Tim Baker's profile on Shane Herring ran in the May 2005 issue of Australia's Surfing Life magazine. This version has been slightly edited.

I first met Shane when he was a barely pubescent 15-year-old at Grajagan, Indonesia. I’d never heard of him, but marveled at this tiny kid who jumped straight off the boat and paddled determinedly into thumping eight-to-10-foot reef-bottom barrels. It seemed almost prophetic when I happened to take a holiday snap of him at the dining table one night, hamming it up for the older guys, with a can of Bintang between two slices of bread, mouth agape around his beer sandwich.

Fast forward 18 years, Australia Day, 2005, and I’ve tracked Herro down to a little blonde-brick duplex in the back blocks of Lennox Head, living with his childhood Dee Why mate, Joel. Perhaps it’s not too late to clear my karmic slate.

Herro, now 33, hasn’t surfed for a while and doesn’t even own a board. His once sun-bleached locks are copper red and cropped short. He’s pale-skinned, carrying a few pounds, with a bit of fuzzy facial hair. He’s nursing a broken collar bone, courtesy of a drunken wrestle with a few pit bulls, owned by his old pro tour partner in mayhem Jeremy Byles.

But he seems otherwise well, happy for the company and keen for a chat. Herro’s an intelligent guy, whose overactive mind has sometimes been his curse. He presents an eloquent argument that—as he is no longer sponsored—we should offer some sort of incentive to do an interview, and he skilfully negotiates the fee of a carton of Coopers.

The house is simply but neatly furnished, collages of surf magazine pictures stuck on the walls, a few potted plants by the front door. A foam box of soil and wheat seeds sits hopefully on the front porch—Joel is cultivating a crop of wheatgrass as a health tonic for his old mate.

We settle on a bench in the front yard, crack the first Coopers before the clock has struck midday, and roll the tape.

Herro is, in turn, funny, articulate, insightful, and esoteric. He never shows a trace of bitterness about his well-publicized fall from pro surfing stardom. Did things just happen too fast for him?

“It was very fast, but then again, when you train really hard it only takes three years I reckon,” he says, seriously. “I trained from 16 ’til 20. In three years, on the tour, I went from 54th to 36th to 4th—and then basically it was over. Down to 22nd the next year, then 44th, then off the tour. So it was five years, in and out.”

“I took too much shit," he says matter-of-factly, "and the consequences are, if you waste yourself you’ll end up losing what you’ve got. You’ve got to watch your drinking and watch your intake of substances or you’ll end up losing what you’ve got, and you won’t even know you’ve lost it until you get older.”

He recalls his pro tour days with great fondness. “It was fantastic. It was a big party for five years." He rattles off the highlights warmly. Meeting Occy when he was 17, for example. “I stole one of his dreadlocks off him one night when he was asleep. Had it in my drawer for years.” Training with Terry Day, alongside Damien Hardman, when Damien won his first world title in ’87. Staying with Tom Carroll in France and getting advice from the master himself. Fun times with tour buddies Shane Powell, Nick Wood, Robbie Page and Cheyne Horan. Watching Tom Curren’s comeback when he won the world title in 1990.

One thing Herro’s determined to clear up is the great Banana Board controversy—the radically curved and concaved boards that shaper Greg Webber produced specifically to help Herro take on Slater. Webber’s been blamed for ruining Herring’s career, by sending him off on this extreme design tangent. Herro scoffs at the suggestion.

“Those banana boards enabled me to turn in places other people couldn’t turn,” says Shane. “Greg changed surfing to what it is now, I reckon, and it changed my surfing too. Now kids are riding barrel concaves with a lot of curve, and they’re spinning around and they’re doing all that, and that was me 13 years ago. And Greg Webber made it possible, good on him.”

Does he blame the media for contributing to his demise? “I don’t care what anyone wrote about me,” he declares. “‘Oh, he’s lost it, fucking loser.’ Yeah, I lost it a couple of times, but you go through stages. I wasn’t feeling good last week, but I’m feeling good this week,” he laughs.

At the peak of his earnings, Herro was pocketing a tidy $140,000 annually, and he lived off his savings for a few years after the sponsorship bubble burst. But now he has virtually nothing material to show for any of it—other than a couple of packs of clothes a year from a faithful old Quiksilver contact.

Maybe it’s the Coopers kicking in, but from here on in things grow decidedly hazy. The carton disappears faster than seems feasible and Shane and I are soon facing off in a strange, hybrid Tai Chi and Yoga demonstration.

Joel’s taking this all in with a touch of concern. “I’d kept him off the drink for six days until you guys showed up,” he reports. Whoops, we’ve dashed Herro’s rescue by wheatgrass juice. My conscience is more rattled than ever. Joel is 25, would only have been 12 or 13 when Herro beat Slater to win the Coke. “I got good trying to be as good as him,” Joel bellows.

Now he finds himself trying to resurrect his fallen idol. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more devoted mate. Herro says he’s keen to get back in the water and is looking forward to future Masters events, which he’ll be eligible for in a couple of years.

And then—the beer runs out. Photographer Hilton is looking at me anxiously and motioning towards the door. Herro disappears into his bedroom and produces an old Sky single-fin shaped by Bob McTavish, and announces that he is now ready to go surfing. Joel and Hilton tell him he’ll drown in his condition, with a broken collar bone and eight or 10 stubbies under his belt. Shane seems briefly crestfallen, as if someone’s let the air out of his tires. Hilton and I try to say our goodbyes and edge towards the door, but Herro is on to us, arguing that an additional fee might be in order, given the depth and frankness of the interview he has given. I manage to make it to the car only $20 poorer.

Herro is still celebrating in the front yard as we drive off, waving my money triumphantly.

"AUSTRALIA DAY WITH HERRO," SHANE HERRING PROFILE BY TIM BAKER (2005)

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