All quotes below are from "Shaun at the Crossroads," Phil Jarratt's profile on Shaun Tomson, which ran in the December 1978 issue of SURFER. Tomson was 22.


I’m very disillusioned with professionalism in surfing. I thought 1978 would be a big year, but it just hasn’t turned out that way. People haven’t accepted surfing as a mainstream sport, and consequently, it’s very difficult to make a living. I don’t think there's enough money in the sport at the moment to carry even one person well, and I think next year I’m almost definitely going back to university. I’ve come to a crossroads in my life where I have to make a choice between surfing and the future. And I don’t think the future lies in surfing. It’s a bummer it doesn’t.

In my own country, I’m the only young professional sportsman who is reasonably intelligent and reasonably articulate, and I’m involved with an exciting and glamorous sport. God, I really thought I’d strike it rich. How much longer can I go on with the professional circuit when I make $20,000 in prize money and put out $20,000 in expenses? That’s what happened last year, and I was the biggest earner of the year by about $5,000. It’s something where you just can’t succeed.


The whole thing is too long. Pro surfing badly needs a season—say a six-month season in which all the contests are held. That way the surfers don’t burn out, and you have time to do other things. Every other sport has its season, and the rest of the time the guys can go away and have some sort of private and family life.

To tell you the truth, I'm bored. You know, surfing isn’t just a matter of being motivated to win. It has to go beyond pure motivation. You have to be really stoked in your surfing, and in the last few months, I haven’t been. No matter how motivated you are, you can't spend four or five hours a day improving your surfing if you're not having a good time out there. What I need to do is just take a break from it for a while and come back and approach it with a fresh outlook.


I surfed in the Stubbies this year against Colin Smith—an excellent surfer, but a guy I can beat 99 times out of 100—and the waves were one to two feet, and the luck factor beat me. Then I surfed in the Surfabout against Cheyne Horan—again an excellent surfer, but one I can beat 99 times out of 100—and again I was beaten by lousy conditions.



I’m really, really terrified of them. Sometimes if I break a leash and have to swim in through deep water, I just don’t feel like going out and surfing again. I saw a movie once where a guy got his leg bitten off—I mean it really happened—and I dream about that movie constantly.


I love it. I love the feeling of going into a restaurant and being recognized, of a person coming up and asking for your autograph. I like the feeling of being recognized for being good at something. I know I’m good at surfing, and I feel I deserve the accolades I’ve been getting. It’s the icing on the cake. It adds that little bit more to all you've put together in the water. And it’s just at that nice level where you don’t get mobbed; you've still got the freedom to go anywhere you want without being hassled


Gerry Lopez made a big contribution to tube riding by consistently deeper and disappearing, which no one had done before, [but] I’ve taken tuberiding into another realm. People have talked about it, but I've taken it a step further and actually started doing maneuvers and full turns inside the tube. It’s taken me years to do it. Your natural instinct is to trim tight and get the hell out. You have to train your mind to slow down and accept the reality of the situation you're in. I really feel that I’ve broken the straight line—and I’m breaking it still.

You remember the long ones. There's hundreds and hundreds of short ones, but the really long ones where you're concentrating hard and doing deep turns, where you're carving and these sections are exploding over in front of you—and you suddenly burst out like you’re shot out of the barrel of a gun—those are the ones you remember. When the spit hits you so hard it’s like rubbing sandpaper over your skin. When you're actually breathing inside the tube.

When I first started surfing, I got a thrill out of just standing up or just turning. Now I’ve got to look for things that are more difficult to do, things that will tempt me and excite me. I don’t want be thought of as just a tuberider. That’s the thing where I’ve specialized, yes, but the rest of my surfing is still very strong. I get a lot of satisfaction out of doing a perfect bottom turn or a radical cutback. But for pure enjoyment and pure thrill, tuberiding comes first. You're happy and frightened at the same time. Being spat out of one of those giant, roaring Hawaiian tubes is the most amazing sensation I’ve ever experienced in my life. It’s joy, fear and accomplishment all rolled into one experience.

"TIME IS EXPANDED WHEN YOU'RE IN THE TUBE"


It definitely is. You’re perceiving so many different things so fast that reality actually seems to slow down. This is a characteristic of something known as peak experience. It doesn't happen often in your lifetime. I’ve read about football players being on the field and everyone else seems to them to be moving in slow motion, and they throw the ball, and it lands exactly where they want it to because they’re perfectly in control of mind and body. These are the moments that I see as my reasons for surfing. Those peak experiences inside the tube.


Coming from a country with such an explosive political situation obviously . . .

God, you’ve been wanting to ask me this for how many years? (Laughs.)

. . . you’re going to be held up as a political scapegoat at times, no matter what you say. Maybe I’ve gone soft, but I don’t think it’s a fair thing to do to a 22-year-old who earns his living from surfing. I don't see why you should be forced to make a political statement [on apartheid], but because you're from South Africa, does it mean you must have a political viewpoint ready to lay on people?

People don’t ask me political questions, strange as that may seem. They seem to realize my position, that I’m just a young kid running around the world surfing. Now I’ve got thoughts on the situation down there, but they're not ready to pop out for any interviewer who comes along.

(Long pause). Oh my God. (Laughs.) Tell you what, I’d rather not answer that one.

Okay, I’m proud of my country. I’m not proud of everything in my country. There are a lot of things I'd like to see changed in my country because I think it’d be a better place to live for all South Africans.

I’m religious in that I believe in God. I’m Jewish and I go to the synagogue, and I observe certain Jewish traditions, but I don't think I’m overly religious. Judaism affects my life to a certain extent. I can relate to Israel and I can sympathize with the Zionist cause. I can really relate to being Jewish, but my life isn’t governed by the laws of the Torah. Surfing is the most important thing to me.

Surfing is more important to you than your religion?

Yeah. It’s more important than anything.

Does being Jewish affect the way you approach some things in your life?

If you were Catholic, I wouldn't have asked it, but being Jewish goes deeper than religious beliefs.

I’m sure it does, but I couldn’t pinpoint an instance. It just boils down to how I’ve been brought up morally, and it’s hard to say what is Jewish faith and how much of it is my parents’ own moral beliefs.

I think I am. I think I’m a sincere person. One thing I’ve learned is the importance of honesty in a relationship with a woman. God—you know, I don’t know how important this is going to be for a bloody surfing magazine.

[Photos: Art Brewer, Dan Merkel, Bernie Baker]

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