ON THE BEACH : New Sponsor Fits Newport Beach’s Collins Like a Body Glove

Newport Beach’s Richie Collins, whose image and opinions have been as radical and unpredictable as his surfing, will have a new look at this year’s Op Pro surfing championships.

A sponsor.

Collins, who competed on the world tour most of last season without a sponsor, has signed a three-year contract with Body Glove.

Billabong dropped Collins last July after company officials received several complaints about Collins’ off-color remarks in newspaper and magazine articles.

Among them:

--”Women shouldn’t be surfing, they should be home having babies. . . . Hey, look, a woman’s place is in the house.”

--His insistence on competing in a contest at Cape Town, South Africa, despite the country’s racist politics at the time, because apartheid “is not my problem.”

Scott Daley, marketing director with Body Glove, said corporate officials discussed Collins’ public image at length before offering him a contract.

“There was a concern there,” Daley said. “But anyone who knows Richie knows that he is genuine. He just has spasms now and then.”

Daley would not disclose the terms of the contract, which Collins signed last week, but added, “It’s safe to say that Richie is one of the highest-paid athletes we have sponsored.”

Collins, the 1989 Op champion and the 1991 runner-up to Australia’s Barton Lynch, paid his own way to contests for most of last season. He finished 10th, winning $33,845 in prize money.

After six months of off-and-on negotiations, Collins landed the contract with Body Glove, which sponsors several U.S. tour contests that Collins competes in.

“I had been praying about this for a while,” Collins said. “I asked the Lord to send me a sponsor, to send me one that is what I’m worth.”

Said Daley: “Richie has a better handle on life now. We think he’s heading in a good direction.”

Collins agreed.

“I’ve learned a lot about myself, what Richie Collins is about,” he said. “I’m not trying to portray someone I’m not anymore.

“I’m not as tense. I’ve learned to control myself better. I used to take everything upon myself. Now I know what causes my anger and my stress.”

During his five years on the world tour, Collins, 23, has sported several different haircuts and nicknames, including “Skeletor.”

His highest world tour finish was eighth in 1990, but he’s currently ranked sixth after winning the first contest of the year at Bell’s Beach, Australia. He’s a member of the U.S. team that will meet Japan in the first round of the Op team competition Wednesday at the Huntington Beach Pier.

Collins is the only world tour surfer sponsored by Body Glove, which has lost three key surfers to other sponsors in the past few months--Laguna Beach’s Jeff Booth (now with Quiksilver), Laguna Niguel’s Pat O’Connell (Rusty surfboards) and Cardiff’s Rob Machado (Gotcha).

Besides Collins, other Body Glove team members are Todd Chesser, Chris Frohoff, Ted Robinson, Colin Smith, Laguna Niguel’s Vince de la Pena and Huntington Beach’s Jeff Deffenbaugh, who recently signed a one-year contract, his first as a professional.

Op Junior: Forty-eight of the top amateur surfers in the world are expected to compete in the Op Junior, which begins at 7 a.m. today with four rounds.

Among the surfers entered:

--San Clemente’s Chad Navarro and San Juan Capistrano’s Chris Drummy, two of the top amateurs on the U.S. tour.

--Shea Lopez of Indian Rocks Beach, Fla., another standout on the U.S. tour.

--Seal Beach’s Ryan Simmons, who performed well at last year’s Op Junior.

Also competing will be Anaheim’s David Pina, Huntington Beach’s John Zimmerman and Jay Larson and San Clemente’s Scott McIntyre. The finals are scheduled for Sunday at 12:15 p.m.

The winner will receive a trophy and a $1,000 scholarship through the U.S. Surfing Federation. The second-place finisher will receive a $700 scholarship and the two third-place finishers $300 scholarships.

The Op Junior, in its fourth year, has proven to be a springboard into the pro ranks.

Slater won the inaugural contest in 1989. Florida’s Danny Melhado won it two years ago and Cardiff’s Rob Machado won it last year. Machado is currently ranked second on the U.S. tour.

Surf report: The amateurs may be surfing some of the contest’s biggest waves today, but maybe not the best.

A strong southern swell, originating from a storm off the tip of South America, is producing six-foot waves at the Huntington Beach Pier, according to Sean Collins, a forecaster with Surfline.

The conditions should continue through Wednesday before tapering to smaller sets at the end of the week.

“That’s both good and bad news,” Collins said. “The way the sets are lined up (Monday) it will be difficult for performance surfing. They’ll be able to do one maneuver, then ride the soup into the beach. But when the wave size drops at the end of week, they will have more shape to them.”

New wave: Although team surfing is making its Southern California debut at the Op Pro this week, it’s nothing new in other parts of the world.

Team surfing has been popular in Australia since 1985, when it was introduced in Sydney by surfer Jay Carter.

The team competitions became the standard system in Australian club competitions. They also have been part of world tour contests the past few years in Japan and Europe, usually as specialty events after the individual championships.

The team competition will include one-on-one, doubles, mixed doubles and tag team surfing.

Beach Notes

Hawaii’s Kanai Sharsh edged 1991 champion Bill Bryan of Laguna Beach in the finals of the Pro-Am skimboarding championships Sunday at Aliso Beach. Brad Dickey of Huntington Beach was third, followed by Morgan Ohlund (Huntington Beach) and Nick Hernandez (Laguna Beach). Other winners: 15-and-under amateurs--Chris Rudolph (Laguna Beach); 16-19--David Hand (Laguna Beach); 20-24--Mike Kusy (Dana Point); 25-29--Gino Fordiani (Laguna Beach); 30-39--Tom Elliott (Laguna Beach); 40-over--Ron Sizemore (Laguna Beach), and women--Amber Cottle (Laguna Beach).

San Clemente’s Shane Beschen leads the Bud Pro Surfing tour standings as well as the world tour qualifying rankings. Beschen has 4,385 points on the U.S. tour, followed by Cardiff’s Rob Machado (3,980), Santa Barbara’s Chris Brown (3,450), Newport Beach’s Richie Collins (3,120) and San Clemente’s Mike Parsons (3,050). Beschen has 5,585 points in the world tour qualifying standings, followed by Collins (5,030) and Machado (4,780).

The Doheny Longboard Surfing Assn.’s Dale Velzy contest and luau will be Aug. 22 at Doheny State Beach. Entry fee is $35 for men and women and $25 for children under 15. Registration deadline is Aug. 1. For information, contact Bill Medina at (714) 589-7355.

The winning team at the Op Pro will share $20,000 in prize money. . . . The first round of the Miss Op sports model contest will be Friday at 11:30 a.m., with the finals scheduled for 11:30 a.m. Saturday.