Dr. 360 : Bodyboarding legend Joe Wolfson says: ‘One day, the only thing that will be left of me is a pair of shoes in the sand.’

The coat and tie didn’t seem appropriate for Joe Wolfson as he thrust his feet upon a desk. The bearded convention center manager, a quintessential beachcomber, looked tan and trim in his Carson city office. Close-cropped hair and oval glasses gave him a stately, downright professional look.

It is a side that not many ever see.

“Joe is the unofficial beach bum of the world,” said Richard Schraier, who worked with Wolfson on theater projects in the late 1970s here. “He lives by the beach and he is ruled by the beach.”

A resident of Manhattan Beach, “Dr. 360” is bodyboarding’s Big Kahuna, one of the developing sport’s elder statesmen. He is, arguably, the world’s best bodyboarder and its most knowledgeable personality.

“I find him unique, sort of interesting,” said David Gilovich, editor of Body Boarding Magazine. “There aren’t that many like him around, particularly in bodyboarding.”

In the ocean, the 40-year-old Wolfson can do what most 17-year-olds can’t. He is spectacular on a bodyboard, and twice won world age-group titles in bodysurfing.

“Being at one with nature, pushing yourself to your physical limits, to the max, that’s the ultimate challenge in the ocean,” Wolfson said.

Concurred Carson Mayor Michael Mitoma, a former surfer: “At his age, it’s amazing. He still has that fire there.”

Friends say Wolfson’s unencumbered life style makes him potentially the sport’s most colorful spokesman.

“He is really original,” said Pat Caldwell, a young professional bodyboarder, one of the few to make a living at it. “There aren’t too many people that can do the things he does.”

People who have washed across his sandy tracks--and there are many--say Dr. 360 can spin a yarn a minute. Just as many people have heard a tale or two about him.

“I don’t care where you go with him, somebody knows Joe,” said Debbie Anderson, who has been acquainted with Wolfson for 15 years.

For every killer wave Wolfson has thrashed with his one-of-a-kind backward 360, there is a story about his relationships with women, Dr. 360 and big waves, Wolfson’s childhood pranks and Dr. 360’s love for kids. Wolfson has no children of his own. He has never married.

“I just can’t spend time in the water and worry about a wife on the beach, or kids waiting for me to come home. I would be miserable,” he said.

Wolfson prefers to be thought of as an aquatic Peter Pan.

“My grandmother should never have taken me to see that movie,” he said in his squeaky voice. “It’s still my favorite ride at Disneyland. . . . I may be 40, but I always want to be a kid.”

He is animated. He is flighty. Some call him pushy. When he painted the words “Casa 360” on the side of a cabana he leases with another bodyboarder in Puerto Escondido, Mexico, it ruffled a few feathers.

“But that’s Joe,” said one of his pupils, John Shearer of Hermosa Beach, world amateur champion in the 30-34 age group.

The backdrop in Wolfson’s Carson office is picture after picture of himself at ocean functions, complete with flowing beard and long hair.

He delights in showing a visitor videos of some of his latest backwards spinners in 15-foot surf at the Mexican Pipeline in Puerto Escondido. For closers, he previews his first sky-diving trip.

“Kids identify with me,” Wolfson said. “Here’s a responsible adult that wants to remain a kid.”

Gary Ruzicka, a burly, balding 39-year-old wave rider, remembers the first time he saw Wolfson paddling out on a bodyboard at 40th Street in Newport Beach. It was a big day, surf-wise, in 1973.

“I saw this hippie guy--beard, long hair--out there, and I paddled over to him and asked: ‘What kind of drugs are you on? Whatever it is, I want some.’ ”

A moment later, Wolfson caught a wave, and their friendship hasn’t stopped since. They ran into each other at Waimea Bay in Hawaii six months later and eventually roomed together back on the mainland.

“He’s definitely on a higher plane,” Ruzicka said.

In those days, very few people rode bodyboards, much less admitted doing it. Wolfson, sure the sport would increase in popularity, vigorously supported their use while the board-surfing establishment pooh-poohed them.

