Documentary follows group of surfers who reshaped sport

By Mike Pollard

Correspondent

IN 1975, A HANDFUL of young surfers left their homes in faraway places like Australia and South Africa and went to Hawaii to take on the world's most challenging waves. It seemed like no big deal at the time. Others had gone before them, and many more would follow.

Back then there was no such thing as professional surfing. It was more of a leisure-time activity than a competitive sport.

A new documentary film, "Bustin' Down the Door," attributes the birth of the sport and the multibillion-dollar industry to those few guys.

The movie opens today at the Regal Cinemas Strawbridge in Virginia Beach. Shaun Tomson, the 1977 world surfing champion and the film's producer, will conduct a question-and-answer session.

Anyone who picked up a surf magazine during the mid-1970s would likely recognize the names: Tomson, his cousin Michael Tomson and Australians Mark Richards, Wayne "Rabbit" Bartholomew, Ian Cairns and Peter Townend.

They went to Hawaii that year to show the world they had what it took.

"We really had no idea what we could accomplish - we just knew what we wanted to do, and we were very passionate about it - obsessive, really," said Shaun Tomson, from South Africa. "We all had the same goal. We believed in our sport, we were passionate about it and we didn't apologize for it. Ultimately, what happened was really amazing."

"Bustin' Down the Door" documents the winter of 1975 on the North Shore of the Hawaiian island of Oahu, through the surfers' first-hand accounts.

Strong storms in the Aleutians sent unusually giant ocean swells to Hawaii, generating enormous waves that dropped the jaws of even the most experienced big-wave wranglers. The surfers tackled the swells and demanded to be treated as athletes.

At the time, contest purses were scant. Even the larger competitions gave prizes of only $2,000 or so - barely enough to cover travel for the winners - compared to the tens of thousands of dollars today's professionals can take home from winning events on the world tour.

"If you got free board shorts and stuff, you thought you were doing pretty well," said Richards in a telephone interview from the surf shop and boardmaking operation he now runs in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. "There really was no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow then, just the satisfaction of winning against the best surfers in the world."

By the end of 2007, eight-time world champion Kelly Slater had earned more than $2 million in prize winnings and an estimated four times that amount in endorsements and sponsorships.

The Hawaii experience was ground-shaking for Tomson, who had other plans for his life - to become a lawyer or an accountant in his family tradition.

"We didn't see then what would ultimately come of all this, really," he said. He's 52 now and spoke recently by telephone from Jeffreys Bay, South Africa, where he was working as a color commentator for the Billabong Pro surf contest. "What we knew was that in our home countries, surfers were regarded as athletes, rather than the beach bums and stoners they were thought to be in the States. We wanted to be treated as the world-class athletes we knew we were. In general, people didn't really respect surfers for the athletes we are, but we decided we wouldn't let people treat us like that."

The movie is named after an essay Bartholomew submitted to a surfing magazine, announcing brashly how the Australians and others were planning to dominate surfing and create an entirely new animal.

Tomson's response to it all reveals both businessman and surfer.

"It really is amazing what has come of all that, and I'm just so completely stoked to see what it's become."