Fred Haywood was born on the island of Maui a decade before Hawaii became a state. The son of a sugar plantation doctor, he grew up playing with the neighbor kids, who were Hawaiian, Japanese, Chinese, and white. He and his four siblings played in the waters off Kahului Harbor on their own balsawood surfboards and El Toro sailboats. He and his buddies trekked around the island, surfing, camping and diving for fish from Honolua Bay to Hana.

When Fred was seventeen, he left home to join George Haines’s world-famous Santa Clara swim team. In 1967, he and Mark Spitz were the first high school students to win the National Championships in Dallas, Texas, and Fred became the fastest backstroker in America. Fred was a silver medalist at the 1967 Pan American Team and became a multiple NCAA and American record holder. He went on to swim for Jim Gauhran and became the swim team captain at Stanford University.          Fred continued his winning ways in another water sport, in 1983 breaking the world speed record in Weymouth, England, to become the fastest windsurfer in the world, a record he held for three years.

Fred Haywood excelled in windsurfing competitions until, at the practically ancient age of forty, he gave up his professional sports career to raise a family and sell real estate on his beloved Maui. He is now one of the most successful realtors on the island and a popular teacher for realtors around the country.