#27: DANE KEALOHA
SURFER Celebrates the 50 Greatest Surfers of All Time
I’d be pretty pissed if Dane wasn’t on this list. To me he was a way better surfer than Mark Richards or Shaun Tomson or Rabbit Bartholomew. Not to take anything away from those guys—they’re all great surfers. But Dane was the epitome of power, style, and grace. There wasn’t anybody more powerful.
Dane surfed Backdoor as well as anyone does today, and on a twin-fin. I want to see any of these guys today go out there on a twin-fin and surf Backdoor as well as Dane did. I have a deeper love for that wave just from watching him.
I spent my whole childhood trying to surf like him, trying to be him. When I heard he was 5’ 9”, I decided I wasn’t going to get any taller than that. I ended up just over 5’ 9”. I swear I willed it. The only thing I didn’t get was his calves. Have you ever seen his legs? They’re huge. He was just a stump.
By the time I was 11, I surfed for Town & Country, so we had the same sponsor. I was constantly at the factory watching Craig Sugihara build boards. Anytime Dane came in, I was there to bug him. I ended up with all of his old beat-up boards, and I followed him everywhere. I’d call Craig and ask, “Where’s Dane surfing today?” If I knew he was coming to surf Third Dip, I’d go out to the highway and wait for him. I’d see his blue Blazer coming and I’d jump out into the road and ask for a ride.
When I started surfing Backdoor, I’d sit on the beach and wait for him to paddle out, because he’d clear the lineup. He didn’t scream like some guys; I never really saw him snap. He just had an incredible presence in the lineup, and nobody got in his way. He had more presence out there by himself than any pack ever will.
When I was 14, Town & Country sent me with him to Japan to surf in the Marui contest. I remember going through customs, giving this Japanese guy a hard time, you know, just being 14-year-old Sunny Garcia. I got slapped really hard in the back of the head. It’s Dane: “Shut up. Be polite.” He did that a lot to me. I used to think, “What a dick.” But now that I look back I realize he was just trying to straighten me out.
He should’ve been World Champ. He finished second in 1980 and third in ’81. In 1983, going into Hawaii for the last three events, the ASP had a run-in with the people organizing the Hawaii contests and decided that anyone who surfed the North Shore events would have their points stripped. Dane said, “F-ck that.” He surfed all three events and won two, and would have won the title if they hadn’t screwed him. I think that really killed him. He was only 25 when he retired.
He invented the pig-dog, grabbing rail on the left at Pipeline, but I never really saw it except in photos. I only remember him going right. When I think of Dane, I just think of him hugging that wall at Backdoor.
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READER COMMENTS
Tue Sep 8, 2009, 5:16 PM
coolest article yet on greatest 50. Except it was to short. Man, i could read some insight like that for hours on surfing legends. Great job Sunny. The first time I saw surfing on tv Sunny was dominating what I think was Sunset. So ofcourse he became my favorite surfer. You should write a book on growing up on the North Shore.
Wed Sep 9, 2009, 4:09 PM
Great article. The first and second sentences sum it up for me. Growing up in the 70's my surf heroes were: Lopez, then later Bertlemann, Buttons, Mark Liddell and Dane. Those guys were progressive and had style.