Garcia’s Aloha Tour

Sunny Garcia says he’ll retire from competitive surfing after this season -- that after 20 years, he’s weary of the travel and wants to spend more time with his family.

If he means it, life on tour may never be the same.

Contest officials, for example, will not again incur the wrath of a beefy Hawaiian whose scowl and tempestuousness are legendary.

“Thank God I’m not a judge,” said Pat O’Connell, a 10-year tour veteran who retired last year, explaining that when the 5-foot-10, 200-pound Garcia turns combative, it’s usually because of the way his rides were scored.

“It’s like when you’re a kid and you know a spanking is coming to your brother, so you hide in the closet and close the door. You don’t want to watch, but then you end up opening the door slightly and watching through the corner of your eye.”

Those close to Garcia have watched plenty.

“I have seen him do outrageous acts of violence upon his surfboard after a heat, then 30 minutes later be laughing with the other guys,” said Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew, president of the Assn. of Surfing Professionals, which governs the World Championship Tour. “But he needs that 30 minutes. I would say that, without doubt, Sunny was the reason we brought in the 30-minute cool-off period that surfers can request after a heat loss.”

So there’s an upside to his wild side?

“Middle fingers aside, he’s someone who cares deeply about making the tour better for the next guy,” said Evan Slater, editor of Surfing magazine. “In fact, he was a big factor in making the WCT what it is today: the world’s best surfers in the world’s best waves.”

Garcia is one of the world’s best, a perennial top-10 performer in the 1990s, a world champion in 2000 and still one of the most dynamic wave riders on tour. He can be seen in action during the Boost Mobile Pro, the fourth of five remaining WCT events in 2005, today through Sunday at Lower Trestles in San Clemente.

Just be careful how you look at his wife; otherwise you may get a slap upside the head.

*

Public perception of Garcia, 35, actually is distorted. The 2003 reality show “Boarding House: North Shore” portrayed him as a mean-spirited thug, and in one episode showed him punching a surfer for making advances at his wife, Raina.

“Yeah, I stand up for what I believe in, and for that I’ve been crucified as being the bad boy of surfing,” Garcia said during a recent interview.

In reality, he is highly regarded by tour mates.

“He may be a bit prickly for contest directors to deal with, but he’s a natural-born leader among the surfers,” Bartholomew said. “He’s not a selfish person. He fights for the little guy, but once he’s crossed, he’s a handful.”

Garcia’s outbursts are usually the result of a perceived injustice, Bartholomew said. He’s generally good natured and respectful of those who respect him.

“He has that [bad-boy] image but he’s a cool, fun guy to be around,” said Andy Irons, the world champion. “He looks really intimidating, but he’s a really nice guy.”

O’Connell stressed that not once during his 10 years on tour was he bullied by Garcia, adding, “Sunny is just a guy who wears his emotions on his shirt sleeves, like so many passionate people. In a worst-case scenario, he acts on those emotions, and usually, in hindsight, he’ll say, ‘Why did I do it?’ ”

The answer may stem from Garcia’s upbringing, in a poor neighborhood on Oahu’s rugged west side. His father moved out when he was 6, leaving his mother, with a $12,000 salary as a hotel housekeeper, to care for him, older sister Kris and younger brother Jason.

Fighting got him suspended from grade school and kicked off of the junior high basketball team. Surfing was his refuge. He spent every spare minute in the water, honed his skills and ultimately developed into one of the sport’s fiercest competitors, known for his powerful fluidity and fearlessness.

At 15, he shared a place with Bartholomew, the 1978 world champion, during a surfing trip to Japan.

“He was always a brilliantly gifted surfer and once he got control of that fiery temper, he was always going to use it as a psychological weapon,” Bartholomew said.

Gaining control of his temper, back then, was like trying to gain control of an angry marlin at the end of a line.

Garcia, who joined the tour at 16, once smashed his runner-up trophy in protest, believing he had won. He often flung objects at the judges’ tower and once drew laughter when the only object he could find was a muffin on a spectator’s towel.

Judges feared Garcia, but were not to be swayed. Once, after voting him the loser in a close heat, they merely locked the tower door and let his tantrum run its course.

Garcia was up against formidable competition: now-legendary stars such as Martin Potter, Derek Ho, Tom Curren and the sport’s most successful athlete, Kelly Slater, who won six world titles between 1992 and 1998.

During this period, Garcia went through a difficult divorce with his first wife, Anela, and became distraught over losing custody of their three kids. When he finally won the title, at 30, he proclaimed it to be the culmination of the most difficult battle of his life. Some say that was when he began to mellow.

His surfing remained remarkable, however, especially in Hawaii, where he has won a record six Triple Crown of Surfing titles, including last year’s season-ending series at Haleiwa, Sunset Beach and Pipeline.

“As a professional surfer, if you can’t cut it in Hawaii, you’re just not complete,” he said.

After Trestles, the tour goes to France, Spain and Brazil before culminating in Hawaii. Garcia, sidelined part of this season because of injuries, ranks 37th and needs to finish 27th or better to requalify for the 2006 WCT. There are many who believe that if he earns enough points, he’ll change his mind about retirement.

Garcia pondered this and shrugged, saying that it’s just not as much fun as it used to be.

“The young guys are boring,” he said. “There’s no more characters. Everybody’s really plain -- vanilla, I would say. That’s not a bad thing. Maybe my leaving will make room for a younger surfer who brings some more color to the tour.”

That person will have some enormous flip-flops to fill.