Pointing out the smallness of 1970s world tour surfing won't raise any untrimmed eyebrows over at the Society of American Historians. The story is as old as pro surfing itself. To demonstrate growth, the world tour has frequently looked back to remark upon its kitchen-table origins, the tiny but hardcore cluster of spectators at formative events, the middle-school-allowance-sized paychecks. (Eddie Aikau, #15 surfer in the world in 1975 as ranked by total prizemoney, hauled down a cool $25 for the year.)

But this week, while plunging my hands into the loamy ferment that was the 1977 Wave Rider Magazine Florida Pro at Sebastian Inlet, the DIY aspect of the whole thing struck me anew—the degree to which this much-remarked-upon smallness demanded that those involved do whatever was required to bring the show to life.

There are different ways of thinking about this. Yes, various and sundry conflicts of interest crisscrossed the Florida Pro like a Jackson Pollock drip painting. The publishers of the local surf mag (Wave Rider) owned and ran the event. Contest judges were on loan from their jobs as surf industry execs. Beach marshall Dick Catri at one time or another was mentor or sponsor or bail-thrower to pretty much every Floridian surfer in the event.

But never mind all that for the moment. I love the earnestness that was spritzed across like Hawaiian Tropic across the whole of the Florida Pro. Nobody on the beach at Sebastian that week was jaded or blase about what was happening. I love the fact that, while self-interest was the prime motivator in Florida 1977 (just as it is right now on the North Shore, in 2019, with a world title hanging in the balance), the larger enterprise was also a driving force. Everybody involved wanted pro surfing to succeed. And as such, they would by and large overlook the business-conflicted judges and the daddy-figure beach marshal. They would think big. Or at least bigger than what was before them at the moment. Sure, the pros would fight and bitch and backbite each other, and hold that thought, we'll return to it in a moment. But at the same time, people continued adding twigs to the shakey little nest that was pro surfing in the 1970s. They were attracted to this new facet of the sport. They wanted to engage on as many levels as possible.

Warren Bolster, for example. Bolster was a SURFER senior staff photographer in 1977, and took most of the Florida Pro pics that ran in the magazine a few weeks later. He was also a part-time world tour competitor. At Sebastian Inlet, Warren surfed through the trials and finished 9th in the main event after losing to Wayne Bartholomew in Round Three. (For good measure, Bolster was the editor of 

 magazine. It didn't last, but for a couple of years there, ambition and talent and a Stevie Nicks-sized coke habit made Warren superhuman.)

The ultimate reach-for-the-stars DIY surfer at the Florida Pro was of course Peter Townend. Not only was he world champ, PT was an architect of both International Professional Surfers, and the Australian Professional Surfing Association. He shaped his own boards. He'd just cofounded the Bronzed Aussies and was Billy Katt's surfing double in 

, which had recently gone into production.

Now here is the part of the 1977 Florida Pro story that brought all of this to mind. The trials were over. The main event was all set, but the surf went flat for five days. On the sixth day, local pro Bruce Valluzzi, who advanced out of the trials and was slated to compete man-on-man against Townend, was told by contest owner Gunnar Griffin that the event was off for the day. Forty miles down the coast, however, Dick Catri had in fact called it on. Valluzzi found out, raced south, but was too late and missed the heat. He immediately filed a protest. Contest officials agreed to reschedule the heat. Then PT, claiming a rule infraction of some kind, managed to reverse the officials' decision and had the heat un-scheduled. Valluzzi was out.

I know all of this because Valluzzi covered the Florida Pro for SURFER. Bruce carried the sharpest blade when it came to pen-on-paper business, and I imagine that some part of him actually appreciated the screwing-over, as it no doubt lent a certain verve to his reportage. "Standing side by side," Valluzzi wrote of contest organizers Catri and Griffin, "these two are at least seven feet wide, but here was scrawny little Townend tongue-lashing them into submission with threats of a suspect nature. Peter, who claims to be the world's premier competitive surfer, dodged honest competition with shady tactics." (For the record, Valluzzi got 17th in the contest; Townend got 9th.)

 assigned to cover the Florida Pro? Too easy: Peter Townend. He didn't mention Valluzzi by name (maybe from lack of space; Bruce's article ran eight pages, PT's was just three paragraphs), but the champ was clearly not happy with what went down at Sebastian. "The Florida Pro," Townend wrote, "was marked by instances of too many chiefs and not enough Indians—or possibly no chiefs at all!" And this: "The entire affair was plagued by a general lack of communication . . . [which] left a feeling of discontentment in many minds about the so-called 'professional' surfing circuit."

I don't believe Townend meant that last bit. In 1977, he and Rabbit and Shaun and MR and all the other original world tour pros were as gung-ho about the IPS as they'd ever be. I think PT was pissed off with his poor finish in the event, and the fact (a rare admission) that pro surfing was nowhere close to the Grand-Prix-in-training sports package he hoped it would be.

Valluzzi meanwhile was working another angle entirely. Like Peter Drouyn, Bruce wanted pro surfing to be less sterile, more personality-driven. Flawed good guys and salvageable bad guys, and lots of funny, smart, no-bullshit coverage of the events. Later in his Florida Pro article, for example, Valluzzi takes aim at 

, who at that point was the most sacred cow in American surfing.

He was lucky to get 9th. David's exclusive use of longboards lately is not just a tactical error in equipment choice, but symptomatic of a larger problem. He wants to party all night, every night, then ride waves in the daytime. The effects are showing in both his surfing and waistline. If Nuuhiwa wishes to successfully compete on the emerging pro circuit, which he says he does, he must be willing to train and condition himself as a professional athlete. David has as much natural grace and ability as anyone who has ever stood on a surfboard, but time marches on. Any young man is well-advised to remember that economic support from athletics is relatively secure for only the first third of an athlete’s life. Anything past that is borrowed time. David’s debt is mounting.

This is an amazing paragraph, and it would be six or so years before we'd see the like, in terms of style and punch, as written by Derek Hynd, another multifaceted A-grade pro surfer ready to advance the world tour project in any way he could.

Pro surfing remains a work in progress. It is no longer small or DIY, but the markers laid down by people like Valluzzi (and PT too, I guess) are worthy of attention. Our sport, then and now, works best when it is cordoned off from other sports, and left to its own peculiar and occasionally wonderful devices.

BRUCE VALLUZZI, PETER TOWNEND, AND THE DIY TRUTH OF THE 1977 FLORIDA PRO

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