Quotes from this interview with Gary Green were used in Matt Warshaw's "True Shades of Green" profile, which ran in the January 1988 issue of SURFER. Green was 24 years old. A few weeks after this interview was recorded, Green, rated #6 in the world, quit the pro tour.

Nah, I left when I was 16. I set a school record that year with 47 missed days.

Kind of, yeah. My dad worked in a rubber factory and didn't earn much of a wage. We lived in this cheap mass-produced welfare sort of flat for 30 bucks a week. You could only get one if you were low income. That was in west Sydney, west of Cronulla, way out in the suburbs.

It didn't really bother me. All my friends from school, they didn't have much money either, and we used to catch a train to the beach. We didn't know any different, you know?

When I met you for the first time, in 1981, you weren't poor.

No, my folks split in '78. Dad went to Victoria, and Mom married a millionaire and we moved to Newport. I lived there for there or four years. Tom and Nick Carroll used to live together, and when Tom moved out I moved in with Nick.

Nick did, a lot, yeah. Not just my career, but everything.

He got me reading books and stuff. He also did a lot for my confidence. Like I always thought I was a kook, pretty much, but Nick and Tom both started to push me a bit. And after a while there I was, surfing with those guys, and Derek [Hynd], and the rest of the Newport club guys, and I was pretty much keeping up. I started to think, "Well, I'm not 

But you consider yourself a Cronulla guy now, right?

I ended up back there after I moved out of Nick's place, so yeah. I wasn't in Newport all that long.


What was Cronulla like when you were a kid?

It's a city right on the beach. It's kind of the Huntington of Australia. It's the only beach in Sydney that has a train running right to it. The train comes out from the western suburbs, so you get all those kids from way out there, and it the summer it's just a scene. So packed, it's unbelievable.

The beachbreaks are average, but when the swell's up, you've got Voodoo and Shark Island and Cronulla Point. There's a lot of variety. And there's always waves; there's always something to ride. Cronulla's always had a lot of really hot surfers. When I was young it was Jim Banks, Ross Marshall, guys like that. Ross was really good, he came second in the Pro Junior the year Joe Engel won, I think in 1979. But like I say, it was kind of a hard place, too. Like Michael Peterson was just a full God to all those guys, and when Michael got heavily into drugs, into heroin, they all did do, and everybody except Banksy pretty much just faded.

No, not at all, not when I was a kid. The whole place, during the mid-'70s, late-'70s, just when I was starting to get competent, was really anti-contest. Especially compared to now. I mean, these days Cronulla is just full-on into contests, because of Occy and Richard Marsh and myself, so now it's cool to be a hero. When I was a kid, it was totally different.

Do you look forward to getting back there after you've been on the road?

I do, yeah, heaps. All my friends are there. I miss playing pool at the North Cronulla Hotel, I miss the clubs. At home I get really unhealthy, it's just one long party all the time. If I've been away on Tour for a few weeks, or a couple of months, I come home and all my friends want to show me a good time.

You not known for being especially healthy while on Tour, either, though.

You're sort of opposite of guys like Tom Curren or Damien Hardman, who are pretty much off by themselves and always intense; always concentrating all the time. You just hang out on the bleachers and talk to people.

I reckon that's pretty much right, yeah. I'm just stoked to be surfing and getting paid for it. I'm getting more serious about things, but I never want it to get to the stage where I'm not having a good time. Otherwise I might as well not do it. I don't ever want to be too intense.

Are you where you expected to be these days, in terms of the ratings?

No, I'm way higher. I never even thought I'd make the Top 16.

No, not really. Maybe it was, like, kind of a dream I'd have now and then. Two years ago I finished 20th, and I didn't want to do the Tour anymore after that. At that point, my sponsorship deals were still really weak. If it wasn't for Billabong, I couldn't have even done the Tour last year, they gave me plane tickets and stuff. For a while there, I was bummed out because there were all these other guys, David Eggers and people like that, getting fully comped. I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder about all that. I was kind of sick of it all, to tell you the truth. I remember times when I'd be on tour thinking, "I want to go home, this isn't for me, I'd rather just be surfing at home," that kind of thing.

Yeah, I'm more confident now. It's all finally starting to seem worthwhile. All the years put into it. I've been surfing now for 14 years—although I most probably wasn't as dedicated as some other pros.


Would you drop any vices to win the Title?

Now that I've made the Top 16 I've sort of pulled back on drinking and taking drugs. I still drink beer sometimes, and indulge in stuff, but nowhere near as much as I used to. Up until this year, I used to have to get stoned before I went surfing, otherwise I wouldn't be in the mood.

