"Chris O'Rourke: I'm Sure Gonna Try!", written by photographer Warren Bolster, was published in the August 1978 issue of SURFER, when O'Rourke was 19. One year earlier, O'Rourke had been diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease.

When did you really start getting into surfing?

Around sixth grade. My family moved to Windansea, and it totally changed my whole idea on surfing, because it was a reef break, you know, there was so much more juice. I was totally freaked to go out there at first. It was just weirdness to me because I’d been surfing beachbreaks all my life. Now here I am at a reef with a heavy shorebreak, rips, all this stuff, and I was so little; it blew my mind. I started surfing the inside rights. "Right Hooker" has this little section that gets really good sometimes, and then I just kind of moved my way further outside, partly just to watch all the hotter guys surf. Like at the Shores (La Jolla), a lot of good guys surfed there, but you couldn’t really watch ’em, because its a beachbreak. While you're paddling one way, they'd be surfing another.

Around that time I met Brew Briggs and Mark Brolaski; the whole Brolaski family lived right in front of Windansea on this corner house, so it was kind of like the full hang-out pad for all the young surf guys. We’d play ping-pong and surf everyday. Then the older Windansea guys started getting stoked on us younger guys, and they kind of helped us line up and paddle out, do this and that, you know, give us little pointers on how to surf the place better. After a few years, you’d just have the place wired; you knew exactly where the wave’s gonna come in, where it’s gonna break, it'll back off here, and over there you'd have to plane up high and then and wait for that bowl to cut back.

Like I said, the older locals kind of accepted us kids. David Rullo and Tom Ortner and Jon Close. They were stoked on us us; they pushed us. They wanted us to get better, and that was great because they were kind of our heroes; we just thought, “God, those guys are so hot.” We used to go on trips to the mountains, and it was kind of like a big family.

Then some of the older guys, Close and Rullo, they started getting into music, so they kind of disappeared. Ortner got married. But us younger guys kept hanging out. I remember, we knew where all the best fruit trees were. Brew had this map, and we could get to millions of raspberries, strawberries, peaches . . . it was insane. We'd go and score everyday. Then a couple years later, some more guys came into our little gang, you know, we'd go out with chicks and cruise around and hang out. Go to parties and get spaced, come home, wake up the next morning and go surfing early. We did everything together, just like all kids do.

What do you think it is about Windansea area that has attracted and developed so many good surfers over the years?

The reefs around here get really good, and Windansea itself is super consistent; it breaks almost no matter what. A lot of other spots don’t. It’s got kelp; it doesn't blow out too easily. It's got juice. Windansea and all the other reefs are more powerful than a lot of other places in California.

Windansea has always been a really style-conscious place. Why do you think that is?

I guess just because a lot of the good guys who surfed out there were smooth, and they were very casual people on land.

Except on the other hand, I’ve seen and heard of situations where non-locals are given a hard time. How do you feel about that?

I think it’s a bummer. I’m not into that at all. But I do think if you’re out there surfing and some guy’s gonna drop in on you and endanger your life by nailing you—I’ve seen guys out there who can’t even paddle—then they should be learning to surf at a beachbreak. Guys like that should have enough sense; they should know that they shouldn’t be out there. I think that’s just totally blatant. Anyway, the locals at Windansea are considered mean, but I guess they weren't mean enough! It’s really crowded out there now.

Then to sum it up, how do you feel about localism in general?

Well, I used to think it was the only way, but when I started going to contests and traveling all over California, then to Hawaii and Australia, I met so many people and—well, how can you be a local-type guy with so many friends? You can’t vibe 

I know. It's such a narrow-minded way of thinking. You’ve got to open your mind up to different places. Everybody wants to surf unreal waves and travel, I should think. Who wants to just surf one place the whole time? You're never gonna expand your surfing that way. I regret a lot of the things that I’ve done. Guys have wanted to burn my house down for things that I've done. But what did I know? I grew up there. That's all I knew, was Windansea. That's how guys acted. In the old days, they used to sit on the shoulder with long boards, and see a guy that wasn't a local, and they'd shove their board into him. Those guys were radical. Butch Van Artsdalen and those guys—they were insane.

How do California surfers compare to those from other areas?

