Paddleboard Race a Stroke of Love

Three miles into his 32-mile journey from Catalina to Manhattan Beach Sunday morning, Mike Rogers sat on his 12-foot, 20-pound paddleboard and experienced a new kind of pain.

“I felt this pop,” Rogers said. “It felt like a knife stuck into my heart. The pain was insane.”

But then, Rogers remembered why he started his third annual “Paddle for the Cure.” He remembered how lymphatic cancer claimed the life of his father-in-law. He remembered his commitment to raise money for cancer research.

So he found a way to endure.

Armed with Nuprin, equipment adjustments and encouragement from his four-man crew in an accompanying boat, Rogers, 47, a bell captain from Newport Beach, continued his third venture into the Catalina Classic.

And battling through a torn muscle in his right rib cage, fatigue and rough water, Rogers finished the race in his best time, 7 hours 25 minutes.

This year, Rogers raised $26,000 for research at Hoag Hospital’s Cancer Center in Newport Beach. He has raised more than $42,000 for the Hoag Cancer Center.

Thoughts of his late father-in-law, Robert Faust, kept him going Sunday.

“I remembered when he was dying, how he was asking me to take care of his daughter,” Rogers said. “I remembered thinking that there’s got to be something I can do about this horrible disease.

“I know [Sunday] was painful for me, but it’s not like what cancer patients go through. In a week, I’ll be OK again.”

Rogers’ wife, Becky, didn’t think he was OK.

“I was just getting into a groove, then there was total panic,” Rogers said. “I was screaming and grabbing my side, so my wife jumped in the water because she thought I was having a heart attack.

“I just kept thinking, ‘I’m out of the race.’ ”

But Rogers ended up finishing 11th. He is already looking forward to next year’s race and exploring the possibility of organizing a 56-mile race around Catalina.

“If Jerry Lewis can do it with his telethons, maybe I can do it by paddling,” Rogers said. “What keeps me going is that belief that I can make a difference.”

*

Forty-five years ago, Bryan Belacic rowed for Yugoslavia in the Helsinki Olympics. He quit rowing shortly after fleeing the country, but three years ago, he picked up the oars again.

Sunday, Belacic, who will be 68 in October, and his teammates won an age-group race at the U.S. Rowing National Masters Championships in Long Beach.

Belacic, now residing in Costa Mesa, was part of the winning team in the Group-F (ages 60-64) eights. His team also finished second in the fours with coxswain. Both races were 1,000 meters.

Belacic immigrated to Canada after the Helsinki Games and eventually moved to Southern California to work in electronics. He retired from his job as a maintenance electrician in June, 1993, and began rowing again.

“I decided I had plenty of time then,” Belacic said.

One of Belacic’s teammates from Helsinki, Boris Beljak, 68, joined him Sunday. They have been training together for the World Masters Championships, Nov. 6-9 in Adelaide, Australia.

“My friend, Vern Serabic, who is 71, also rowed with us at this international competition in Budapest earlier this year,” Belacic said. “But he recently had quadruple bypass surgery, so he had to stop.”

Belacic has no such plans.

“I want to keep on doing this,” Belacic said. “It’s a great thing to come together as a group, to compete and be social too.”

*

As the world championship surfing tour heads into its last leg, Shane Beschen and Shea Lopez of San Clemente continue to hold spots in the top 10.

Former San Clemente surfer Beschen, who is ranked fifth, advanced to the quarterfinals of the Rip Curl Pro Ilossegor in France this week before losing to Australian Damien Hardman. Hardman later advanced to the final round, where he was defeated by Rob Machado.

Lopez, ranked eighth, lost to Hardman in the fourth round of the contest.

Machado, who was ranked 22nd, jumped to No. 12 on the tour as the Cardiff surfer won his first WCT event in two years.

*

Newport Beach will be holding its fifth annual pro-am surf contest Sept. 19-21.

The event will feature amateur divisions, including 11 and under, 12-14, 15-18 and men’s open (19 and up). Longboard and women divisions will be open to all ages.

Newport Beach residents can pre-register for the amateur divisions for $25 and the pro-am division for $50, at the Newport Beach Community Services Department, 3300 Newport Blvd. Deadline is Sept. 17. For more information, call (714) 644-3151.

Notes

The Women’s Professional Volleyball Assn. event in Aspen, Colo., this weekend has been canceled for economic reasons. The tournament was supposed to feature the top 16 teams on the tour and serve as a tune-up for the World Championships Sept. 10-13 at UCLA. . . . The Bud Light Pro Beach Volleyball League concluded its season last weekend in Honolulu. In the women’s league, Team Nike and Team Paul Mitchell finished tied for first in the Grand Prix points standings, a first in league history. . . . At the Cuervo Gold Beach Volleyball Series event in Hermosa Beach last weekend, Jason Scott of Laguna Beach and Mike Minier of Irvine won in the Gold Division to qualify for the Cuervo National Championships Oct. 25-26 in Florida.