Just about, yeah. (Pause) But you know, there's a lot of guys like that. Like your average surfer back home, your grassroots surfer, especially in Cronulla . . .

The last year or so. Except at the Fosters contest in England, every afternoon when the heats were over they'd hand out these beer tickets, good for a pint, and we'd go around and get all the beer tickets off the Christians, then go out for a practice surf with a few pints inside us.

Yeah, for sure. I go out there when it's total slop, just to practice. It bums me out. A lot of times, that's why I get stoned, just to make it more interesting. Otherwise, it's like, No way, I don't want to even go out there.

Without naming names, how many guys in the Top 16 will go as hard as yourself?

Drinking and stuff? A couple. Not many, actually. Maybe just one or two. I'd most likely be the most extreme. I pretty much live for having a good time. That's been my downfall in a way. I don't think ahead much.

Some guys in the Top 16 have advocated drug-testing. They've gone way over to the other side.

Yeah, well, I reckon drugs are bad for the sport, in a way. On the other hand, a lot of those guys talking about drug testing and that kind of stuff are kidding themselves.

Aw, you know. They're pretending to be a lot straighter than they really are.


Was it lack of fitness that caused you to pull out of the Billabong last year? [Green and fellow Aussie Bryce Ellis chose not to paddle out for their respective heats in the 1986 Billabong Pro, held at Waimea Bay.]

When I got to Hawaii last year I was so unfit, smoking heaps and stuff, so yeah, that's one of the reasons I pulled out of the contest. The biggest reason, I'd say. I didn't feel like my lungs were really ready.

I checked it pretty early and thought, "Yeah, no worries, I'll go out there." So I sat down to watch, telling myself that I could just sort of hang wide and get the small ones. That was my plan. I mean, I'd only ever surfed the place once before, back in 1983, when it was maybe just 15-foot. So there was no way I was going to out there on a 25-foot day and charge, you know? But yeah, I'd thought I'd go catch a couple, give it a shot.

Right. I didn't go out and have a practice surf or anything. I didn't even have a board, actually, but Mike Latronic said I could use his 8'6".

A late one, I think it was heat eight. So I'm sitting there watching, and Rob Bain was in the first heat. Bainy smokes too, and he'd already had about four that morning, just from being really nervous. And I said to myself, Well, if Bainy's out there, I'm out there for sure.

And then in his heat he just got hammered by that close-out set.

I watched that, the whole thing, and it was a full nightmare. I'm standing next to Randy Rarrick, and he says something about how the swell was picking up. The set that got Bainy was a full closeout, and Randy is saying it's getting bigger, so now I'm really freaked out.

I kind of stewed over it for a couple more heats, and there were two more sets that almost closed out. And then, yeah, I just decided I wasn't going to do it.

But you were going back and forth for a while?

Oh, it was just a total tug-of-war in my head.

Did you stick around and watch your heat?

I was super bummed. The waves got smaller and cleaner. I should have gone out. I kept thinking, over and over, You blew it, You blew it. And now it's always there in the back of my mind, and it will be for the rest of my life, I think.

How do you feel about Pipe and Sunset and places like that?

Pipe doesn't really worry me that much, 'cause you're going to get washed up the beach. Fitness doesn't much play a part in it. You're going to get decked, you're going to get smashed into the bottom, it could happen to anyone, fit or not. It's a quick thing. What I'm scared of is getting held underwater for a long time. I can't think of a worse way to go.

If it happened again this year [big Waimea for a contest], would you paddle out?

For sure. It's part of the job. I'm supposed to be able to ride anything they send me out in. This year I'm going to train for Hawaii.

Well, swimming and stretching; that sort of thing.

As much as I can, yeah. (Pause) Aw, I'm pretty slack, actually. (Pause) I don't know, maybe I won't even do it.

What do you guys on the tour think of Tom Curren?

Everyone's kind of in awe of him. He's taking surfing into the future. That, and he just has this mystique; he keeps to himself, he's quiet. He doesn't seem to be really close to anyone. Occasionally he'll break out and laugh and joke, but he can go a whole contest and nobody even sees him. He's the modern-day Michael Peterson, except he's not into drugs.

Will surfing every be a mainstream sport, do you think?

I don't know. Maybe. Probably not. The money's so meager compared to a lot of other sports, tennis and golf and sports like that. But really what it comes down to is with those other sports, everyone can relate to them. Surfing is a special sort of thing. People don't really understand it. Take a guy like my stepfather, just your average guy, makes a bit of money, doesn't surf—as far he sees it, we're just galavanting around the world, surfing, getting on all the good-looking chicks, and basically getting paid to play around. Most people can't relate to that.


[Photos: James Cassimus, Robert Beck, Adrian Kerstens]

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