Woodrow Landfair
author and American storyteller
Woodrow Landfair (born Stanley Wood Landfair II on November 9, 1982, also called "Pack" and "Packman Surfs the World") is an American novelist, entrepreneur, motorcycle adventurer, surfer, actor, and NCAA Champion athlete. He is the owner of El Porto Surf Shop in El Porto, California and the Adventure Correspondent for HighTides Journal.
Background
Landfair grew up with his mother and two sisters in Springfield, Virginia, and with his father in California - at first near Los Angeles, then in San Francisco. He enrolled at the University of Texas in 2001, on full academic scholarship from the United States Navy with the ambition to become a SEAL. Dared by fellow Midshipmen to show up at the baseball team's October 2002 walk-on tryout, Landfair earned a spot on the roster.
A member of the 2005 NCAA Division I Baseball Championship team, he won varsity letters in each of his three seasons, and was voted Teammate of the Year by his fellow players for both the 2004 and 2005 campaigns.
Between 2003 and 2005, he trained with future Major League Baseball players Huston Street, JP Howell, Drew Stubbs, Omar Quintanilla, Brad Halsey, Curtis Thigpen, Michael Hollimon, Matt Holliday, Alex Hinshaw, Chris Davis, Taylor Teagarden and Sam LeCure at the University of Texas.
After injuring his lower back running marathons, he tore two discs in his spine over the course of the 2005 season. No longer a student-athlete nor on scholarship from the Navy, he studied creative writing under Zulfikar Ghose. Setting out to research and write a novel, he sold everything he had—including his National Championship ring—and, with no previous riding experience, left on a recently purchased used motorcycle.
48 state motorcycle journey
Landfair first gained notoriety in 2006, amidst an indefinite nationwide odyssey.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Woodrow Landfair” is author and American storyteller. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Woodrow, Landfair and author, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “author and American storyteller” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8033172. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1982, 2001, 2002 and 2005.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Woodrow Landfair”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Woodrow Landfair primary sources, Woodrow Landfair archive and Woodrow research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Woodrow Landfair”?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Woodrow Landfair” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.