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Lanky regularfooter from Cocoa Beach, Florida; runner-up in the 1968 United States Surfing Championships, and often referred to as the East Coast's first international-caliber surfer. "His presence is instantly overwhelming," surf journalist Matt Walker said of Tabeling in 1998. "The chiseled face, the sheer mass, the confident awareness. Your first impression will be awe."

Tabeling was born (1949) in Memphis, Tennessee, the son of a navy pilot, and began surfing in Cocoa Beach in 1962, at age 12, not long after his family settled in the area. In the mid-'60s, Tabeling and Floridian surfer Bruce Valluzzi were among the first to ride Sebastian Inlet, which soon became the state's best-known break. Gary Propper, another Florida surfer, had by that time already made his mark on the national surf scene with lightning-quick small-wave performances and a best-selling signature model surfboard. Tabeling went further: as a contest surfer he won the juniors division of the East Coast Championships in 1966 and 1967, the juniors division of the 1967 Laguna Masters in Redondo Beach (becoming the first East Coaster to win an event on the West Coast), and placed second to David Nuuhiwa in the men's division of the 1968 U.S. Championships.

Tabling competed in the World Championships in 1966, 1968, and 1970, and was invited to the 1970 and 1971 Expression Session events. He was also the first East Coaster to make the cover of 

 magazine (in 1971), and was featured in 

, the definitive 1970 surf movie. With "I Love Cocoa Beach: An Erotic East Coast Confession," a 

 article published in 1970, Tabeling also put the media spotlight for the first time on an area that would soon be famous for producing first-rate surfers, including future world champion Kelly Slater.

At 6'4", 195 pounds, with a gaunt, hatchet-nosed face, Tabeling himself cut an impressive, even imposing figure. He rode for the most part in a straight-up style, folding up his body just prior to turning, then spreading his long arms out like wings during his trademark cutback. For a brief period in the early '70s, according to 1974 East Coast surfing champion Greg Loehr, "Mike was the best surfer in the world— and I saw them all."

Tabeling traveled often in the '70s, surfing throughout Europe, Australia, and Africa. From 1978 to 1986 he owned the Creative Shaping surfboard-making factory in Merritt Island, Florida; in 1989 he moved to Jeffreys Bay, South Africa, where he lived for 10 years, working as a salvage diver, real estate agent, and paragliding instructor. Tabeling broke his leg, wrist, pelvis, and elbow in a 1994 paragliding accident.

Tabeling appeared in a small number of surf films in the late '60s and early '70s, including 

 (1972). For eight years, beginning in the early '80s, he owned and ran a Florida-based surfboard factory called Creative Shaping. In 1998, after living in South Africa for 10 years, he moved back to Cocoa Beach to work as an insurance salesman, then later moved to California and took a sales position with Global Surf Industries, the world's largest board-distributor. Tabeling was one of the original group of inductees into the East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame in 1996.

Tabeling died of kidney cancer in 2014, at age 65.

Tabeling, Mike

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