TANNERS IDOL 1-23-08
By Corky Carroll

My wonderboy son Tanner just tuned eleven. He is the coolest kid and is deep into skateboarding. He is dedicated. On his birthday I asked him now that he is the ripe old age of eleven has he thought of what he wants to be when he grows up? He didn’t even stop to think about it. “A professional skateboarder,” came out as smooth and sweet sounding as honey from a honey bear. He had that music in his voice that comes when something is said with emotion and love. Obviously he is passionate about it. He told me he has put together a promotional video and is ready to seek out sponsors and the whole nine and a half yards. Reminded me of me at eleven except I wanted to be a professional surfer. Problem for me was there were no pro surfers to use as role models at that time. But there is a world of pro skateboarders out there. So I asked him who he looked up to as his role model, the one skateboard guy that he respected the most and would like to be “just like.”

I expected him to say Tony Hawk. When he was younger everything was Tony Hawk. But he surprised me and said, “Ryan Sheckler.” Wow, I thought. Ryan is a young dude from San Clemente that I have heard about but not all that much. But that is due to the fact that I am immersed in surfing totally and really have no ideas about what is going on in the skateboarding world. My skateboard days ended the last time I did a face plant on the sidewalk after not seeing a big crack in the cement. That was maybe ten years ago.

So I decided to do something I rarely do. Research. I hate doing that stuff as it gives too much truth to my columns when I love it to be full of rumors and innuendos….. and sometimes stuff I make up…hahahaha. But today I figured I better find out who this dude was that my beautiful son Tanner wanted to grow up and be like.

What I found out is that Ryan Sheckler is going HUGE in the skateboard world. And he just turned eighteen. I found out that he has a number of shoes that he designed and are named after him made by the hot skate shoe brand Etnies. So that is where I began my search for Ryan Sheckler. I was at the Surf Expo in Florida last week and made it a point to check out the Etnies booth and see what I could find out about this soaring skate superstar. I normally hang out in the surfboard booth area or sometimes in the resort wear area. I like surfboards and resort wear I guess. Venturing into the skate area is a whole different thing all together. First off there are scary looking people all over the place with pierced heads and flaming hair. No, I don’t mean the colors, I mean real flames. They light themselves on fire all the time just for the fun of it. And also the volume goes up big time. You can’t hear anything. This is probably good because you don’t want to hear what they are saying anyway. It is something different.

What I found out is that Ryan currently has two shoe models out with his name on them and two more coming out soon. I was told that he would not be at that show though and that was about all the info I got. So, getting really crazy and researching even further, I came home and called up Etnies. I had the good fortune to get Ashton Maxfield on the phone. Ashton is a cool dude who actually reads this column and is the P.R. guy. He told me that indeed Ryan is the real deal. The night before I called he appeared on the Jay Leno show and that very morning was on with Ryan Seacrest. Geeze, this kid is big. He also said that he would ask Ryan to send out a pair of his shoes to Tanner.

When I told Tanner this he was stoked to the max. Tanner skates at a little skatepark that sits in the shadows of the Etnies offices near his home in Foothill Ranch. I asked him just what it was about Ryan Sheckler that made him respect him above all the other skate stars. I love his answer. He said that what he liked about Ryan was the fact that he was totally committed to the sport, well actually the words he used were, “he is completely into developing his art.” He is not being sidetracked by all the extra-added attractions that can totally screw up a young persons rise to success in any field. Just check the tabloids to see what I am talking about. Today’s mousekateers are tomorrow’s D.O.A.’s.
Ryan Sheckler is paying attention to the right things. What I am happier about than that is that my young eleven-year-old Tanner knows the difference and respects it. Makes me very proud. His mother obviously has had a good influence on his values.

 

MICHAEL PATRICK HALEY
The Wave ~ 1-23-08
By Corky Carroll

One of the things that really don’t like to write about is when yet another good friend passes away. But this is one of those times. Sometime during the night between Jan 15th and 16th former United States Surfing Champion, and one of my best friends from the 1960’s, Mike Haley lost a battle with liver cancer. I got the news from Steve Pezman, a mutual friend and the publisher of The SURFER’S JOURNAL magazine. Evidently Mike had only been diagnosed with this a couple of weeks ago but it was already too strong for him to fight off. Steve, along with other local surfers and friends Richard Chew and Roy Crump, made the trip to Mike’s home in Nipomo, California, just north of Santa Maria, to visit him just after the diagnosis came in. Steve said all Mike’s boards were hanging from the ceiling and he had been surfing right up until he got the bad news.

Mike Haley was originally from Seal Beach and went to Huntington Beach High School. He, along with his older brother Jack, had a major impact on my young surfing career when I was growing up in Surfside. Mike became a very close friend and we spent a lot of time surfing together in the later sixties when he and his wife Sherry lived in Laguna Beach and had a progressive clothing store called “Leopard Spots.” I was living in San Clemente at the time and we used to travel around together to go surfing. Mike was a great surfer and had an amazing sense of humor. Hanging out with him was always a ton of fun.

Mike’s surfing career began when he won the United States Surfing Championships here in Huntington Beach in 1960. His older brother Jack had won it in 1959. Jack had a thriving surfboard business in Seal Beach and Huntington Beach, which he later sold to a guy named Chuck Dent who worked in the Huntington Beach store. Mike was more of a surfer than businessman though. He took to traveling and having fun while Jack took to business and making money. Jack would eventually open up the fantastic restaurant “Captain Jack’s” in Sunset Beach. That is still one of my favorite restaurants on Earth and the home of the best prime rib and Crab Legs known to man or beast. Mike worked there for a while, as did most of the surfers in the area, including me. Jack gave me my first paid gig as a musician back in 1970. I was the off night entertainment in the summers.

Mike married the beautiful Sherry Novaks from Long Beach in December of 1963 in an Oceanside ceremony at Sunset Beach on the north shore of Hawaii. I was standing there watching them get married while perfect fifteen-foot waves peeled off in the background. It was amazing because nobody was out, everyone was at the wedding. That was how popular Mike Haley was. He was one of those dudes that everybody liked. He always had a smile and something good to say no matter what. Steve Pezman said that when they went to visit him that he was doing his best to act cool and be himself although they could tell he was in pain and a bit groggy from the medication. Just like Mike to try and be funny and cool when he was actually in the process of dying.

One of my favorite memories of Mike was in 1970. We had just made the first few twin fin surfboards and I had the first one and Mike had about the third one. Terry Martin and Mickey Munoz were shaping them for us and it had only taken a few to get the design right. I had been riding mine for about two weeks when we went and picked up one for Mike from the Hobie factory in Capistrano Beach. It was a hot summer afternoon with no wind and a clean overhead south swell running. We stuck Mike’s board in the back of my Ford Van and made it down to Cotton’s Point as fast as I could drive. It was one of those magic afternoons. Only a few people out and perfect conditions.

I remember watching Mike carve across this big clean set wave and do an amazing roundhouse cutback that even surprised him. When we came paddling back out he had this huge smile on his face. He looked at me and said, “This is soooooooooooooo nectar.” I had never heard the term “nectar” used before except to describe the fruit. But it was the perfect term for that day and that experience. It was like the sweetest nectar. To this day when I think of Mike I always think of that term. And when I hear that word used as an adjective I think of Mike. I am not exactly sure how old he was, but I am thinking about 64. His little sister Cindy was in my class all through grammar school and high school and Mike was about 4 years older than us.

Adios Michael Patrick Haley. A great surfer and friend. May you ride long and have a nectar time in Heaven. You were a really good one.