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Bertlemann, Larry

War-scarred big-wave surfer originally from Southern California; among the first to ride Hawaii's Kaena Point in 1976, and a competitor in the 1986 and 1990 Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau contests at Waimea Bay. "Along with Darrick Doerner, Ken Bradshaw, and the late Mark Foo, Roger charged everything that rolled into the Bay during the '70s and '80s," Jason Borte wrote in 2000.

Erickson was born (1948) in Long Beach, grew up in Playa del Rey, and learned to surf at 15. Three years later he joined the Marine Corps, and sailed for Vietnam two days after his honeymoon. Just weeks after landing, Erickson saved the life of a fellow Marine who had stepped on a mine, and was later awarded the Purple Heart. Later that year he caught malaria, his wife left him, and in 1968 he was at Khe Sanh during the TET offensive.

Back in Los Angeles later that year, Erickson served 10 months in prison for assaulting a police officer, then suffered a fractured skull during a brawl with a group of bikers. He moved to the North Shore of Oahu in the early '70s and soon began riding Sunset Beach, Waimea Bay, and the rest of the area's fabled big-wave breaks. Kaena Point was then regarded as the next frontier in big-wave surfing, and Erickson was the newcomer in a small group of big-wave veterans—including Jeff Johnson and Flippy Hoffman—who, on January 19, 1976, rode Kaena for the first time. The brawny, bearded Erickson later became a North Shore lifeguard.

While Erickson failed to place in the 1986 Quiksilver-Aikau contest, he did manage to make the biggest impression of the contest, with a horrific freefall wipeout that broke his board into three pieces. In the 1990 event, Erickson finished 9th.

 magazine named him as one of the 10 best Waimea surfers, along with better-known riders like Brock Little, Darrick Doerner, Mark Foo, and Ken Bradshaw. Two years earlier, surf writer Derek Hynd said of Erickson: "He was 41, with a gladiator's build, and his eyes had it all: life, death and wisdom. Here was power, in mind and body."

In 2013, Emily Erickson, Roger's daughter, was cited as an up-and-coming big-wave charger.

Erickson, Roger

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