A few that are really good, but on the whole—it’s too much of a weird trip here. A lot of regression; guys riding super-long boards all the time, making it hard for everybody else to get waves. Surfers here could be as good as surfers from Australia and Hawaii, but they’re just not into it. There’s a lot of good East Coast guys. And you look at the waves that they have back there, the waves aren't nearly as good as here, but they’re just ripping. Jeff Crawford and Rick Rasmussen and Greg Loehr. I mean, those guys are so hot! They came from trashy beach breaks, and they rip! In Hawaii they rip, in Australia they rip, just everywhere. I don’t see why California guys can’t do the same. Except maybe the crowd situation here and the vibes are so weird that they get bummed out on surfing altogether.

How to surfers from other places view Californians, do you think?

Other areas like Australia and Hawaii think California guys are just burned out; kooks.

It's amazing to me that out of this very selfish, self-centered, non-competitive, basically non-commercial atmosphere here in California, you've actually emerged quite successfully in competition. How did it all start for you?

My parents were bummed that I was ditching school and surfing all the time, so they wanted me to start surfing in contests. A friend of my brother took me up to this contest and I won the boys' division—I was stoked! After that, for two years, I won every boys’ contest almost, except a couple. I was the number-one WSA boy from when I was like 12 until I was 13 or 14. Then when I was 14 they let me surf in the Huntington Beach 4A men’s, and I placed third in that, above Mike Purpus and these other guys. [Note: the Western Surfing Association's 4A division was for elite surfers only.] So instead of going on to juniors division, which I wasn’t even old enough for yet, they let me surf in the mens. And the first year I did good; I placed in every 4A contest, and I won one or two, placed second in a couple, and by the end of the year I was in 2nd place on the 4A ratings. Then that whole 4A system fell apart, the WSA bailed on the contests, and I think that's another reason why California hasn't come up with many competitive guys. I mean, that was hard for all of us. I put all this time and effort into making it to these 4A contests, even went when I was sick. I really put in a lot, and I got nothing.

So what opportunity does a California surfer have in the world professional surfing? It seems like there's really not much of a way to move forward. What have you done to overcome that?

I just try to be where the contests are, and try to get in ’em. A few people know me overseas, and they’ve helped to get me invitations to contests there. Like Mark Warren has been really nice. I told him I was gonna go to Australia, and he gave me the addresses of the guys running the contests, and said for sure they’d give me an invitation. But then I had to have an operation, which kind of interrupted my whole contest scene.

Tell us about that. What happened to you in the last year; what have you been going through?

Right before I went to Australia last year, my girlfriend noticed a little lump on my neck . . . just a little lump, and she said I should get it checked. I went to Australia, and I kinda started feeling weak and tired, but I thought it was no big deal. I surfed a lot, surfed in the contests, had a really good time. But the on my neck lump was getting really big, and a friend of mine, Jim Banks, who I stayed with in Australia, a really good surfer and really nice guy—his parents took me to their doctor. He said it was just a swollen lymph node. When I got back home I was reading this article in a 

 about cancer of the lymph nodes, or Hodgkins's disease. This lady in the article had it, and she described the symptoms, and I went, "Oh my God, I feel exactly like she does." So my girlfriend took me in, and the doctor said I had to go to the hospital the next day and have my neck cut open. So I went in, had the operation, and when I woke up I was really spaced on drugs and stuff, and I heard them talking about cancer, and I went, “Oh my God, I think that's me." They said I had like a five percent chance to live. I was really blown away. Like I just couldn’t accept that; I just couldn't believe it; no way, man. I love everything I’m doing, and I wanted to go on.

After that I had to stay in the hospital for tests and this and that. They couldn’t do anything for a while because I had this infection in my spine. When that went away, there was another operation and they took out my spleen and checked out my whole insides. They took out part of my lymph nodes. Then I recuperated for a while at home, then I started with radiation. I couldn't do anything at first. I just laid in the house. I couldn't even move. I would just sleep and throw up all the time, then I slowly got outside and started to feel my way around, and get my head back together, and I just had to go surfing, so I surfed. And each time I surfed, I got a little bit stronger, and after a while I felt that I could just surf like I surfed before, and that's what I did.


In Hawaii last year, I heard you were hitch-hiking or taking the bus into Town [Honolulu] everyday for radiation treatments.

