Surfing’s Rad Image Updated

Surfers have this rad image of living, quite happily in fact, on their own little fringe of society.

They have shaggy blond hair, deep tans, blistered feet and lips, and nose smeared with layers of ointment. They not only drive old vans, they live in them. You couldn’t hire one, even in the rare instance that you might want to.

The working word would be bum.

This was an image ingrained in me since high school. The surfers went their own way, which was rarely to class. I never saw any of them in college. I knew I’d never have one living next door, unless it was a vacant lot.

Advised that the U.S. Pro Tour of Surfing was making an appearance at the Oceanside Pier this week, I determined it appropriate to look in on the 1991 version of a beach bum.

Thus, I endeavored to contact Carlsbad’s Mike Lambresi, three times the U.S. Tour champion.

This, I presumed, would be difficult. I would have to find out where he was hanging this week, meaning where was he parking his dilapidated van. I would also want to be sure he spoke my version of English.

The first shock was that the guy has a telephone. Probably a car phone, huh?

This shock also served as a clue that this guy, and indeed professional surfers as a group, are just a little different than my preconceived notion. These guys are . . . professional.

The 27-year-old Lambresi, in fact, was more like a guy you’d expect (and want) to move in next door than a troll who sleeps under a pier. He does drive a van--a new one--and has a station wagon as well so his wife Kim can haul around their three children. And he has a condominium in Carlsbad. He’s damned near a yuppie.

“When my father-in-law found out his daughter wanted to marry a professional surfer,” he laughed, “he felt like it was his worst nightmare come true. It’s because of what earlier generations used to do, They’d hang out at the beach and drink and smoke pot. It takes a long time to change that image.”

Surfing, you see, has gone corporate. You won’t find these guys riding surf boards in three-piece suits, but their tour is rather substantially sponsored by the likes of Nissan and Budweiser. A professional surfer can make $100,000 in a good year. In his best year, 1989, Lambresi made $125,000. His father-in-law’s nightmare was becoming much more like a dream come true.

What’s more, Lambresi is sponsored by Offshore Clothing, Channel Island Surf Boards and Vans Tennis Shoes. His wet suit must look like a racing car.

He could make more money and probably swing more deals if he went on the Association of Professional Surfers World Tour, but that would require being away from his family for long stretches. No dice. His version of hanging loose is home by the fire with his wife and kids.

And Mike Lambresi takes the term “professional” to its most literal level. He approaches the sport like a football coach devising a game plan or a scientist planning an experiment. The only thing more distasteful to him than variables would probably be 18-inch waves.

Before he gets onto his board today, he will have thoroughly studied his real opponent.

That would be the ocean.

He wants to know what it is going to do and where it is going to do it. This cannot be easy. If the ocean, with all its eccentricities, was a human, it would be institutionalized.

“I’ll spend two or three hours studying the waves,” he said. “They act differently according to where the sand bars are. I have to determine where the best waves are and what I’m going to do. Then I map it out. I draw lines where the best places are and whether I want to go left or right. If I don’t get the biggest waves, I’m going to lose.”

Lambresi and his wife were out early Friday making use of another modern convenience.

Videotape.

He has that too in common with guys like Dan Henning and Al Luginbill.

“I wanted my wife to video me,” he said, “because I have two new boards and I’m trying to figure out which one to use. I spend hours watching myself on video. I watch what I’m doing and what the board’s doing and how the fins are reacting. I might change fins three or four times a week depending on what I see.”

Alas, it is not easy to get to the top and it is harder to stay there. It’s sounds like the struggle any other next door neighbor has with life.

Lambresi works hard on physical conditioning, lifting weights and playing in the fastest pickup basketball game he can find. He pays attention to his diet. And he consults regularly with a chiropractor to work out the kinks in his back inflicted by the twists and turns of his livelihood.

All in all, it is not a bad life . . . maybe even a rad life.

“This,” he said, waving his arm at the ocean, “is my work place.”

But it’s no place to hang out.

Who would want to do that at the office, anyway?