David Eggers died on Monday, at age 45, probably of a heart attack. In 1986, Eggers was a red-hot 16-year-old WCT rookie destined for a world title run. Eighteen months later he was off the tour, living with his parents, with a freebase habit and a raging nihilism. “Yesterday was gone,” Eggers later said, “I didn’t know what was going to happen tomorrow, and all my friends and I cared about was the here and now. We didn’t care if we lived or died.” The surfing flameout to end all flameouts, in other words. A cautionary tale deployed against overbearing stage parents, predatory surf companies, and ego-inflated young surfers. Messy and incredibly sad on one hand, but also very cut and dried. Too much, too soon, end of story.

Or so we all thought. Twenty years later, it came out that Eggers was schizophrenic. His father arrived home one evening and found David curled up on top of the washing machine, with a pair of tennis shoes banging around inside the drum—his DIY fix to cancel out the voices in his head. 

From that point, it was a long, slow road back to something resembling normalcy, filled with doctors, sobriety, backsliding, religion, promises made and broken and remade. 

By 2007 David was three years sober, living with his father near the Salton Sea, 150 miles off the coast, pulling beers and serving hot slices to the locals at Capt’n Jim’s, his dad’s roadside cafe-bar.

I only met David Eggers once. It was at my house, in 1989, during a short and wholly unsuccessful pro surfing comeback. He was intense. He spooked me, in fact. Casually perched on my living couch, Eggars talked blandly about wanting to be “humble and professional” this time around, but lit up when I asked about his famous competitive drive. He leaned forward. “You know, I figured things out real quick,” he said. “Surfing is 

 a team sport. The kids I was surfing with didn’t know that. You don’t pal around. You escape. You eat by yourself, rest by yourself, do everything by yourself.” 

I asked Eggers if he ever actually enjoyed himself while surfing. “Oh yeah. It was fun! I mean, there’s nothing better than staring into somebody’s eyes after beating them and seeing the agony of defeat.” Then in a slightly wistful tone: “When I shook someone’s hand on the beach, after a heat? I never meant it.”

 profile on Eggers a few years back, and while the story was appropriately heartbreaking and strange, it also contained moments of hope. Eggers, 37, had by no means abandoned his ego (“The reefs from Big Rock to Blacks,” he told La Tourrette, “I own them”), but he also came off as self-aware and atoning and cognizant of his own fragility. “I don’t really care about surfing, or if I’ll ever do it again.” (He did, though. Out of shape and on a longboard, but handled himself well.) “I’m just glad to be happy again. I’ve finally grown up.”

I like to think that over the past few years, with the help of family, friends, meds, Jesus, and whatever else might have helped, David was at peace with himself and his past. To push it further, and perhaps it sounds strange given how little time was left, I like to think that David was looking forward to what was next. To the weekend. To Spring. That he was interested in the future. If you about whatever's coming up later, anything, big or small, you're either in a good place or aiming in that direction. 

Eggers was spectacular at first, then ruined, then worked his way back to just living for the next day. Which is fine. Maybe more than fine.

[Portrait photo by James Cassimus; surf photo by Mike Moir]

DAVID EGGERS: 1970-2015

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