"Conversations: Terry Richardson," by Sam George, was recorded in late 1986 and ran in the April 1987 issue of Surfing magazine.

Richo, you’ve been at it a long time. Have you been competing since the start?

I started back in Woolongong at the age of 14 [1969], surfing for fun. At 15-and-a-half I won the local schoolboys’, then went on to the State and Australian Championships. Guys said I had a natural ability, so I went a bit further and started winning a few state tournaments and that put me up on a bit of a pedestal down home.

You did get a lot of exposure back then, certainly the most prominent goofy-foot following Wayne Lynch.

Yeah. That was thanks to a photographer named Steve Core. He covered my tube riding at a place called Pipeline on the South Coast and he wanted to share the fact that I knew how to ride the tube. He got a lot of good shots and it complemented his work and made a bit of a name for myself as well. So I got all the attention at once, early on. Some guys get coverage all the way through their careers, some get it all at once, then none later, which I think is my case. And then some don’t get anything for years and then suddenly the world’s flooded with them. So, at least I’ve had mine, and I’m pretty stoked. Whatever I get from here on in is a bonus.

The magazines were filled with shots of you surfing that perfect hollow left, always with a different name.

It’s not Black Rock, it’s not Torpedo Tubes or Summercloud Bay or any of those other weird names. It’s simply Pipeline. That’s all we ever knew it as. Even before any of us knew of the Banzai Pipeline, we called it that. I guess the older guys had seen Banzai in movies and here was this identical, perfect, hollow left. I actually got sort of sick surfing it after a while. We used to go down there and get 30 barrels in a row, each one as good or better than the last. It was great, a real buzz.

Have you been competing non-stop? Have you ever gone through a stage where you wanted to take a break?

I’m starting to go through it now. I’m semi-burned-out. With all the pro tour contests being so close together, if you need to make an equipment change, you don’t have the time because there's a contest almost every week. I desperately need to make an equipment change and I just can’t. I need a break in the schedule to do it.

You’ve been competing for over a decade already. Why so dedicated?

For the sake of promoting myself and my shaping. And for the money. It’s like maintaining a business. And I love it. I really do.

What was your first big pro contest like?

It was the first Coke Surfabout [1974]. I surfed in the finals of the trials against Simon Anderson and won. One of my earlier heats put me against two of my idols: Mike Peterson and Wayne Lynch, plus Terry Fitzgerald and Ian Cairns were in the heat as well. Peterson got the best tube of the contest in that heat and still placed fifth. I ended up winning and I don’t think I’ve ever lived it down to this day.

I remember you still retained an amateur status by Australian standards back then. When did you turn full-time pro?

I started surfing professionally in 1980, when I was 25. So I started very, very late.

Can you name a high point of your career?

In 1982 I won both the Bali Pro and the Waimea 5000. That was a really big year. But since then, the years have been ticking by. I couldn’t get any sponsorship for a long time, and I was pretty down and out as far as that was concerned.

Do you ever think about why the surfing media has virtually ignored you these past few years?

I try not to. It bums me out. I suppose it's the same as any other sport: the media doesn’t want to know about you until they do. There’s always a reason. If you’re a grommet, they want to know about you. If you do something special, they want to know about you. But if you’re just out there maintaining there’s no story.

How about when you’re maintaining even though you're twice as old some of your competitors?

Despite the complaints, I really just love surfing in tournaments. It’s what I’ve been brought up with. It’s what got me this far, so I’ll just keep going on long as I get results. You have ups and downs. You have long runs with no results, and it all comes down to how much you can take. If you can’t take it, you go on to something else, give up. But I’m from Woolongong, and Woolongong people don’t give up.

You are the definitive battler on the world tour, aren’t you?

There have been times when I’ve had to sell my favorite board to get to the next country and hope that it will cover my expenses while the contest is on. Then I have to surf my best and sweat it out until I get money for whatever place I finish just to pay my rent. Then hopefully I’ll have enough change in my pocket to go on to the next one.

Have you ever been completely down and out and had one win save you

In 1980 I was going to give up competing because my wife had twins and I thought, “That’s it, time to get a job, settle down. Don’t be silly, going surfing.” Then I won the Bali Pro and thought, “This is pretty good.” Then I won in Brazil and thought, “This is 

 good.” That gave me the spark to keep going until 1985 when I got third in the California Stubbies and thought, “things aren’t as bad as they seem.”

Thirty-one. And I swore I’d never surf past 28. I used to think I’d die when I turned 25. That’s when I turned pro, so maybe I did! (laughs) Every time I get on the verge of stepping down or turning in a different direction, something happens and I keep going. Like this year, I got a great new sponsor and then I won the first APSA [Australiann Professional Surfing Association] event of the year. Then I won the Beaurepaires Night surfing event. It didn’t get much coverage, but it meant a lot to me, just to prove to myself that I can still beat a lot of guys. You’re as young as you feel, whether you’re Jason Buttonshaw or Nicky Wood or Rabbit or Shaun Tomson. People could look at those four in the water and think that the kids would trample the old blokes. But put them in a heat and 80% of the time, the older pros are going to beat them.

Is there a downside to what you're doing?

I often neglect my family in order to compete, but I use that as motivation as well. If I’m going to say to the wife and kids, “See you later, I’m off to a contest,” I really feel obligated to do my very best. I’m going to try to win the thing and earn some money. I basically go out with this Rambo attitude once I leave the family because I know I’m out to pay my house off and get a win for the wife and kids. I’ve got a stronger motivation to do well than a lot of the younger guys. There are some pretty heavy bills in trying to maintain the house and putting the kids in school. All the other guys on the tour, they’ve got nothing to worry about. They can just go out every night and rage. But I’m still holding in there, and if I can maintain a Top 30 rating, that’s good enough for me.

A lot of people would think that having a family would be a liability more than a benefit.

If they think that, that’s what’s going to happen. All I ever wanted to do was to be married and have kids. And I couldn’t have married a better woman or have better-looking kids. It’s been like a dream. And the other part of that dream is to be content about my surfing and to make sure people know who I am and what I’ve done.

[Photos: Rob Gilley, Darrell Jones, Hugh McLeod, Martin Tullemans, Jeff Divine]

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