Terry Eselun
Terry Eselun has been nominated for the 2016 Huntington Beach Walk of Fame.
“Local Hero”
by Terry Eselun
Terry Eselun was the youngest finalist at 16 years old to compete in the 1965 United States Surfboard Championships at the Huntington Beach Pier. She placed 4th in some of the largest waves, at 8-10 feet, in contest history. Terry surfed from San Diego to Santa Cruz in U.S.S.A. and Western Association sponsored events, often winning or placing in the finals. She went on to become one of the founding members of the Women’s International Surfing Association (WISA) and co-director with Jericho Poppler of the First Women’s International Professional Surfing contest at Malibu in 1975. As part of the publicity for that event, Terry was featured on the Regis Philbin morning television talk show on ABC. She’s also appeared in numerous print advertisements and starred in a surfing television commercial for Schlitz Beer that first aired during the 1976 Super Bowl.
Terry grew up in Long Beach, California and became obsessed with surfing in 1961 at age 12. Even before learning to surf, however, Terry’s dad would bring her down to mat surf at the Huntington Beach pier when she was 10 years old. She fell in love with the consistent, beach break waves at Huntington Beach and has been a local there ever since. During the 1960’s, she was a member of the prestigious Long Beach Surf Club and a team rider for Harbour Surfboards. Terry has lived in Huntington Beach since 1972.
She and her partner, Diann Davisson, started Sail Properties, Inc. in Huntington Beach in 1982 and their company is still involved in real estate sales and property management. Their office has been located in downtown Huntington Beach since 1999. Before that, they had an office in the original Seacliff Shopping Center across from Pero’s restaurant. They’ve watched Huntington Beach grow from a sleepy beach town to an upscale resort destination.
At 67, Terry is still an adventurous, avid surfer. She has surfed not only Hawaii, Fiji, Costa Rica, Mexico, Canada and beyond, but she currently enjoys the challenge of surfing the Channel Islands and Point Conception. Terry has traversed the Virunga Mountains to see the gorillas of Rwanda, journeyed to Mt. Everest Base Camp, hiked the Inca Trail, and climbed to the top of the Great Pyramid to see the sunrise, but she still considers Huntington Beach to be her home.
1965-75
by Terry Eselun
Finals in Huntington Beach. A late summer south was barreling through the concrete buttress causing a five-knot current to drag us northward, away from the pier. Whitewater churned as I struggled to stay behind the first “T,” allowing the set to pass so we could make it to the south side for the start of the heat. The heavy plastic TopTex helmet we all had to wear made me off balance and disoriented. I tugged at the strap as water squished out, blurring my vision. The men’s t-shirt jersey tied in a knot restricted my natural rhythm. There was a cacophony of sounds from the crashing waves to the announcer on the pier saying something about the start of the women’s final. I remember Joyce Hoffman had helped me tie my jersey on the beach, but now she was all business. Mary Lou (McGinnis) Drummy glanced at me and her face reflected what I felt: scared. And, these waves were scary business.
As often happened in the sixties, the women were allocated the leftover time slots. We huddled in the sun and weather all day, waiting while the men surfed the prime morning hours before the wind grew to a westerly gale in the afternoon and the surf turned to junk. On this late afternoon not only was it blown-out, but the tide had dropped to a minus, and ten-foot high lines were stacked to the horizon.
Somehow we made it under the pier and into the line-up on the south side. We had to keep paddling south just to stay in place below the ABC Wide World of Sports camera platform. I heard an announcer read off our names and when he got to mine: Terry Eselun, at sixteen the youngest girl to reach the finals. All I could think was let’s get this started and over with. The starting horn blared.
One by one I lost sight of the others in the caldron of closed-out ten-footers. There was no shape, just great walls of voodoo blasting toward the pier. I paddled south, trying to stay in position; fifteen minutes clicked by. Finally, I decided I had to take off. As a set approached, I stroked in and free-fell to the bottom. Cranking a bottom turn, the ugly, huge mass of water came over on top of me just as I faced the barnacled pier.
From then on: chaos. The sand-heavy wave exploded, and ripped my board away (Pre-leash days). Underwater, I bounced once off a piling and felt myself whisked through the pier, caught in an uncontrollable foamy torrent. I remember fighting for the surface, but the damned helmet kept weighting me down. Struggling for air, I finally broke free, only to be hit again and again and shoved underwater. By now the contest was out of my mind and all I wanted was to reach the shore. When I did crawl in, exhausted, I had been swept two lifeguard towers north, the finals long over. Somehow I managed to find my board and walk back to the south side.
When I got there, my mom was waiting, ringing her hands, glad I was okay. In an era that didn’t think much of surfers or surfing and especially women surfing, having my mom at every event made my life okay.
Joyce won that day. She usually did. She was a machine and a fierce competitor. Nancy Nelson took second. Ann Shimeal, who I don’t remember came in third. And I got fourth for just getting to my feet. Marylou came in fifth. And Ann Tasker, another name that escapes me, sixth.
By the late sixties I was done with contests, but ten years later I got involved again. The second wave of feminism was sweeping the nation from sports to politics so women surfers, tired of being treated as second-class citizens of the sea, formed their own organization: the Women’s International Surfing Association.
In 1975, Jericho Poppler and I co-directed, along with WISA, the First Hang Ten Women’s International Professional Surfing Championship in Malibu, California. Without any experience, but excited and groping in the dark, we created a budget, found sponsors, secured radio time and I even managed a live gig on Regis Philbin’s television show to talk about women’s surfing. For the first time, women had their own professional event with prize money. I don’t think we realized then how amazing it was, but that first pro event proved to be the stepping stone for contests to come.
I’ve continued to surf and at age 64, I’m still hunting for that perfect wave. I own a small Whaler for surf exploration and for my 60th birthday traveled to Vancouver Island, then by small boat to surf remote reefs with only good friends, bears, whales, and eagles above. Surfing, being in the water, is in my blood. It is my blood. For women, finding our way into the surfer’s tribe is easier now than it was in the fifties or sixties. In large part, it is thanks to the women who went before, who paved the way, the small cadre of women who got up at the crack of dawn, begged and borrowed a board, pushed off into the water, not caring what people thought or how they looked. Now you can find women surfing from Alaska to Australia, and places in between. Many of them rip better than men.
So, if you haven’t tried surfing and you feel the call: find one of the many great surf schools and start! As for me, I hope to see you in the water.
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