The quotes below are taken from "Rory: A Profile," by Drew Kampion, which ran in the June 1977 issue of Surfing magazine.


I used to surf Ala Moana and there was this other kid who used to run me over and edge me out. He used to hang ten so good.


Gerry's probably taught me more about surfing than anyone. We were in the same surf club, the Kui-O-Hawaii, at the same time as Jock Sutherland, Reno Abellira, Jackie Eberle, Stanley Parks, and a lot of others. Gerry's been shaping my surfboards for five or six years, he shapes the best boards, I think. He surfs the best too! Or maybe I wouldn't say he's 

 best surfer, but he's got so much experience, and his style is the icing on the cake. Me, I've ways been a kind of gangly surfer—thin and long—so I've had to adapt things, do them in my own way. Gerry is amazing, but I wouldn't want to surf like him or anybody else.


I was on the school swimming team as a kid. I had a whole bunch of ribbons and trophies and shit in my room. I used to swim three miles a day. I was on the diving team too, till I hit the board on a backflip, and they had to jump in and save me. I got pretty messed up from that. But that was right about when I was really getting into surfing, and I didn't want to do swim and dive practice anymore. I'm really glad I did all that, though. I don't have any problems swimming on the North Shore; Sunset's no problem. I don't think I've ever been in a situation where I didn't think I could swim out of it.


I'm impressed by those guys. Shaun and Rabbit and the rest. Yeah, I'm impressed. It was something new—even though Sam Hawk, Mike Ho, and others have surfed there for years. But last year the guys that the media were following had to paddle out there and prove themselves, and they did it good. They surfed it really well, and it was publicized as an extraordinary feat, which it was.

But a regularfoot can never get as far back in the tube as a goofyfoot, so in that sense, they don't push us. We're on our own little trip. It's me and Gerry and Jackie Dunn and Crawford and Army [Mike Armstrong], and it's just between us because there are some waves out there that the backside guys can't make. There are four or five of us who sit over a boil. There's a certain spot out there—this big boil. That's the place. And if you're on the other side of the boil, man, you got balls!


It's so hollow that you can way back and still be surfing, you know? Still turning. But the really good ones, the real long tubes, are just straight lines. There's no up and down, it's just full-on. You're dropping in, skittering down the face, and the thing is fringing so far in front of you down the line. You're dropping in and just waiting for the moment when you can set your edge, lean in, feel it grab and peel out! Just take off for the shoulder. Those are the heart-stoppers. The more turns you do inside on waves like that, the less speed you have, the longer it takes to get from A to B.

I've had 10 or 15 tubes out there that are really special. None of them were photographed. They never get the best ones. You run out in the late afternoon to grab a few, not too many people around and . . . 

 There's that one insane tube. Or you go out at eight in the morning, nobody on the beach, and on one wave you get so deep that you just go in because you know you're never going to get another like that in the same day. 


It usually doesn't bother me. Not on the good days. Half of the crowd doesn't even go for the waves we go for. They just sit there and let us have 'em.


I like things that are exhilarating, thrilling, Twenty-five foot Waimea, twelve-foot Pipeline. Surfing the Racetrack at Uluwatu is pretty exhilarating. Maalaea is very exhilarating! Maalaea's one of the best waves I've ever surfed. It's the best as far as tuberiding, but it's almost never good. I don't even switch stance at Maalaea; just takeoff regular foot and go. Some of the best tube rides I've ever had were at Maalaea—for sure some of the longest. We all love going fast, any way you can. I used to be such a nutty driver, I just couldn't get to the surf fast enough. A lot of guys are like that. Ian Cairns likes to go fast! I was with him the night he drove his orange Holden into the bushes after the Bells contest. And then I had to drive with him to Sydney with him telling me he'd like to have a Porsche, and me thanking God he didn't.

Matt Warshaw interviewed Rory Russell in 1994. Quotes from this conversation were used the following year for a Surfer's Journal article titled "Stayin' Alive: 1976 and the Birth of Professional Surfing."