Wolfson doesn’t hate board surfing. But like most bodyboarders, he doesn’t care to be in the water around board surfers. The harder, glass-fiber surfboards are dangerous to an unprotected bodyboarder, and surfers with a “my wave, my beach” attitude often take advantage of that.

Twenty years ago, Wolfson tried a long board, but says that because of his size, “I was not a very good board surfer.”

He has taken his lumps on a bodyboard. His nose was broken, and stitches took part of an eyebrow. On the same day that winter storm surf destroyed the Huntington Beach Pier in 1983, Wolfson collected 70 stitches when a monstrous set bounced him three times off the 40th Street jetty. He also spent six days in a Hawaiian hospital with blood poisoning contracted from a coral scrape.

It could have been worse.

“Bodyboards make wonderful shields,” he said.

Not even his closest friends are sure how Wolfson conjured up the name Dr. 360. Most say it is a title that aptly describes his wild moves on a bodyboard. (Several professionals say they would not attempt some of his stunts.)

Dr. 360 insists he got the name because in his younger days he carried a black bag with medical supplies on remote bodyboarding trips to Mexico and Hawaii. His spinners, avant-garde at the time, merely contributed to his reputation.

Wolfson has used the name to his advantage. He has taken photos wearing green hospital scrubs next to his Volvo station wagon with license plates that spell out “Dr. 360.” Young bodyboarders, known as “grommets,” respectfully call him Doctor. His office is the ocean and any shore it touches. At 40th Street, an area barred to everyone except bodyboarders and bodysurfers, he is practically a legend.

“Dr. 360,” shouted a teen-ager on a gray early morning day recently. “How are you?”

Asked another grommet in a fluorescent wet suit: “How do you do that stuff?”

Wolfson replied: “I’m Dr. 360.”

As the sport of bodyboarding grows, so does Wolfson’s reputation. However, he often shies away from big-time publicity.

“He has done as much as he wants to. He is real sincere,” said Ruzicka. “He’d really like to be known for all the things he does.”

A major surf manufacturer is considering a Dr. 360 autographed bodyboard.

“It’s a definite possibility,” said Bruce Gordon of Scott Hawaii. The company recently retained Wolfson as a bodyboard contest organizer on the West Coast.

“He’s the stuff. The Pied Piper,” said Gordon. “We went out on a limb and hired Joe, and he has just been incredible.”

Contestants like events run by Wolfson. He is humorous and fair. He keeps to a schedule, and the best thing, they say, is that his word is good.

“I’ve been in contests that have been totally screwed up,” Wolfson explained. “The important thing is to be honest and give everyone a chance.”

As a competitor, Wolfson has been rather dormant lately on the bodyboarding circuit.

“I don’t like to compete. I like to show off my moves.”

The beer was flowing on a recent Saturday night at P.J. Brett’s, a well-known Hermosa Beach sports bar on Pacific Coast Highway. Dr. 360 stuck to his favorite cocktail: cranberry orange juice on the rocks. Wolfson does not eat red meat or drink alcohol.

“You can’t B.S. kids,” Wolfson explained. “Example is the best teacher.”

The occasion was his “surprise” 40th birthday party, which Wolfson threw for himself. More than 400 people, including celebrities, former professional athletes and surfing kingpins young and old, were in attendance.

A photograph of Wolfson is on the wall here, next to one of Robert Redford. They are sandwiched between myriads of photos of other well-known people who have had a drink or two in here. Dr. 360 frequents the place.

Wolfson slipped in quietly about 9:30 in the evening. He wore a dark tweed jacket with matching trunks, a Western string tie, ruffled shirt, a Batman lapel pin and leather sandals. A surf band performed ‘60s songs of the sand. The party ended with a midnight-to-dawn bodysurfing adventure on The Strand.

“It was incredible,” Wolfson said.

In true Dr. 360 form, he created an invitation to the party that jokingly compared his past exploits to those alleged to have been committed by actor Rob Lowe in an Atlanta motel room. On the invitation, Wolfson sat shirtless in a bed with a skimpily clad young lady at his side. The caption read: “I taught Rob Lowe everything he knows.”

When Gordon saw the flier at a recent bodyboard contest, he laughed.

