Quotes from this interview were used in "Stayin' Alive: 1976 and the Birth of Professional Surfing," by Matt Warshaw, which ran in the Spring 1995 issue of Surfer's Journal. Richards was 37 years old.

When did you make the decision to be a pro surfer?

Never. There was no conscious decision. I never really thought it would happen. At 15 or 16, my mission in life was to make some kind of career in surfing, but I was sure I'd do it primarily as a shaper. I had no vision of it whatsoever. Basically, in 1975, when I was 17, I talked my way into the Smirnoff, and all of a sudden I was a professional. One day I was surfing for a trophy, the next I was surfing for a check.

We all talk about 1976 as being the first year of pro surfing, but there wasn't even an official tour until you guys all got to Hawaii that Fall.

Oh my god. It was so disorganized, the whole thing. We were just making it up as we went, everybody was, the surfers, the contest organizers, the judges. The judging formats were different from contest to contest. It was chaos; like you say, it wasn't even an official tour till right at the end. So you have a thing now where, yes, the records go back to '76, you have what 

 like a circuit and a world champion. But 1977 was the first year where everybody went into the thing knowing there was a rating system, and that we were going for a world title.

I was happy with that. I didn't do all the contests, just Australia and Hawaii.

I don't know. Maybe, but just a little, and only because I didn't travel. If I'd done all the events I probably would have lost money!

As you mentioned, some of the contests that year used the subjective judging format, and others used the points-per-maneuver format, and each of them required a really different approach.

That might have been the last year they did the points-per-maneuver deal. Maybe they did it for another year or so.

Did you hate that system? I remember surfing a couple of contests as a kid when it was points-per-maneuver, and I just kind of ignored it.

You know, I actually liked it. I used to do really well in those events. Every wave you caught counted. So it was sort of an iron-man thing. The only thing I remember having to do differently was to get out of that best-four waves mentality; at some point you just had to bulk up your wave count.

The North Shore was a bigger deal in the 1970s than it is today.

The whole rest of the year, when you weren't in Hawaii, it was like being a prisoner, crossing off the days until you got on a plane for Honolulu. We'd fly over and stay for three or four months and essentially try to kill ourselves—and had the best time imaginable. It was so much different from today. A lot of kids go now as though they have to; like it's a chore.

What did you think of the Bronzed Aussies?

(Laughs) I think they were ahead of their time.

You were invited to be a Bronzed Aussie, but declined. Were there any hard feelings between you and Peter [Townend] and Ian [Cairns]?

No, none whatsoever. Mostly it was that I always liked to travel alone. I found more acceptance that way; you're more welcome, wherever you go, when you go alone. I liked my freedom. I liked doing things whenever I wanted to do them, not having to wait on anybody else. I never wanted to be part of a team.

Quotes from the conversation below were used in "Odyssey: Wayne Bartholomew," by Matt Warshaw, which ran in the Winter 1993 issue of Surfer's Journal.

You've been off the world tour for 10 years. Do you miss it?

I really, really miss it. Every time I pick up a magazine and read about where the guys are, I really want to be there. I miss being a player, and I don't know if I'll ever get used to it completely. Rabbit and I, and other guys who've won world titles—or anybody who's been a competitive surfer for the better part of their lives, and never worked 9-5—it's an incredible transition when you step off. It's hard to come to terms.

No, not really. Not yet, anyway. Half of me is quite happy to be home, shaping boards, running the shop, hanging out with the family, surfing for fun. The other half of me longs to be back out there on tour. Even to this day. I mean, it's hard enough where—I can really see where it would be very easy to lose it. I can see how a person, after achieving a certain level of recognition, or accomplishment, or fame, might afterward turn into an alcoholic or druggie or something.

I wanted to talk to you about Rabbit. Can you give me an early impression of him, something from before you guys became really well known?

(Laughs) The winter of 1974-'75, I remember Bugs was living at Sunset Point, with Ian, and existing on virtually nothing. Just eating Corn Flakes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I don't know why I'd remember this, but whenever Bugs' clothes would get dirty, his socks and undies, he'd just turn everything inside out and wear 'em for a couple more days.

I don't know if Rabbit was the most driven out of that whole Free Ride generation, or if his drive was just more obvious, more up-front.