For most of 1976, the IPS didn't actually exist. When did you first hear about it?

There was no pattern, no schedule, no format. All of a sudden PT and Ian [Peter Townend and Ian Cairns] are saying "we're going to set this up just like tennis, mate!"

Everybody's hopes were so high. Especially Ian and Peter and Fred [Hemmings].

Oh my God, yeah. Big sponsors, big dough, you should've heard 'em. They were just out of their minds.

Kinda, but no, not really. I dug it too. What those guys were shooting for was really neat. The idea that we could surf and make a living at it. That's not a bad idea at all. But the thing is, surfing is so special and so individual that, first of all, you can't say, "This guy is the best." And second, even if you 

 say it, the rest of the world doesn't care.

The first contest on the 1976 schedule was the Piha Pro, in New Zealand. Did you go that one?

A lot of events used the points-per-maneuver judging system. How did that work?

Just like it says. The more waves, the more turns, the more ass-wiggles, the more zig-zags, the more points you'd get.

I could wiggle my ass with the best of 'em, so yeah!

You went to Australia that year to compete. Was that your first time there?

No, my first time was the year before, for the Coke contest. I'll never forget it. It was me, Brian Surratt, and Michael Ho. First thing when we got off the plane in Sydney, I bought a ticket to Bali, which left me totally broke. But somebody rented a car and off we drove to Narrabeen. I'd known about Narrabeen forever, people called it the Australian Pipeline—I was excited. So we pull into the parking lot. It's small but looks pretty fun. There's a bunch of guys surfing a sandbar to the right and just four or five guys at Narrabeen itself, so we were stoked. I paddle out and suddenly realize the guys all have colored jerseys on and, sure enough, we're right in the middle of some full-on Aussie surf club contest. And these were 

 guys. Murderous big Aussies. So we paddle down to the rights. This is where it gets good. We're just off the plane from Hawaii, right? First day in Australia. Michael Ho grabs a wave, right in front of a guy who turns out to be one of the judges for the Coke contest. Mike's riding along, and the guy jumps off his board and tackles him, right in front of Brian Surratt, who was paddling out. Brian jams over there, grabs the guy by the neck and punches him in the face. That was my flying start in Australia.

What else do you remember about that trip?

I remember the regularfoot lobby fuckin' sucked. At the contests, every time, they'd get us. We'd take a vote on where the contest was going to be held, and instead of heading off to the fun-looking left up the beach, we had to surf the closeout crap down on the other side, 'cause it was 

 like a right. Thirty out of 40 guys in any contest were regularfoot. Me and Wayne Lynch didn't stand a chance. Fuckin Terry Fitz and PT and Ian and the rest of 'em, they made sure they were riding frontside no matter what. Even if the "rights" were basically closeouts. Wayne and I were like, "but, but." And it's "Sorry boys, majority rules."

Sure, I was all for it. I loved it. I loved doing the TV, the radio, playing it up. On the other hand, you know, when you get right down to it, contests don't really prove anything. There's no way to really judge that person vs this person. Regular sports have these very basic goals: run the fastest, jump the highest, hit the ball hard within the boundaries, that kind of thing. Plus every other sport has a stable medium: ice, grass, dirt, whatever. You have all these definites. Surfing has no definites. So you put the five best surfers in the world together into some good waves, and you can't really say who's best. Each guy's performance—it's like a painting, like some great painting. I like this one, you like that one, he likes the other guy's. It just depends on what you're into.

I've heard from just about everybody that the IPS that first year was a little wonky.

Oh man. I'd come out of a heat, look up and see guys I knew, guys I hung out with, on the judging stand. And I knew I'd be fine. I'd stink the place up during my heat and still win. Or I'd tear it up and come in last, because the other guys had 

No, not even close. Maybe Shaun and Mark Richards were. For most of us, it was "Hey, Mom, can I borrow $600 bucks so I can go to Australia?"

[Photos: Art Brewer, Jeff Divine, Jack McCoy, Dan Merkel]

Subscribe or Login

Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Interviews

Features

The Sunday Joint

Videos

Contests