lot of surfers have good energy. What makes Coté unique is that, rather than bouncing off walls, he channels it into athletic, creative, and entrepreneurial endeavors. “I’ve always been known to have a lot of energy. And I also just try to get as much out of every day as possible,” he says. He takes an occasional day off but most of the time, “if the waves are good, if there’s a good show coming to town, if it’s a sunny, beautiful beach day, I just try to get amongst it.”
When Coté tells me about his nine jobs, there’s no whine or woe is me in his voice – he sounds stoked, like he always sounds. To pull it off, he works nights and weekends, and is away from home a good part of the year. What happened to the surfer stereotype, where nine jobs would be nine too many? Coté says it’s a tradeoff. “It allows me the freedom to do what I want, when I want.” He works his butt off, but it’s all worth it: “I get to spend as much time as possible with my kids and my girlfriend and her kids.”
Follow Chris:
@encinitasmagazine * @chrisCoté * @chrisCoté
Editor’s Note:
Read about the San Diego pro surfer I tracked down 47 years after he won a La Jolla Shores contest
Read about this action sports filmmaker and co-creator of the X Games
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