“This is just like you to do something like this, Joe,” he told Wolfson.

Wolfson, say friends, is a skilled practical joker. Several years ago he announced his wedding to a fictitious 14-year-old sophomore at Mira Costa High School. A local weekly published the story. Another time, he persuaded a South Bay reporter to do a story on a phony sky-diving team that needed money to attend a fictitious national competition.

Come April 1, look out, friends say. Wolfson is renowned for his April Fools Day pranks.

He is also known as a great horse player, able to make big bucks at race tracks on a single hunch.

Not far from the photo of Wolfson at the sports bar is one autographed by Bobby Grich, the former professional baseball player, who met Wolfson while both attended UCLA. They spent a lot of time together at Hollywood Park.

“We bet (this one horse) so many times that it kept us (paid up) in school,” Grich said.

Wolfson was raised in North Long Beach and graduated from Dominguez High School in Compton in 1967. He played basketball and baseball, although he was small for his age. He went to UCLA and wanted to walk onto the Bruin freshman basketball team, but quit to concentrate on his studies and handicapping horses.

When he wasn’t at the track or in school, Wolfson was at Marine Street in Manhattan Beach. Early in his life, he said, he learned about the “economics of living at the beach.” He was determined to graduate from college.

“If you love the ocean, you better love old George Washington (on the face of $1 bills) and have plenty of him in the bank,” he said.

“Of all the kids that hung out at Marine Street in 1967--that was maybe 300--I see maybe five of them there now. As they grew up, they were unable to understand the cost of living at the beach. Most of them are slinging bricks somewhere. They aren’t surfing.”

Wolfson went to work for the city of Carson in 1968 in the Parks and Recreation Department. Because he has worked his way up through the ranks, he is a staunch defender of the city’s image.

“Newport Beach or Beverly Hills may have the better name, but they don’t spend the money we do (on recreation for its citizens). No way.”

Business associates say Wolfson is the kind of guy who doesn’t believe a job can’t be done.

“Joe is a dynamic force in the city of Carson,” said Mayor Mitoma. “He is a mainstay here. He gets the job done.”

He was also dynamic at the beach, and that led to his prominence in bodyboarding. In 1973, a woman he knew loaned him a crude bodyboard, which she had made from a kit. On his first try in Manhattan Beach, he “pearled”--a surfing term that describes a nose-diving wipeout). A crowd on the beach laughed, but Wolfson was hooked for life.

“At 20 years old I was probably the best bodyboarder in the world,” he said.

Bragging? Associates say no.

“Joe was born 20 years too early,” said Caldwell.

Body Boarding’s Gilovich hired Wolfson as a contributing editor. He credits Wolfson’s enthusiasm with bolstering the credibility of Dr. 360’s copy.

“We deal with a readership, mainly young, that is very, very excited about its sport, and Joe is very enthusiastic about what he does. He has a riding style that people can relate to.”

Munching on a salad and drinking that healthy highball of his at lunch at the Carson Ibis Hotel, Wolfson talked about the future. He wasn’t really interested in talking about himself, just his potential successors, the youths he sees each day at the beach.

“This has a hard time serving as a legitimate sport,” he said of bodyboarding. “Kids are misled if they think they can gain a career as a pro in bodyboarding.

“The ocean should be involved with all of your life. Any kid that abandons college to turn pro in bodyboarding is limiting his future.”

There is seldom a day when Dr. 360 does not hit the sand.

“Bodyboarding is just now beginning to start to explore the limits of the sport,” he said. Within 10 years, he sees a bigger pro tour, bodyboarding in the physical education curriculum in colleges and, perhaps, an international tour.

“The biggest thing happening to the sport right now is wave pools. I see kids in Kansas pulling El Rollos. (Wave pools) are really taking off in popularity.”

When the check came, a businesslike Dr. 360, still wearing the coat and tie, strode to the cashier’s counter. He is a popular figure in this restaurant, a place where city officials often dine. The luncheon discussion was often interrupted by glad-handing well-wishers.

At the register a bus boy approached him.

“I don’t recognize you,” he said. “Where are your tennis shoes?”

Wolfson chuckled. They were at home, he said. The sand was waiting for them.