BRAD McCAUL, BLAST FROM THE PAST
by Corky Carroll
Not too long ago I was taking a leisurely stroll down Memory Lane, which I tend to do more often these days. For the most part it is a lovely place to visit, lots of beautiful places and things to see. So, there I was meandering thru the late 1960’s and early 1970’s and I ran into my old friend Brad McCaul.
It kind of struck me that this guy was one of the very top surfers in the world during that period and then he just kinda dropped outta sight as far as the surfing world went. I was not even sure what happened to him or if he was even still around. So, I put the word out on my social media pages asking for info on Brad if anybody had some.
Brad was an amazing surfer and a very good guy. He lived not far from me in the Capistrano Beach Palisades, and we surfed together often. At least until he started to get really good. This kid was really stoked and had the energy of a hundred of those energy bunnies they have on television. I was also good pals with Rolf Aurness and we surfed together a lot at Cotton’s Point near San Clemente. Many days we would be out by ourselves and we would see Brad paddling out, big ol’ smile on his face. We knew that it was over for us, and we were not gonna be able to get anymore waves. Brad would get ‘em all. There would be 3 waves in a set and there were 3 of us, but Brad would still get ‘em all. We really liked him, but we got a lot more waves when he wasn’t out. He was really good. He reminded me of a bee, a really fast and high energy bee just buzzing all over the place.
I think the highlight of Brad’s competitive surfing career came when he won the 1970 United States Surfing Championship at Huntington Beach. He had been working his way up in the standings and was getting better and better. I was in the finals with him and did well, but not quite good enough as he took the win and I got second place. I was bummed that I didn’t win, but at the same time had to be happy for Brad as he was reaching the top of the pack and deserved it. I think it meant a lot to him to beat me. It was kind of one of those “wish he hadn’t but happy for him that he did” moments for me.
Brad was more than a good surfer though; he was a genuinely good person. He was honest and clean living, the kind of guy you wanted as a friend. He would appear in the epic surf film “FIVE SUMMER STORIES” after that and continue to do well in surfing competition.
I left the competition scene at the end of 1972 and moved to the mountains for a few years to ski and pursue music. I don’t know when it was that I lost track of Brad, but it was somewhere in the 70’s. I had heard that he had become a phycologist and was working with a church someplace in Orange County, but that was about it.
Over the years many people have asked me whatever became of him, and I didn’t know. Thankfully after putting the word out on Facebook, I was rewarded when Chris Evens messaged me. Chis is the former Executive Director of the SURFRIDER FOUNDATION U.S. We had met a few times many years ago. He is a friend of Brads and had just seen him that very day. The following is the information that he sent to me.
“After the mid 70’s and with his surfing champ roots and the surf films behind him, Pacific Vibrations and Five Summer Stories are the ones I remember, he went to college and worked his way up to a PhD in clinical psychology. He then embarked on a very long and wonderful journey into a career helping people as a practicing psychologist, mostly in Southern California. Over the decades that practice morphed into one that also embraced organizational psychology and development. He consulted many organizations and businesses to help them run more efficiently. While I was Director of the Surfrider Foundation he supplied hundreds of hours of pro bono work helping streamline SF’s growing mission. In my view he was invaluable and his unique niche as organizational development guru and one of the earliest pro surfers helped us immeasurably, even though the work was almost all behind the scenes. I think this was his huge ‘give back’ to the sport that he loved and held dear all his life. He is a great dad, friend and retired surf legend. Even though his work is private, he has helped scores of people through life.”
Wow, I always had the feeling he was gonna do something good in life, he was just THAT kind of guy when he was young.