East West Showdown part three

“But I went down to Virginia Beach a couple of days later and beat them all."

(click on the link above to see the film of the contest)

Propper settled the score with certainty later that week when he met Dewey again at Virginia Beach’s East Coast surfing championships, beating the Californian in a final that would be remembered almost entirely for a single ride.

“It was this one wave that clinched it,“ he says. “I was hanging five, then I went for 10 and my fin came free. I don’t know what happened, it just came loose. So I spun the board around, caught the fin again, and did a 360.” Propper admits that he’d never done the maneuver in competition before and that it was totally unplanned.

“I don’t know what happened,“ Gary maintains, “ I used to keep my fin back really far so I could put a lot of power into my turns without spinning out. I was really surprised when it came loose.“

One East Coast magazine, Competition Surf, printed a two page sequence of the ride, calling it the “fintastic spectacular“ ride that won the contest, and Dick Catri claims it was the first time anyone had done a 360 in a contest. “You see Herbie Fletcher do them on wave after wave today.” explains Dick, “but back then it was unheard of.”

"I left the water and walked up to the beach after that wave," says Propper."
Catri remembered it all these years later. "What are you doing the heats not over?"
Propper said they were only scoring the best three. "I can't do any better than the three I already got."

Catri, " I told him get back out there and if a good wave comes you better be on it!"

Witnesses still talk about how the judges, among them Greg Noll, just looked at each other in disbelief. According to Noll, “I just put down the clipboard, looked at the other judges and they were all just staring, wide-eyed. I think that was the first time I ever saw anybody do a 360.”

Propper’s recollection of that contest’s effect on East/West relations offers some profound insight. “When I beat Dewey,” comments Gary, “it was all over. That was the end of the big teams coming to the East Coast. After that, Bing would send Nuuhiwa and Dewey would send Nat. They knew they just had to send the best guys if they wanted to beat me, or Tabeling, or Codgen, or Valluzi.”

Or more specifically, as Noll surmises, “That was when Propper served notice on the West Coast that he was a formidable threat.”

Indeed, Propper was a formidable threat largely because he approached the whole of contest surfing in a professional manner. Gary practiced in any type of surf and developed techniques for riding less than perfect waves that few surfers could match.

“Most of the big names wouldn’t even paddle out in junk surf back then. They’d go to the islands to tune up,” says Propper. “I invented maneuvers for the choppy small surf.”

Propper actually took a lot of flack for an article he authored for Surfer Magazine titled “Surfer Tips: How to Ride Junk by Gary Propper.”

But many surfers would have done well to heed his advice. “Propper was one of the best surfers in the world,” recalls prominent 60’s competitor Corky Carroll, who won more contests than even he can remember.

“We’d show up at the contest site in the morning hoping for some decent waves. Propper would show up hoping for lousy waves ‘cause he knew it was better for him. In small surf, he was as good as anybody and there was no one better.”

When Propper beat Dewey the waves were not only clean, but sizable, instead of the junk surf known to give him an advantage. How could Gary post such a landmark victory while out of his supposed element? “Give an East Coaster a decent wave,” Propper observes simply, “and he can do anything.”