Beau Mitchell Boards for the Soul

For Beau Mitchell, board riding has never been about winning.

When the New South Wales Institute of Sport (NSWIS) skateboard head coach was asked why he rides, he replied:

“For my soul, for my self-satisfaction. Not necessarily to make money, but to serve as an escape and a self-fulfilment of challenging myself.”

Whether on a skateboard, surfboard, or snowboard, Mitchell has spent most of his life chasing the feeling that comes from having something ahead of him.

“Those three things have essentially no limit to what you could achieve, and that means that I can constantly challenge myself,” he said.

“Maybe it’s that I like suffering, but I feel like having something ahead of me makes me a better person.”

That pursuit has carried Mitchell through a life of chasing what comes next, learning what happens when the path ahead suddenly disappears, and eventually helping others navigate challenges of their own.

Mitchell’s relationship with board riding began at age 10, when a Christmas skateboard gave him his first taste of freedom.

Then, one day at the beach, his life path seemed to ride towards him when he saw someone on a wave.

“Honestly, it was like seeing something incredible where someone was on a wave riding along,” Mitchell recalled.

“I remember it so vividly [and thought], ‘I want to do that.’”

There were no surf schools to teach him how. Before his parents would even let him into the water on his own, Mitchell had to learn to swim, first through swimming lessons and then Nippers surf lifesaving.

“I basically had to fail, and fail, and fail until I made [a wave],” he said.

“And then when there were no waves, I skated. So, it became this balance of creativity. And honestly, I never even knew that there was competition. It was just this challenge I was pursuing.”

That challenge would eventually take Mitchell far beyond the beach, touring the World Surf Qualification Series (WQS), reaching multiple finals. But as the level of competition grew, so too did the challenge of measuring himself against some of the world’s best surfers.

“It felt lonely,” he said.

“I felt behind from the start. What I lacked in compared to where I wanted to be, I made up by learning how to work really hard.

“There was no ‘surf program’ at an institute. Video analysis for me was recording something on a VHS from Wide World of Sports, and then slow-moing it with the pause button to break a skill down.”

Once Mitchell began travelling internationally, failure became one of his greatest teachers. Without someone always there to guide him, he learned on the road, wheresuccess determined whether he could afford to make it to the next competition.

“Once I realised the level of resilience needed to continue along your pathway, there were times where I couldn’t afford to continue if I didn’t succeed,” he said.

“Days where I needed to win to be able to go to the next contest, otherwise I would have no money left.”

It was 2002 at the GPB World Junior Championships in France. Mitchell was 20 years old, exhausted, broke, and ready to come home. He had sold a surfboard just to make it to the final competition.

“I remember it was Father’s Day, and I told my dad, ‘I just want to come home. I’m broke. I’m exhausted,’” he said.

“[Dad was] like, ‘You’ve got one more competition. Just do everything you can that’s in your power to control and just let it happen.’”

Mitchell approached it as he had so many challenges before it: control what he could and just give it a crack.

He became a world junior champion.

“It was like I couldn’t lose because I felt like I had no pressure on me,” he said.

“The people I competed with – Jeremy Flores for one of them – he was in the final with me and is still one of the best in the world. I’m really proud of that moment and the learnings international competition gave me.”

But Mitchell’s professional career would eventually be cut short by a serious ankle injury.

After tearing the ligaments in his ankle, the long recovery came with the loss of major sponsors and mounting financial pressure, ultimately forcing him to retire from professional surfing at 27.

“It was one of the hardest decisions I ever made because I didn’t know anything else,” he said. “But in some ways, I think that it allows me to be a better coach now.

“It’s still something I reflect on daily because it drives me and motivates me but also allows me to be soft if I need to, and very understanding with the athletes.”

Once his ankle recovered, Mitchell returned to another of his passions: skateboarding.

Around five years after retiring, he took that reconnection even further on a trip across the United States with a surfboard, skateboard and snowboard in tow. He surfed in California, skated the parks and streets of New York, then travelled to Colorado to snowboard the mountains and skate, before stopping in Hawaii on his way home.

For someone whose relationship with board riding had become intertwined with competition, the trip offered something different.

“That was one of the best trips I’ve ever done in my life,” Mitchell said. “It had nothing to do with competition, but I was able to exercise all of those things that I love to do about riding.

“For me, it was always going to be about the creativity and the fulfilment I got back from it.”

It was after this period that Mitchell found coaching. What began with assisting young skateboarders at his local parks evolved into full-time coaching and the creation of his own ‘Boardriding Academy’ alongside his former surf coach and mentor, 1988 world surfing champion Barton Lynch.

Mitchell was one of the coaches for the Australian skateboarding team at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, where Arisa Trew and Keegan Palmer both won gold, before taking on the role of head coach of the NSWIS Skateboard Program in 2025.

But the philosophy Mitchell brought into his coaching had been developing long before he became a coach. During his own career, Lynch operated by a simple principle: show up.

“There were a lot of times where I turned up rain, hail, or shine ready to train, and my coach always said to me, ‘If you turn up, I will turn up,’” Mitchell said.

“Once I understood that every moment you have is an opportunity to be better, I looked at it like a numbers game when I was competing.

“If everyone was turning up at the beach twice a day and I turned up three times a day, I was getting better one extra time than they were each day… that’s 365 more opportunities to get better.

“I pass that same mantra onto the athletes about the purpose of showing up and what that value gives you. If they’re willing to show up and that’s really important to them, then I will too.”

The challenges Mitchell faced while largely finding his own way as an athlete now inform how he guides athletes from the other side.

“The athletes know that anything I’m asking them to do, I have done myself because I understand the fear factor. I understand the challenge and I’m also willing to go through that with them,” he said.

“There’s a space in my coaching where it is risk to reward, or you’re floating a fine line with progression or injury. As a coach, I have to know where that line is regularly, which means I have to be connected to the athletes.”

After a lifetime spent building his own relationship with board riding and helping some of Australia’s best skateboarders build theirs, Mitchell is now watching that same love emerge closer to home, with his son taking up skateboarding.

“I love watching him build a relationship with the sport that I love because he’s making it his own,” Mitchell said. “I know that he’s not doing it because I do it, but because he loves it genuinely, and that’s something I’m really proud of.

“There’s a common trope that you see around parent coaches, but I don’t coach him. I just go skateboarding with him, so he can ask me anything.”

Instead, Mitchell is content to watch his son find his own path through a sport that has shaped so much of his life.

“When your kids are passionate about something, that’s the best place for them to be because it can often keep them out of trouble,” he said.

“So, passion for me is really important. I just hope he continues to love it.”

Rachel Tingey, NSWIS Media