A-frame

Aaberg, Denny

Aaberg, Kemp

Abberton, Koby

Abbruzzi, Sid

Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

Adler, Tom

advertising and surfing

Aeder, Erik

aerial

Aguerre, Fernando

Aichner, Scott

Aikau, Clyde

Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

Airshow

Ala Moana

Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

Alexander, Kala

Alexandre, João (Dapin)

Allen, Chuck

Alms, Paige

aloha shirt

Alter, Hobie

Alvarez, Pepe

Ancell, Kevin

Andaman Islands

Andersen, Lisa

Anderson, Craig

Anderson, Simon

Andino, Kolohe

Angel, Jose

angle

Angola

Angourie

Antarctica

Apocalypse Now

Arabian Sea

Aragon, Janice

Arakawa, Eric

Archbold, Matt

Arena, Eduardo

Ashton, Juan

Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)

Atlantic Ocean

August, Robert

Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

Australia

Avalon, Frankie

Azores

backdoor

backside

backside attack, Pipeline

backwash

bail out

Bain, Rob

Baja California

Baker, Bernie

Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

Ball, John “Doc”

Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

Baltic Sea

Banks, Jim

Barbados

Barilotti, Steve

Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

Barry, Michael

Bartholomew, Wayne

Baxter, Jackie

Bay of Bengal

Beach Boys, The

Beacham, Debbie

beachboys

beachbreak

Beachcomber Bills Grand Prix

Beachley, Layne

beavertail

Becker, Phil

Bedford-Brown, Stuart

Belgium

Bells Beach

Bendall, Ma and Pa

Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Blanche

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Cheerful, freethinking regularfoot surfer originally from Southern California; popular throughout the 1960s, and regarded as the original surfing beatnik. Cooper was born (1937) in Santa Monica, California, the son of an aerospace engineer who died around the time of his birth. He was raised in the Los Angeles-area suburbs of Culver City and Mar Vista, and began surfing in 1952 at age 15, at Malibu; eight years later he was one of the first American surfers to visit Australia.

Cooper earned a reputation not as a contest champion or a big-wave hero or even a small-wave performer—although he had an appealing, loose-limbed style, and a fine sense of trim—but as an articulate, slightly eccentric surfing character. In "Bob Cooper: Prophet on a Wave," a glowing 1964 

 magazine profile, he's lauded for his "Mount Everest beard, radical sandals, spectacular shirts and tunic of a thousand colors," as well as his ability to "remain composed and totally unaffected even at the most radical parties." The Bob Cooper Blue Machine signature model, produced in 1967 and early 1968 by Morey-Pope Surfboards, was the only board of the era to feature an asymmetrical fin setup.

Cooper lived in Australia from 1964 to 1966, returned to California, traveled to the U.K. in 1968, won the European Surfing Championships, then moved permanently to Australia in 1969. After living for almost 25 years in Coffs Harbor, New South Wales, where he owned and operated Cooper Surf Shop, he moved in 1993 to Marcus Beach, Queensland. Throughout, he was a devout Mormon; while never a proselytizer, Cooper said that Mormonism, not surfing, was the unifying and driving force in his life.

Cooper appeared in a small number of surf movies in the late '50s and '60s, including

 (1964); he also wrote about 10 articles for the American surf press in the '60s and early '70s.

Cooper allowed that he "hung a pretty mean ten in the early '60s," but said that he was "famous in surfing for being famous; for having been around a long time; for having a beard." The celebrated Cooper beard, as noted in a lavish 37-page 

 profile in 1999, originated as part of a draft-dodging ruse.

Cooper died in 2020, of cancer, at age 82.

Cooper, Bob

Subscribe or Login

Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Interviews

Features

The Sunday Joint

Videos

Contests