It was in the mid-1970s when I picked up Surfer Magazine, amazed by the image on the cover. The photo was of a South African surfer,18-year-old Shaun Tomson. He was riding a spot on Oahu’s North Shore called Off the Wall. That in itself was no big deal.
OTF, as it is sometimes known, was the epicenter of the surfing experience back then, and all the top players of the day, including Shaun and Australian World Champions Rabbit Bartholomew, Peter Townend and Mark Richards gathered there regularly for an unofficial contest to see who could score the longest barrels, something that translated into media coverage, which, sometimes, translated into money.
Shaun’s cover shot was of a barrel, but he was not crouching as he approached it. He was standing tall, moving his left shoulder a few inches to avoid a lip that could take your head off if it landed on you.
And there was something more. His features were that of a late-night movie star, as if the mighty Thor had suddenly developed the superpower of tube riding.
That was in or around 1977, the year Shaun won his one and only World Surfing title, a fact that becomes a sidenote to his other accomplishments.
Among Shaun’s gifts to surfing are his being the first to kick his board through the back of a closed-out tube and turning while in the tube. He may not have been the first, but he was certainly among the first to throw his board up into the lip while riding backside at Pipeline.
Then there was the time that Shaun took off behind Richards on a steep, deep Off the Wall ledge, stuffed himself into the tube behind him and popped out to Richards’ and the rest of the surfing world’s amazement.
By 1980, the surfing world was changing from single fins to twin fins and tri fins. Shaun adapted well to the new equipment, but in my opinion, was never as dominant again as he had been.
While he remains a brilliant surfer to this day, he has matured into something more of a spokesman whose book “Surfer’s Code: 12 Simple Lessons for Riding Through Life” is being read by everyone from the youngest grommets to seasoned CEOs.
Shaun Tomson and I do not hang out often, but we speak whenever we are in each other’s company, as we were on Aug. 27 of this year for the Luau and Legends of Surfing Invitational. It was all pretty superficial — surfing, family and friends while comparing notes on how we saw the last 30 years, me as an observer, him as a major player in our sport.
While I am pretty satisfied with my life, I’ve often wondered what it would be like being Shaun for a few minutes. With that in mind, I reached over, ripped off his name tag, pasted it on my shirt and pasted mine on him.
I never did get the thrill of exiting a dry barrel at Back Door or having my photo appear in a surfing magazine. I settled instead for those on hand who thought that they were speaking to the real Shaun Tomson.
I feel a little bad about that, but the way those people treated me for those few minutes made it all worthwhile.
