The Genesis and Exodus of the La Jolla High School Surf Team - 1959

True story as it was originally told to me and acknowledged by all the parties over a several year period.

I was a teacher's assistant at Muirlands Junior High School for the 1969 - 1970 school year.
The school was built on the original baseball fields inhabited by the La Jolla Pony League,
the La Jolla Little League, and the Jewel City League. It was opened in 1964, taking the La Jolla
kids from the 7th, 8th, and 9th grades. The City School Administration, in their utmost wisdom, decided it
would be better for the young lads and lasses to not get kicked in their asses, by their older classmates
in the 10th, 11th and 12th grades. A smart move up the hill from the Big Boys..

Muirlands, just east above the High School, circa 1973

I was in my first year of law school at Western State University, downtown San Diego,
where my instructors included the Honorables William Cooney and Earl B. Gilliam. The former, stuck
forever in the hallways of Muni Court, the latter subsequently elevated to the Federal Bench in San Diego.
After my graduation with my English degree from San Diego State, my parents agreed to continue to board
and feed me if I took graduate courses. Enter the Law. The law school would permit me to take night classes.
Yes! I could work part-time during the day at Muirlands, attempting to inculcate the surf nazis and hippie
children with the four R's, reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic and rowdyism while I surfed the La Jolla beaches.

A counselor at Muirlands was Mike Nugent, a former history teacher and counselor at La Jolla High School
when I was entertained at that institution from 1958 through 1964. An excellent counselor, a very good
person, known and loved by all for his advice and commiseration.

I was talking to him one time over the lunch period, I think it was during the series between
those marvelous Mets and the Orioles. He knew I surfed. We were discussing all the surfers that
had attended La Jolla Junior-Senior High School. We spoke at length of the well-known surfers, the good surfers.
My name wasn't mentioned in those paragraphs.

My forte was pushing waves.

I remember about 1962, first time I surfed North Bird. To me, the waves appeared incredibly large,
twelve to fifteen foot faces. Maybe it was smaller, I don't know, I was rather small at the time.
An outside set rolled in and I rolled upside down on my 10'2" Hobie, wrapping my arms and legs around the board,
ready to push through the wave. The first wave took my board and pushed it one hundred yards into the rocks,
with me hanging onto the bottom of the board. I thought I was dead. But when I realized that I was actually thinking
that I was dead, I knew I was alive. Barely.

I extricated myself from the rocks, checked the fresh dings on my board, found they were
not located in an area that might cut me, and paddled back out. I realized that pushing medium-sized
waves was an adrenalized experience, but that if I was in good physical shape, I could survive it.
Little did I know that I would unconsciously seek that experience repeatedly. But I digress.

So Mike, we are on a first name basis now because he is dead as I write this and my present age
is older than he was back in 1969, tells me about the genesis and exodus of the La Jolla High School Surfing Team.

Mike says it was the brain child of Marty Darby, one of the wild men of WindanSea around the turn of the
fifties into the sixties. Marty graduated in 1961 and the yearbook states his Pipe Dream is "Go to the
Islands with Hager, all expenses paid." Marty was an excellent carpenter. Lived in Mammoth a long time.

Marty Darby, another La Jolla Boy

Martin Darby, Greta Green, Class of 1961 Surfers

Butch Van Artsdalen, multi-sported Letterman, 1959-60 season

Fred Kenyon on left, Chuck Norris center, Andy Ahpo right: many stories to tell

Anyway, Mike says he will check into it. After all, these guys all participate in major sports for the High School,
representing the Vikings in their contests with Mission Bay and Pt. Loma and San Diego and other vaunted opponents. So why
not surfing? Next day, Mike goes looking for Marty to discuss the idea some more. He can't find him, figures he took sick.
Following day, same search, same results. Third day, same thing. So Mike checks the attendance records and finds out
that Marty didn't show up for school those three days. Neither did Butch, nor Fred. What gives? So Mike goes down to
WindanSea at the lunch break and discovers the three team members out surfing the waves. The waves are decent, so there are
some alumni standing under the shack, drinking some beers in the Lot. Mike sends one out to get the team out of the water.
They come in, not contrite, but pissed that he called them in during the lunch break! Marty says they're practicing for a big
meet they have coming against Mission Bay and what is so important to pull them out of the water? Mike, his face turning red
with anger, shouts at them to get back to school, that the surf team is an idea still in the embryonic stage, and that if word
gets out about this fiasco, it will be aborted.

Harold Balsiger, Vice Principal/Enforcer--note his autograph from my yearbook,
when I was a snotnosed 13 year-old who thought yearbook autographs were cool!

Too late, for the ever vigilant vice-principal, Mr. Harold Balsiger is up in the parking lot, talking with the alumni and the
drop outs, in his search for the truants. He sees Mike with the misdemeanants and walks down the slope to the Shack.
He asks why they are not in school, ignoring Mike. Fred says they are practicing for the surf team. He asks what surf team?
Butch looks to Marty and says, Marty's the president of the La Jolla High School Surf Team. He scheduled this practice. Coach
Edwards should be down here later to check on us. This is all said with a straight face, no laughter or smiles from any of
the accused. Mike thinks these guys should be in the drama class for their thespian talents or that they really believe
everything they are saying. He didn't smell any liquor on their breath. Mr. Balsiger looks at Mike and then at the three
and says, "there is no La Jolla High School Surf Team and there never will be a La Jolla High School Surf Team.
Get your clothes, get up to the boy's gym, take a shower, and report to my office after school."

WindanSea hut, circa. 1959

When I was the teacher's assistant at Muirlands in 69-70, Mr. Balsiger was the principal of the school. He did not remember
this incident. He did not deny that it happened, he simply stated that he had no independent recollection of the event
and he did not know of any writings in existence to prove the story as told by Mike.

When I was living at 6671 Neptune, I asked Butch about it sometime before his departure from this world when he was
revisiting the Lot. He couldn't remember too many things at that point in his life, and this was one of them. He could
neither confirm nor deny the story, but said Mike was a straight shooter, like pure tequila.

I asked Marty about it in the early 80's, prior to his demise, when I saw him at a wedding in North County. He just smiled.
I remembered all Darby's liked to smile and I remember him in the mid-fifties living on Olivet Street in La Jolla, next to us
smaller kids, and how one time a man in a car started yelling at us elementary school kids and Marty came out and backed him down.

I asked Fred about it in 1979, when I was studying Tang Soo Do with him. He confirmed Mike's account, and added this ending.

Boomer Beach, closed to the boards, August 2003

For the next two weeks they had to report to him at 7 a.m. before the start of classes, and after their last class until 4 p.m.,
to help pick up trash and debris in the school rooms. They also had to police the field and school grounds that weekend.
That way they couldn't surf before or after school, as it was no longer daylight saving's time and the sun rose at 6 a.m. and set at 5 p.m.
Fred said there was a full moon during the two weeks and the three probationers paddled out in the dark over at Boomer for
a few rides to thumb their nose at the Enforcer.

So ends the story of the Genesis and Exodus of the La Jolla High School Surf Team, year 1959.

Let all alumni throughout the World hoist a tall cool one to it's memory.

Click here to see photographs of the La Jolla Surfers at Boomer circa 1961

short video clip of the team, now unofficial, at Boomer Beach, circa 1960

Return to Documentary Department

Return to Menu

Copyright 2003 WindanSeaBeach.com