ONE WAVE AFTER ANOTHER : Five McNulty Brothers Have Never Been Far From Surf

Joe McNulty’s earliest childhood memories weren’t of playing on a swing set with his four older brothers in the back yard of their home in Capistrano Beach.

“We never even had anything like a swing set or a basketball hoop in our yard,” he said. “All we did was surf.”

With the pounding waves of the Pacific Ocean only a few feet from his back door, Joe was a reluctant student of the surfing game. But to keep up with his brothers, he had no choice but to learn.

“It was really funny,” said Brian McNulty, Joe’s brother and a regular on the pro surfing tour. “We couldn’t get Joe to surf. I already was surfing in contests. It seemed he had a vengeance against surfing. We kept bugging him and bugging him, but he wouldn’t try it.”

But one day Brian returned from a competition and saw his brother riding a wave.

“I finally gave in,” Joe said. “I went out on my own and I got hooked.”

“Now he’s the most hard-core surfer in the family,” Brian said.

The playful days of youth have come and gone for the McNulty brothers, but not their free spirit. Outsiders view surfing as the last refuge of the free spirit. But for the McNultys, it has been a family bond.

“It was really easy growing up,” Brian said. “We all got along pretty good. We all had one thing in common with surfing. We could all relate to each other through that.”

A product of their environment, the McNultys are to surfing in the 1980s what the Wilson brothers were to singing about surfing in the ‘60s.

Brian, 25, has been in the surfing spotlight the longest. He’s ranked 32nd in the world and is in his fourth year on the Assn. of Surfing Professionals tour.

Sean, the oldest brother at 28, enjoyed modest success on the world tour before retiring in 1984. He now leases commercial real estate in San Diego.

Pat Jr., 26, a former top amateur, commutes between Capistrano Beach and Hesperia and works in real estate development.

Joe, 19, and Terence, 21, represent the family’s new breed of surfers. Terence is in his first year as a pro and Joe is a top amateur.

McNulty family reunions are a rarity, which is why this weekend will be special for them. Brian and Terence will participate in the Op Pro Surfing Championships, which start Monday at Huntington Beach. Joe will compete in the Op Junior portion for top amateurs. Pat and Sean will be in town to watch.

“It’s a good time for us because the pro tour is in California,” Joe said. “We haven’t spent Christmas together for eight years. There’s always one, two or three of us gone.”

But for many years, the McNulty household was full of surfboards and young surfers.

“We grew up in a neighborhood with a lot of famous people in surfing and water sports,” Brian said. “Hobie Alter grew up here. A lot of surf stars, like Jerry Lopez and James Jones, stayed at (neighbor) Gordon Clark’s house.”

With the brothers off chasing waves and real estate deals, their mother, Mary, lives in peace and quiet in the family’s five-bedroom home in Capistrano Beach. Brian is with the world tour eight months of the year and Joe and Terence live in San Clemente and are busy traveling to area contests.

“It’s been tough on mom,” Brian said. “She isn’t too happy with us right now because we all left and there’s no one at the house.”

Mary said she’s enjoying the solitude.

“Raising five boys was a snap,” she said. “Although it had its moments. I knew what to expect with the boys. After one or two, there were no surprises. Their affinity with the ocean made it much easier to raise them.”

The McNultys’ interest in surfing budded from their father, the late Pat Sr., who was editor of Surfer magazine from 1967-69.

“Dad was a complete water man,” Brian said. “We had boards, a catamaran and kayaks.”

Pat Sr. died of a heart attack in 1971, leaving Mary to keep the family together.

“We had a few rough years after dad died,” Pat Jr. said. “Mom took over the leadership. She was in charge, but we all helped out.”

Joe was 2 when Pat Sr. died. He turned to the oldest McNulty, Sean, to fill his father’s role.

“He was the elder statesman,” Joe said. “He kept us in line when mom couldn’t. He was at the age he knew he had take responsibility. He was the marshal.”

Brian said his mother gave the brothers “a lot of room to grow when we were young.”

“We didn’t have any strong curfews or strict upbringing,” Brian said. “We had strong morals. We knew right from wrong.”

When they didn’t, Mary used a variety of disciplinary actions. After one of Brian’s worst teen-age transgressions, she exiled him to tennis camp in Big Bear during the week of qualifying for the world amateur surfing championships.

“I don’t know how I ever got the guts to do that,” she said.

She even went so far as to ground the boys from the beach.

“She tried that a couple of times,” Brian said. “But it didn’t work.”

As the boys grew older, they began to develop interests outside surfing. Sean went off to college for two years, then tried the pro surfing circuit. Pat was dabbling in real estate by the time he was 20. Joe played baseball and surfed with Terence as much as he could.

“Joe and Terence were so close in age it was almost like they grew up as twins,” Mary said.

Meanwhile, Brian’s surfing career began to blossom. 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 Saddleback College to the state college title after becoming the individual California college champion.

But his pro career hasn’t developed as smoothly. His best finish was fourth at the Pipeline Masters on Hawaii’s North Shore in 1986, his first year on the world tour.

“My first year I was trying too hard to be perfect and my performance suffered,” he said. “The second year I went for a more radical approach and I made a lot of little mistakes. Last year I tore ligaments in my (right) ankle, which slowed me down. This year I’m trying to take a little bit of each approach from the past and see how it works.”

Brian’s finish at the Op Pro Championships could drastically affect his world ranking. The competition has been billed as the “Super Bowl of Surfing” and has drawn competitors such as two-time world-champions Tom Curren and Tom Carroll and defending world-champion Barton Lynch.

“I haven’t broken into the top 30 yet,” Brian said. “So you could still say I’m an underdog. It’s been hard on me from a ratings standpoint. This year’s really important to me.”

Brian can find competition in his family, as well.

Opinions differ on who’s the best surfing McNulty. Pat says Brian. Brian says it could be Joe or Terence, given time.

“We’re competitive with each other,” Brian said of his younger brothers. “But it makes me happy to see them surfing so good. They have a great future.”

Terence, whose best finish is seventh on the pro tour this year, has trouble deciding who’s best.

“It’s hard to say,” Terence said. “Sean is out of his prime now. He was definitely a good competitor. Brian can handle some big waves, and Joe is coming into his own. Joe’s powerful on the medium waves. Brian is definitely more developed than Joe and I are.

“We always joke around and say Pat’s the businessman of the family who doesn’t surf. But he’s into what we’re doing.”

Brian said the brothers’ personalities show in their surfing.

“Sean is really good at the large waves,” Brian said. “He was one of the best out there in Hawaii. He had a real powerful style that worked well. Joe surfs a lot like Sean, he has strong legs and works on the big waves.”

Pat, Brian says, has a more laid-back style.

“Pat doesn’t rip or tear through a wave,” Brian said. “He’s not really flashy, but he’s smoother.”

The question of who’s the best surfer likely will rise at McNulty family reunions in years to come. And just what will one find at a McNulty reunion in, say, 30 years?

“Probably a lot of grandchildren,” Terence said. “There definitely would be a lot of kids running around.”

Will the brothers still be surfing?

“You bet,” Terence said. “It’s more of a lifetime sport than something like football.”