Nichols Hopes for Improvement

It has been a long year for Danny Nichols.

In 1997, Nichols, then a senior at Huntington Beach High, was eliminated in the early rounds of the National Scholastic Surfing Assn. Interscholastic High School Championships. This year, he’s looking to do better.

Nichols will try to get that on Thursday when competition begins in the NSSA men’s open division at Lower Trestles. For many surfers, including Nichols, who is entered in next month’s U.S. Open of Surfing, it will be their last major amateur contest. Past champions include Taylor Knox, Kalani Robb, Dino Andino and Bruce Irons, the defending champion.

Last year, Nichols was expected to lead the Oilers to their 16th NSSA Interscholastic championship. His coach, Andy Verdone, thought he would reach the finals. But falls and poor waves kept Nichols from advancing past the quarterfinals.

“It was very frustrating to be eliminated early,” said Nichols, 19. “Besides myself, I let my team down.”

Huntington Beach recovered to win that event without Nichols. The Oilers won it again this week at Huntington Beach. It was their 17th team title since 1978.

Nichols was happy for his teammates’ success but was frustrated by his poor performance.

“I think about it a lot,” he said. “I see myself surfing, the mistakes I made and I start feeling angry again. But this time, it’s going to be different.”

Nichols, who most often surfs his home break next to the Huntington Beach Pier, has been surfing Lower Trestles for the last couple of months.

“I know Trestles pretty good and I have confidence in my surfing,” Nichols said. “I know I’ll be able to hold my own.”

Though Nichols has been training hard for this week’s contest, which concludes Saturday, he has found time to rest. He recently returned from a two-week trip to Indonesia, where his sponsor sent him for a photo shoot.

Nichols said he surfed in West Sumatra on perfect four- to eight-foot sets. The only other surfers in the water were some Australians who were also there to have their pictures taken.

“They took us out on a boat, and they dropped us off in the water,” Nichols said. “There were some long lefts and rights [breaks], just like Trestles. It was the perfect place to surf and unwind.”

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Ian Cairns, executive director of U.S. Surfing, believes pro surfing could use a shot in the arm.

Cairns, organizer of the G-Shock U.S. Open of Surfing, which runs July 20-26, said it unnerved him to see sports that had their roots in surfing overtake his sport in terms of media coverage.

“I see events like the X Games, snowboarding, skateboarding and wakeboarding getting more coverage than surfing,” he said. “But why is that? It’s because our sport has become tired. We need to rejuvenate it.

“There are things we can do to make the sport more exciting. I think the K2 Big Wave Challenge was one of the best things that happened to our sport this year.”

The Challenge was a contest that awarded $50,000 to the surfer who rode the biggest wave of the season. Carlsbad’s Taylor Knox won by riding a wave nearly 50-feet high in February at Todos Santos in Baja California.

Said Cairns: “We got so much media coverage and interest when that was going on. We need more of that.”

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The U.S. Surfing Federation will have its final amateur event of the season July 11-19 at Oceanside.

The invitation-only contest will feature more than 600 surfers between the ages of 12 and 55. In addition to the amateur contest, the event will include the first round of the U.S. Team Trials, the first step in a process that will ultimately determine the U.S. team in the 1998 World Surfing Games in Portugal.

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Australia’s Peter Townend, a former world champion, will be honored in July by the Huntington Beach Surfing Walk of Fame as their 1998 Surf Champion.

“Well, it will give something for some people to spit on when they walk by,” Townend said of his engraved stone, which will be implanted in the Main Street sidewalk. “But it’s really a great honor. Since I’ve lived here the last 25 years, it’s especially nice since I feel that Huntington Beach is my home.”

Past inductees were Kelly Slater, Tom Curren, Shaun Thomson and Robert August. Ceremonies will be during the U.S. Open.

Townend also was recently honored by the the Huntington Beach City School District’s board of trustees for his work with the Dwyer Middle School surf team. Townend has coached the Dwyer team since 1995, leading it to NSSA Interscholastic Middle School Championships in 1995, ’97 and again this week in Huntington Beach.

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The Op Best of the Beach Invitational pro-beach women’s volleyball tournament is scheduled July 17-19 in Huntington Beach. The three-day round-robin tournament will feature Lisa Arce, Holly McPeak and Patty Dodd.

The On the Beach Notebook runs during the summer. Readers are encouraged to suggest items. Call (714) 966-5904, fax 966-5663 or e-mail erik.hamilton@latimes.com