A lot of times, yeah. Sometimes friends would drive me in. This one guy, a friend of a friend, would sometimes take me in then let me spend the night at his house over by Kailua. Radiation makes you super weak. It’s like, you wake up in the morning and it feels like you’ve already jogged five miles and swam a mile. You're just burned out. Actually, what you have is radiation poisoning, so you're drained of all energy. But I just couldn't let it keep me out of the ocean. I had to surf.

Were you going surfing against your doctor’s recommendation?

Some of them said I could surf, some didn't. It all depended. Dr. Boyer, the guy I saw in Hawaii, is Lynne Boyer's father. He’s a really nice, stoked on surfing, and a really good doctor. My doctors over here are good too, but sometimes they just don't take enough time to check you out fully. Like this lump in my head; I had it for a long time before they found out what it was.

You’ve been surfing better than ever lately in spite of the radiation; what do you attribute that to?

I just think I have a lot of determination, and I’m not gonna let something like this get me down and get me bummed. I like to have a really positive attitude about everything, 'cause if you’re screwed up mentally, you're definitely not gonna perform physically.

I heard you recently saw a hypnotist. How was that?

It was neat. The guy, Dr. Brenner, showed me a really good meditation exercise, and things to do that just relieve stress and relax me. It’s helped a lot.

Like I said, I was getting radiation while I was there, but just went through it and surfed as much as I could. And when I came back, I thought, “All right, man, I feel a lot better." I was still doing treatments, but I felt stronger. Everything was coming together, you know? Then I got this little lump on my head, and I thought it was just from my board hitting me, but I got it checked out and my doctor said it was probably my ears, like swimmer’s ear, so I let it go. But suddenly I was having these pains. Like during the Katin Contest, I had this intense pain in my head. I had to wear ear plugs, and I wouldn’t even go out before my heat or anything; I'd just sit on the beach all bundled up and warm, then when my heat came I’d go out and surf, then come in and try to dry my ears out. But it was my head the whole time, not my ears.

I went down to Mexico not long after that with some friends, and all of a sudden my face went numb on one side. I couldn't open my mouth, couldn’t see out of one side, couldn’t move my hand. I was freakin’ out. We drove back to California, and by then I was feeling a little better. I went home and saw my baby, and was playing with him, then my face went numb again and my rushed me to the hospital. I had a CAT scan, and they found a tumor growing into my brain, a really big one, so they had to shave my head and cut my head open, and take part of the skull out, because the tumor was kind of attached to the skull. So it was back to radiation treatments everyday, and I’ve lost my hair.

They told me I couldn't surf for six months or a year at the earliest, but one of the doctors said if I was really freakin’ out that much, to get a really good helmet. So I put a skateboard helmet on, and now I go surfing everyday. It’s a hassle, paddling through waves and stuff, the helmet pulls on your neck and stuff. It's not like just going surfing, but it feels the same to me when I’m on a wave.

It's so soft on one side, on one whole side of my head, you could just put your finger right through it. Which sounds sickening, but it’s the truth.

And after I finish this radiation, I have to start chemotherapy, and that'll last six months or so. That's supposed to be a lot heavier than radiation because the drugs go through your whole body to kill the cancer cells, and it’s like a poison; it poisons the cancer, but your own cells are poisoned at the same time.

What effect has this had on you as far as your goals, what you’re going to do, where you want to go?

There have been so many things that I’ve wanted to do when I'm just stuck in bed. In my mind, I’m there doing it, but really I'm not doing anything. I’m just trying to get better. Like right now, I just want to get rid of all this junk, all this disease, and I get back into the pro contest scene.

Who has helped you out the most throughout this whole thing?

My wife has helped me in every aspect. She's just done so much. When I was sick, she was by me the whole time, and gave me a lot of positive vibes, a lot of will to get better and see things in a brighter light, instead of being bummed. I don’t think I could have made it without her, and her courage. Plus I’m really lucky that I met [surfboard maker] Bill Caster, because he kinda made me transcend all the heaviness and stuff. Bill’s a super good person. When I moved out of my house, he was like a father to me, and we talked all the time, not just about surfboard design, but about life in general. He’s helped me a lot just in terms of growing up, because he’s been through a lot of the same things I’ve been through. He moved out when he was real young, and he had to grow up the same way I did. He’s taught me a lot about having a child, too

It’s a good thing; it changes your life, makes you feel really good that there’s another part of you on this earth. I mean, if you die, you want to have somebody that’s part of you still here.

[Portrait by Kirk Aeder; surf photos by Warren Bolster]

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