The Champs Interview: Sunny Garcia

Did your mother work?

Yeah my Mom worked. She worked, she still works, at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. She would leave the house at 11 in the morning and she wouldn’t get home till about 11 at night. So I wouldn’t really see her in the morning because she’d be sleeping, and I wouldn’t see her after school because she’d be at work. So I was pretty much on my own. My oldest sister Chris was pretty much doing her own thing (chuckles), my sister Sharon actually went with my Dad, she lived with my Dad when my parents got divorced. My young brother Jason was pretty much with me, either on the beach or I’d leave him at home. So we were pretty much on our own.

Did you do much school or did you tend to take the day off to surf?

Through the beginning part sometimes I’d get up really early and surf before school, get an hour before the bus and get my time in that way. Right around high school I started, I’d go to school in the morning, I was lucky, I had math, English and then photography, they were the three classes that I took, then I’d split. Sometimes I’d go to Makaha and sometimes I’d get away with surfing and sometimes Brian would catch me, and make me sit under the lifeguard tower until the other kids got off school. So I had to really pick the days I went to Makaha to see where Brian was at and sneak in. Once I was in the water I was OK, but if he caught me before I got in the water I was shot.

Any other sporting experiences?

I swam for the Waianae High swimming team. I was fortunate that in sixth grade they’d taken us up to the high school to teach us to swim and I learned really quick, and the coach asked if I would swim for the team and I did that for a year and a half, maybe. I won a couple of tournaments but I wanted to surf more than swim, so that didn’t last very long. I played flag football in elementary and that was only because the day they had trials for the regular tackle football the surf was really good, so I went surfing instead. My stepdad was pissed, he really wanted me to play football. So I played flag football because I was still able to play football and I didn’t have to come to practices if the surf was good, the coach didn’t care, I’d just show up for games. But for the most part I surfed. That was it. Ate, slept, non stop surfed.

Magazines? Surf heroes?

In the beginning, Gerry Lopez. Loved Gerry, loved watching him get barrelled at Pipe, was intrigued by that whole thing. Then Free Ride came out, Shaun, MR, Rabbit all those guys were incredible. Then I don’t know when, I was 8 or 10, I can’t remember how the hell, but Dane being Dane was my favorite surfer, and I got to watch a show on the (1982) Coke contest, the Surfabout. It was the one that Rabbit beat Dane in the final at Cronulla and I still think Dane won that final. There’s no way in the world, I mean I love Rabbit to death but watching the video I couldn’t figure out how Rabbit beat Dane. But umm, just watching Dane surf with so much power, he became my favorite surfer and to this day he’s still my favorite surfer.

 

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