Jodie Cooper, 20, from Western Australia, was on her way to a #2 world pro tour ranking when this mid-1985 SURFER article ran. She was also the most fearless female surfer of her generation, both in the water and in conversation.

It was the start of a typical midwinter day at the North Shore's photo studio number one, Off the Wall. It was December and the relationship between those with boards and those with cameras was hot and steamy, like the weather.

All eyes were glued to the set. As the peak grew closer and closer to its breaking point, a girl, with inside position, began to paddle. Just to her left, Shaun Tomson put a move on the same wave. As it wrapped onto the reef, Tomson dropped in. What happened next took everyone by surprise, including the South African. The girl edged into the tiny opening Tomson had left behind and as he did a bottom turn she followed with an equally impressive bottom turn of her own, not giving an inch. Seemingly unfazed by the good-natured matinee idol’s indiscretion, the girl smacked the lip, nailing it in its place.

Who was this surfing maiden and what was she doing milking the same eight-footers as the masters? She was Jodie Cooper and she was doing what she does best—surfing, and serving notice on the rest of the world that the times they are a-changing. The new women surfers are more aggressive, more sure-footed and more radical in approach. And Jodie Cooper, it seems, is the pick of the crop.

“Shaun and I get on really good,” the savvy Australian wants you to know before she explains her anger at Tomson’s barracuda move. "I’d been out there for ages and I went for this cinchy wave and while paddling I said, ‘Shaun, I've got it, I’ve got it!’ and he still went. It wasn’t a wave he could say, 'Oh she’s a girl, she'll fall off.’ It was an easy wave. I was angry and when I saw the little opening he left me I went 

 right behind him. He saw me out of the corner of his eye and I don’t think he quite believed what I had done.”

Cooper does not get angry often. Yet if someone is going to interfere with her dream of being world champion, what she lives for 24 hours a day, then beware. She can be one serious 20-year-old. “I want to be world champ and I'd like to make some money out of surfing," she says with a twinkle in her eye. “Also, I would like to be known as a good surfer, not a good girl surfer. In many ways, you’re better off being a girl, at certain breaks, because you can paddle out in the tensest situations and you don’t have to worry. You can give 'em a little cheek as a girl. I never push it, but you can use it to your advantage. Sometimes it doesn’t work," she says with a chuckle, "but other times it does.”

At 5' 6’' and 132 pounds, what works for Cooper is a stocky but perfectly proportioned physique and a fearless, aggressive approach. She says her surfing is really coming on, especially after spending most of the winter on the North Shore. "I'm surfing better than I ever have. When I keep surprising myself and when someone like Cramie (Richard Cram) sees me do something in the water goes, 'that was great!' well, that makes me feel really good. I get more out of that than probably anything else, including competing.”

But competing is what Cooper must do and must do well if she is to be champion. To put her chances in perspective one must only know she has been surfing professionally for a mere 18 months and currently is ranked #3 behind Frieda Zamba and Kim Mearig. For the record, Hawaii’s Rell Sunn has been surfing 26 of her 30 years, Mearig has been a pro for four years and the grande dame of them all, Margo Oberg, has seven world titles in 20 years of surfing. Says Oberg: "Of the whole new, young crop, Jodie's one of the best big-wave riders. She’s also one of the most powerful. I think she’ll be a world champion. It's only a matter of time."

Time is what Cooper has on her side. That coupled with her go-for-it style is what will carry her to the top. She isn't afraid, to put it mildly. "In Western Australia, where I’m from, we have some really radical surf, some really hair-raising stuff, and I'll always have a go. Sometimes I’ll coordinate it all and get it together and it goes well. But sometimes it doesn’t. I've got so many cuts, really bad ones. You get these nicks and then they start getting sore,” she says while applying a sticky goo to the three gashes on the top of her right foot, compliments of Backdoor. She has never had staph but is a likely candidate. Counting the scars up and down her calves she loses count twice and gives up, destined never to do a Nair commercial.

Born May 4, 1964, in Albany, Jodie Louise is the third of Peter and Lorraine Cooper's five children. She grew up on the beach and consequently is well-schooled in tides, currents, swells and wind and weather patterns. She first paid notice to surfing when she was 13 but didn't dive into the sport until she was 16. Cooper’s older brother Russ, along with her boyfriend at the time, both home from school for the holidays and helped her graduate from raft riding and skateboarding. The boyfriend gave her a single-fin board and while he'd go out the back, Cooper would flounder around inside.

"The first time I ever surfed I didn't catch a real wave, I just rode the whitewater. I used a Simon Anderson surfboard that my boyfriend gave me. I remember once taking off in the white water and all of a sudden it formed into a real wave, and I couldn't believe it. I thought I was Mark Richards." She lets out a loud, hearty laugh that fills the room.

"I’m not fussy. I like any waves that are good. I like Sunset because it’s so challenging and I like Off the Wall when it's good. I like everything about surfing. I'm an outdoor type of person. I can pretty much handle any situation, and I never worry about getting dirt in my nails. I'll get out in the mud and have fun."

