Surf Rebel Gets a Cause : Brian McNulty Adopts Businessman’s Approach, Wins on Pro Surfing Tour

If a pedigree and talent were all the pro surfing tour required, Brian McNulty could take his board home to Capistrano Beach tonight and retire at 21.

Instead, the self-described maverick will carry his personal “mission” to the largest surfing competition of the summer in Los Angeles, the $5,000 Trim Malibu Classic today and Saturday.

In his third professional season, McNulty suddenly has made dramatic strides in his quest to climb to the top of the surfing world.

“I’ve always liked to be the underdog and show people who didn’t believe in me that I could win,” he said. But the signs suggest that his days as the underdog and outsider may be numbered.

He enters today’s contest as the No. 1-ranked surfer in the Professional Surfing Assn. of America standings--despite skipping its last competition in favor of a world tour event in South Africa, where he finished a career-high fifth.

“I think I might be one of the best unknown surfers around,” he said.

In fact, the McNulty name had graced the pages of surfing publications long before Brian rode a wave on his first attempt with a board at age 7.

The son of the former editor of Surfing magazine, McNulty and his four brothers grew up with some of California’s sweetest waves in their backyard in lieu of a swing set or a basketball court.

Because of that conspiracy of heritage and environment, the five McNultys have become to surfing in the ‘80s what a set of beach brothers named Wilson were to singing in the ‘60s. The oldest McNulty, Sean, was moderately successful on the world tour before his retirement two years ago, and brothers Terence, 18, and Joe, 16, are top amateurs.

Outsiders imagine the world of competitive surfing to be one of the last refuges of the free spirit. Not exactly, as Brian McNulty has learned.

If he could be said to have a surfing flaw, it has nothing to do with the sport’s physical side.

The main obstacle that seemed to stand between him and surfing stardom lay in his nature. He was a lousy public relations man. He lacked the desire to promote himself, or to woo sponsors.

In his own words, he’s always been “rebel-like,” or in the words of his mother, Mary McNulty, “He wasn’t a team player.”

After one of his worst teen-age transgressions, she devised a uniquely psychological punishment--she exiled him to tennis camp in Big Bear the week of the qualifying for the world amateur surfing championships, held once every two years.

By contrast, Sean, whom Mary McNulty calls the “statesman,” made it a habit to rise early in the morning, check the waves, don his gear with sponsors’ logos prominently displayed and phone a photographer to arrange a shooting session.

Until recently, that was the opposite of Brian’s professional style. The way he saw it, if he had wanted to sell himself to corporations for a living, he would have gone to Harvard business school.

“I think I might be a little more of an individual (than Sean),” he said. “I sort of like to do things my way.”

But pro surfing is a business, and more than most other professional athletes, its practitioners are beholden to the companies who support it.

Unless he is a Rockefeller heir, the surfer who seems disdainful of the unwritten rules of the game can find himself doing a lot of sleeping on the beach, begging rides and bumming meals of potato chips--not the preferred diet of world-class competitors.

In sponsors’ eyes, McNulty had a tendency to commit such sins as missing planes, forgetting to mail contest entries, showing up late for events, wearing shirts that were not made by the same company that was footing his bills.

“I was a flake,” he admitted.

He still seems to surf to a different drummer, but outside the water he is learning the knack of harmonizing with sponsors, contest organizers, tour officials and media.

And the transformation is yielding big dividends.

“Sean was more the clean-cut college type and Brian was more unorganized,” said Larry Gordon, owner of a San Diego surf equipment and clothing company that has sponsored Brian for six years.

“Brian’s always been the type who does what he wants, and if it helps the sponsor, good, and if it doesn’t, fine. But I can appreciate that type of personality, the maverick type.

“He did fairly well on the tour (last season, when he finished ranked 39th on the world tour),” “But it seemed like if he’d been a little more responsible or cared a little more, he could have done even better.

“I talked to him about it and he said he was aware of it. . . . And just in the past few months, it seems like he’s come a long way and it’s paying off for him. He’s won a couple contests and he’s doing really well.”

No matter how you measure it, McNulty would seem to have the right credentials to stage an attack on the top of the standings.

“There’s no such thing as instantly breaking down the doors of surfing,” he said. “I thought my rise through the ranks would be a lot faster.”

He has surfed everywhere from Florida to Texas, France to Mexico--mostly traveling on a shoestring budget. He has surfed waves three-stories tall at the Pipeline in Hawaii to “the best wave in the world” at Jeffreys Bay in South Africa to a mechanical wave in a swimming pool in that renown surf mecca, Allentown, Pa.

“I really like big waves,” he said. “I think I’m probably just as scared as the guys that don’t want to be out there. But it’s like learning to surf all over again. Big waves magnify the feeling of surfing.”

He has survived brain surgery after being hit on the head by a board during a P.E. class in the waters off San Clemente--to this day, part of his brain is protected only by a plastic disc the size of a silver dollar in place of his crushed skull. And he has been stung in the foot by a Portugese Man O’ War in Japan and competed, anyway.

As an amateur, he was named to the National Scholastic Surfing Assn. team twice. He helped San Clemente High School to the state surfing championship as a senior, and led Saddleback College to the state college title after becoming the individual California collegiate champion.

“If younger kids have thoughts of becoming a pro surfer, I’d like to say that it’s not as glamorous and exciting as they might think,” he said. “It’s mostly a lot of hard work and unless you put 110% into it, it probably wouldn’t be worth it.

“I don’t think I ever gave 110%--until this year.”