Wave of Emotion : Surf Legends Enjoy the Ride at Walk of Fame Induction

He may have ridden 30-foot waves in Hawaii’s Waimea Bay, but when it came to giving a speech before an audience on Thursday, Greg Noll was humbled.

“I’m not used to doing this,” said surfing’s 59-year-old pioneer, who is regarded as one of the bravest and best big-wave riders in surfing history. “When I was a kid, I would never have believed I would be honored in the same company you have here for your Walk of Fame. Thanks.”

With that, Noll sat down to a round of applause from about 250 spectators gathered on Main Street near the pier to see five surf stars inducted into the Surfing Walk of Fame.

Steve Lousteen, 32, of Huntington Beach, said he attended the ceremony because of Noll, who is one of his heroes.

“He’s one of my all-time favorites,” Lousteen said. “In fact, it’s these surfing stars that are living the lifestyle we all want to live, and they’re making money at it.”

In addition to Noll, the Walk of Fame inductees are Australian champion Nat Young, filmmaker Bud Browne, five-time U.S. champion Corky Carroll and veteran surfer Rell Sunn, known as the Queen of Makahaher and recognized for her work training Hawaiian youths to surf.

Two others were placed on an honor roll: John Rothrock, former surfing coach at Huntington Beach’s Edison High School who died last year, and Tom Pratte, who was active in beach conservation until his death from cancer in 1994.

The new members bring to 16 the number of surfers honored on the 3-year-old Walk of Fame, which was established to recognize surfing’s history and its top stars. Each year, new people are selected, with their names etched in a granite stone and placed on the sidewalk on Main Street in front of Jack’s surf shop, which helps sponsor the walkway.

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Stealing much of the show was Carroll, 48, who came garbed in a loud Hawaiian shirt and cool sunglasses. Not only is Carroll a surf champion but he is also a singer and author. He was selected in the local hero category.

“I’m still alive!” Carroll yelled to the crowd’s pleasure. “Many of you thought I wouldn’t be. But here I am.”

He often made the audience laugh, especially when he told them that getting enshrined on a sidewalk has its bad side.

“I want to ask you folks just one thing,” he said. “Please stay off my star. And, don’t walk your dogs down here. I don’t want to have to come down here on a daily basis and bring a toothbrush to clean it up.”

Greg MacGillivray from MacGillivray Freeman films, a Laguna Beach firm that produces films in the large Imax format, introduced Browne as an inspiration to young filmmakers in the ‘60s.

“He was the first filmmaker working on surf films who used to travel from auditorium to auditorium, city to city, showing and narrating his work,” MacGillivray said. “He not only inspired me to surf but later he inspired me and a lot of others to start making films.” MacGillivray was recently nominated for an Academy Award in the documentary short-subject category for the Imax film, “The Living Sea.”

Browne, 84, of Costa Mesa, was a solo film-making machine from 1953 to 1964, when he made a film a year. They had titles like “Cat on a Hot Foam Board” and “The Big Surf,” and Browne would show them at such far-flung locales as New Zealand and South Africa.

His most popular film was “Going Surfing,” in 1973, and he continued through the ‘70s shooting surf scenes for “Five Summer Stories” and John Milius’ “Big Wednesday.”

In the water, Browne’s lanky frame and long arms won him the nickname, “the barracuda,” MacGillivray said.

“That lanky frame of his,” MacGillivray said, “enabled him to get right into the curl [of the wave], taking thousands of viewers with him.”

Young, who did not attend the ceremony, was recognized as having a surfing style that helped influence a generation of surfers, said Ian Cairns, a fellow Australian and former surfing champion who lives in Laguna Beach.

Sunn, who is battling cancer, also did not attend the event.