And her willingness to take risks? Part of that dare-devilism comes from Cooper being a self-proclaimed tomboy. And part of it is just her psychological makeup. “I’ve got this mental thing; it’s just an attitude to not hold back,” she says while once again tending to her wounds. “I don’t think, I just charge. I figure, well, you paddled out already—if you're going to do it you might as well go all the way. You're not going to improve going halfway. I haven’t seen that many girls really go for it. Not really. With me—sometimes even if I know I can't make it I'll still try.”

This winter Cooper came close to winning the World Cup at Sunset. "I’m still angry at myself because I had that contest in my hand, she says, letting out a grunt and a growl. "I do this all the time. I take control, then let it go. In the World Cup, at the start of the finals I had two good waves, then three horrible ones. Then the last wave—if it had counted—I stood up a split-second after the second horn so they didn't count it. So I just threw it away. I had it. I had Margo, I had Lynne [Boyer, the eventual winner]. I had all those girls who live in Hawaii and know Sunset best. It's so aggravating to think I easily could’ve beaten them and in my mind I sort of did, but I didn't.”

Cooper admits it was her mistake and her mistake alone. She started the finals riding her 6' 8" and in retrospect says she should have switched to a bigger board.

If some people were impressed even before her fourth-place finish, others were not. "Back in Australia, I went to this chiropractor because I had a sore back. When he asked me my occupation, so he could write it on the form, I said, ‘Oh, I'm a professional surfer.' I thought, well I don’t do anything else and it's kept me alive for the last year, so why not come out at say it. He burst out laughing. He was just in fits of laughter. He thought it was marbles.”

Do most people respond that way? "No, most people I think are interested."

One interested party is Eric Arakawa of Island Classic surfboards. He sponsors Jodie along with Hotline wetsuits. "Eric is really smart and one of the big shapers in Hawaii. He asks me what I want the board, and just knows how to put it all together. Hotline gives me a certain amount of money, which is great. But everything else I've paid for myself. Whatever I win, any prize money, goes right back into my surfing. I haven’t really made any money from the sport at all."

For now, Cooper is just trying to put herself in the spotlight, and that's what leads to her surfing places like Off the Wall when there are 50 hungry guys in the lineup. "I’ve been trying to have my photo taken. That's a big part of why I’m at the North Shore. Not many girls are here, none serious about surfing anyway. That’s an advantage, for sure. This is where it’s happening this time of year. This is the place everyone’s concentrating on."

To end the current world circuit there are three contests in Cooper's home country of Australia. At first only one was A-rated, but now there are two, the Stubbies on the Gold Coast and Bells on Easter weekend. Two contests means that Cooper has a chance at the world title. "Maybe I can win," she says. "It depends on how Kim and Frieda do. As far as women surfers go I look up to people like Cherie Gross, Pam, Jenny Gill and Toni Sawyer. To me, I've always looked up to them more than Kim or Frieda, even though I think Kim and Frieda are really good competitive surfers. Free-surfing, I think Cherie is the best. She’s got the best style of the women, including myself. She might not be all that good all the time and I reckon I can do things just as good as her but she’s got a nice style and is so fluid."

When Cooper takes time off from surfing she can be found reading, listening to music, playing Trivial Pursuit or eating. The last concert she attended was the Pretenders. She’s also fond of the Eurythmics, the Motels, and Prince. Rolling Stone is her favorite music magazine. While playing Trivial Pursuit, the game that has invaded more households than PacMan, she tries for a yellow wedge and likens it to lemon pie. “I love lemon pie. I love food,” she says while correctly answering the question and placing the yellow game piece in her marker. "I’m pretty lucky. I can more or less eat as much as I want as long as I keep surfing and keep active. If anyone ate what I ate they’d be an elephant."

A little later, the subject turns to fellow Aussie female surfer Pam Burridge. Jodie and Pam are great friends, but there is a little friction there too. “Since I’ve been on the circuit I’ve been the girl in Pam’s shadow. That annoys me. I'm just now starting to break out of that. It’s like Pam’s the girl from Australia, Pam’s this, Pam's that. People would come up to me and call me Pam and some people still call me Pam. In Australia she had a promotion and I read it and it said ‘Pam Burridge, the highest-ranked woman surfer in Australia’ and she’s not. I’ve been ahead of her for the last few months. I'm the highest-ranked woman surfer in Australia. Me. I’m ahead of her in points so I must be . . . well, I can say I am. I really like Pam and we're the best of buddies. But this year things are going to change. I’ll make sure they do. I’m not the girl who surfs with Pam. I’m Jodie Cooper and I surf, too.”

[Photos: Michael Grosswendt, Jeff Divine]

"AUSTRALIAN PROFILE: JODIE COOPER," BY MEG GRIGGS, SURFER MAG, JULY '85

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