We all were. But Bugs, maybe, even more so. In those early days, in Hawaii, I don't think it was so much about being a professional, or even winning contests. He really just wanted to establish himself as a fearless big-wave rider. That was a time when you'd get into events—in Australia too, but especially in Hawaii—based solely on reputation, and for the Duke and Smirnoff and those contests, that had a lot to do with your reputation in big waves. Bugs had it in his head that he'd make it into all the big events or kill himself trying. So there was a period of time, when nobody outside of Australia had ever heard of him, where Bugs would take off on anything, pull into anything.

When the world tour started, I think it allowed him to expand his ambition. Big waves, small waves, training, all the psyche-out ploys.

He was the first of any of us to say, "I'm going to win the world title." The rest of us were more, "Aw, gee, I'm just going to try my best and we'll see what happens."

When I talked with him recently, he seemed to kind of deflect the idea that he was the best competitor. In fact, he said you were the best, in terms of strategy and tactics.

No, he's downplaying how good he was for some reason. Probably because he's afraid of being labeled a great competitor at the expense of his surfing. I think he had a nice balance of both.

For me, the hardest people to surf against were Rabbit, PT, Michael Ho, and Paul Neilson. They were heavy guys to compete against. I feared competing against them. And of those four, Rabbit was the hardest.

I guess the short answer is that he had this tremendous intensity. The rest of the guys would pretty much just do their own thing, and let their surfing alone do the job. Bugs really put the pressure on. I remember a few times, standing on the beach next to him, before a heat, and he'd just be jumping out of his skin, like he wanted to punch me out. It was intimidating. I'd be trying to relax, and he'd actually be jumping up and down, in my personal space, glaring at me.

Before the priority buoy, oh my god, yeah, he'd just molest you in a heat. (Almost shyly) But I molested people, too. Maybe I just molested them in a nicer way.

At the same time, Rabbit was always a great guy to hang around with.

He's one of the most entertaining people on the planet. On a lot of the stops on tour, we'd be staying in the same hotel, all the pros, and at dinner there would just be a scramble to see who got to sit next to Rabbit. Of everyone from my era, from let's say 1975 to the early '80s, he had the best time. He was the most colorful of any of us. He seemed to have things really figured out. Not just his surfing, not just his competitive act, but who he was as a person within the sport. Being fully humble, the way I was, isn't the greatest thing, it's a bit boring. Being an egotistical maniac doesn't work either. Bugs had that so figured out. He was funny and smart, and aggro, and sometimes humble. He had the perfect attitude toward the whole thing.

The '75-'76 Free Ride winter has become such a huge deal in surfing. How did it feel at the time?

I don't remember feeling any particular mood in the air. I think the media created a lot of that. The movie itself, for example. If Delaney hadn't made the film, I don't know if we'd be talking about it in the same way. Probably not. Bill Delaney and Dan Merkel were there all winter, shooting everything that moved, and just having it all so beautifully documented—that went a really long way toward creating the whole myth of that period, you know?

Maybe. At the same time—it was a radical change.

I just think that, up until that stage, Hawaii had been thought of as a place where, first and foremost, you respected the power of the wave. The object had been to flow with it. In 1975, instead, we went there to attack. For about three years before that, we were learning the ropes, getting our equipment together, just sort of getting our heads ready. Then in '75 it came together. It wasn't planned. It wasn't something we talked about beforehand. But it really did hit with a bang.

Oh, it was an epic year for surf. Just incredible. Day after day, week after week. Pipeline especially. In fact, at the time, that's all I was really thinking of. Not, "It's a new era! We're changing the sport!" It was really just, "Shit, the surf's been good for how many weeks in a row now?" I didn't really see what had happened, what we had accomplished, until months, or even a couple of years later, when I looked back.

Did you guys really have Off the Wall to yourselves?

Just the Aussies and the South Africans, yeah. Michael Ho would surf it occasionally, and so would Dane. But it was pretty much just us. We'd take turns; that's how mellow it was. Maybe 10 of us in the water, at the very most, It was like, Take a number and wait a few minutes, here's your wave.

[Photos: Craig Fineman, Jeff Divine, Dan Merkel]

Mark Richards (1993)

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