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academia and surfing

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advertising and surfing

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Bermuda

Bertlemann, Larry

Hard-charging, hard-partying surfer from Santa Cruz, California; winner of the Maverick's big-wave contest in 1999, 2000 and 2004. "Flea's psycho," Hawaiian big-wave surfer Brock Little said in 2000. "He's not scared of anything. He's going for it when eveybody else is pulling back."

Virostko was born (1971) and raised in Santa Cruz, the son of a landscaper father and a nurse-Jazzercize instructor mother, and began surfing at age four. The adolescent Virostko was nicknamed "Flea" for being small and feisty, and he was a bantering foul-mouthed presence at Steamer Lane, Santa Cruz's best-known surf break. By the early '90s, Virostko was a local sensation for his aerial moves.

Virostko rode Maverick's for the first time—high on acid, he later said—in 1991. A diehard member of Santa Cruz's territorial West Side contingent, Virostko spoke about his hometown with fellow aerialist and big-wave surfer Shawn "Barney" Barron for a 1996 

 magazine article, talking disparagingly about "snippers" and "lip dodgers" (play-it-safe surfers), "trannies" (U.C. Santa Cruz surfers, primarily transplants from other areas), and "dirts" (Grateful Dead fans who hung out in the Steamer Lane parking lot; "When the northwest winds are blowing," Virostko noted, "the patchouli smell is so bad . . .").

Virostko showed up for the debut Maverick's contest in 1999 with his newly bleached hair covered in black polka dots; he successfully air-dropped a takeoff on one of the day's biggest waves, got briefly tubed on the inside section, received an event-high score of 98, and took the $15,000 winner's check. He celebrated by renting a hotel room near Santa Cruz Pier, where he and his friends dropped acid and tossed furniture onto the beach.

The surf was bigger for the follow-up Maverick's contest, and the small-framed (5'9", 150 pounds) and asthmatic Virostko was even sharper than he had been the year before, beating six-time world champion Kelly Slater in the final and earning $30,000.

Meanwhile, Virostko continued to feed colorful quotes to the surf press. Looking earnestly into the camera while taping a segment of 

, a 1998 Opper Films cable TV series, Virostko noted that a recent fight to the surface after a long Maverick's wipeout was "like trying to do a sit-up with a fat chick sitting on my face."

Some regarded Virostko as a prime example of ongoing surf culture decay, while others cheered him as authentic and unfiltered, a "real" surfer, compared to the often-bland world tour pros. A 2002 

 article on big-wave surfing described Virostko as the "Tommy Lee of surfing—strangely magnetic, smelling of beer and utterly careless." Asked about his big-wave training regime, he said, "I beat off a lot."

In 2007, while partying, Virostko fell 50-feet down a beachside cliff just north of his house, suffered a compound fracture on his left forearm, and was air-lifted to a hospital. In a 

 magazine interview that followed, Virostko said that the previous year he'd been drinking a half-gallon of vodka a day, and smoking meth every few hours. He also allowed that he often surfed Maverick's while high.

Two months after his accident, Virostko checked into into a rehab center when he blew red-zone .28 on the Breathalyzer. But he stayed with the program and got sober. In 2014, Virostko opened the non-profit FleaHab Sober Living Environment in a six-bedroom residential house in nearby Capitola. Two years earlier, he announced his retirement from big-wave surfing.

Virostko appeared in more than 20 surf videos, including 

 (2010). He placed third in the 2000 Madeira Big-Wave World Championships, and 9th in the 2001 Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau event.

Virostko, Darryl "Flea"

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Interviews

Features

Videos