BEST DAY EVER
Andrew Todd’s last wave
by Mark McDermott
Andrew Todd at Dome’s Beach at Rincon, Puerto Rico. Photo courtesy Andrew Todd’s family
A gifted few know early what they love in life. Andrew Todd was one of those people. He loved the ocean.
Todd spent his entire childhood and a longer-than-expected part of his early adult life in Manhattan Beach. On November 28, during his final conversation with his mother, Lori Medicus, he expressed a newfound clarity about where the next chapter of his life would take him. He’d graduated from the University of Michigan a few years earlier with a business degree and had been living and working in New York City, but it was time to come back home.
“I am really happy. I think I know what I want to do,” he told her. “New York is not really for me. I want to be around nature and the ocean. So I think I am going to move. I’m going to come back to the water.”
Andrew was calling from Rincon, Puerto Rico, a small surf town on the island’s west coast. His buddy from Manhattan Beach, Steven Edwards, had been living there, and Todd was able to work remotely. He’d spent more than six months in Puerto Rico over the last two years.
Life was simple in Rincon. Surf, get your work done, surf, tacos, have a cocktail, sleep, repeat. Todd, for the first time in his life, let his hair grow a bit long. He was relishing this laid back way of life.
“The last couple of months, he kind of let his hair grow, and grew something called a mustache,” said his father, Steve Todd. “He’d kind of gone full bohemian.”
The mustache was a little wispy, something he heard about from his father and friends, but Andrew wasn’t bothered. He’d never been happier. Then again, he was inclined towards happiness.
“Every day I was with Andrew, whether it be here in Manhattan Beach, or in Puerto Rico or in Canada or in Mexico, he looked me in the eyes. ‘Steve, are we gonna have the best day ever?’” Edwards recalled. “Luckily for me, his criteria to have a best day ever was loose, at best. It could just require us to have a beer on the beach, spend hours watching music videos, or more often than not, it just meant you got a really good stretch that day.”
November 28 was certainly yet another candidate for best day ever. His friend Chase Williams, another Costa alum and a former teammate of Andrew’s on the legendary CIF championship water polo team of 2013, had also been visiting and had left only days earlier. Andrew had put in a full day’s work and, with Edwards, headed out to Dome’s Beach, a famous big wave spot on the northwest point of Puerto Rico. It was a short but stellar sunset session.
“It was around 5:30 in the evening in Puerto Rico, which is when the sun sets there,” Edwards said, speaking before a paddleout memorial that took place December 17 at 6th Street in Manhattan Beach. “We are at a Western facing break that receives a beautiful sunset. My final memory of Andrew is me paddling back out to the lineup watching him catch a wave in front of me. As the wave rolled over me, he was on it. I looked back over my shoulder to see him go to the top of the lip, drop back in, and make the inside section, all of this during a beautiful sunset. My final memory of my best friend is with him quite literally riding off into the sunset doing his favorite thing in the whole world.”
Other surfers saw Andrew duck diving through waves as he paddled back out for another wave. Then, suddenly, he was face down in the water, next to his board. The official cause of his death was drowning. Nothing is known of what caused it.
“They don’t know what happened,” said Medicus. “They called it a drowning.”
“We don’t think he suffered. That is the key,” said Steve Todd, his father. “And he left a mark in his 26 too short years. We are proud of that.”
Andrew Todd surfing in Puerto Rico.
The competitor
Andrew Todd is remembered for many things among his friends and family. He was known as kind and funny and extremely smart. He had an enormous capacity for friendship, and his appearance was so striking that he worked as a model during his teenage years — something he was a bit embarrassed by, and tended not to talk about.
But maybe what he was best known for was as an absolutely fierce competitor. Chase Williams, his MCHS water polo teammate, recalled, at the paddleout, a certain look that would get into Andrew’s eyes while competing.
“Andrew was a graceful and brutally tough player. I know because I would practice against him,” Williams said. “He had a mind for dynamic situations, and what is commonly known as the clutch gene. He had that ability to never waver. When in doubt, you always handed the ball to Andrew. He looked at you with that sort of conviction and those eyes that just said, ‘I got this.’ And that quality in somebody is incredibly rare.”
This wasn’t mere posture. Todd didn’t just live for the big moments, but thrived on them.
“Andrew’s senior year statline is an athletic work of art: 28 games played, 54 goals, with a two goal per game average, 38 assists, and 17 steals,” Williams said. “That is 92 points accredited to just Andrew Todd. And for those of you who don’t know water polo, that is over a third of Mira Costa’s entire scoring in a single season. There were 20 dudes on the roster.”
Kelton Durham remembers the first time he laid eyes on the phenomenon that was Andrew Todd in competition. Durham was coaching youth basketball, really young kids — third and fourth graders — but in an athlete-rich town like Manhattan Beach, a few kids had already emerged as elite athletes. One was Josh Rosen, who would go on to a career as a quarterback in the NFL. The other was Kyle Grafton, who’d later be a star volleyball player at Loyola Marymount.
“You know early on, and with these two kids, it was noticeable. And so I drafted Kyle on my basketball team,” Durham said. “And we played this one game, and there was this kid, kind of a husky kid, who was just banging. I mean, just banging, and taking the ball, and pissing Kyle off, the pushing, all that stuff, everywhere, up and down the court. Kyle had a bad game, but when you’re a coach, you’re thinking, ‘Alright, so who is this kid? I am drafting that kid next year.’ So I got Andrew. I had both him and Kyle on the same team. We almost won the championship. It was epic.”
Durham would come to know Andrew well through his work as a volunteer at Robinson Elementary School, where his own son, Charlie, was a classmate of Andrew’s. He distinctly remembers when he realized that in addition to being a great athlete and just a really cool kid, Andrew possessed unusual academic abilities.
“He was kind of the cut up in the class,” Durham remembered. “We had this Junior Great Books breakout session that I ran, and so we were reading stories — whether it was Robert Frost, or whatever it was — and we’d go back to talk about the books and go over things. And I’m thinking Andrew and my son seem kind of distracted. Andrew seemed like he just wasn’t paying attention. This was probably fourth grade. And yet the kid knew everything — like, he could talk about every nuance of that particular story. That was the thing about him — not only was he a great athlete and a competitor, but he was really smart, just super smart. And then, as he grew up, he just became an absolutely beautiful human being, inside and out.”
Todd had the gift of not taking any of it too seriously, but also taking things far more seriously than it often appeared. Just last fall, he competed in the Malibu Triathlon with Williams. Unlike nearly every other competitor, Todd had spent almost no time training for the race, yet completed the course with aplomb.
“As Chase Williams noted, Andrew’s concept of training is pretty low key,” Steve Todd said. “He pretty much went into it cold. I remember they had these Robinson ‘Fun Runs’ and he was always a fairly good sized, stocky kid. But he just had a will and a determination and a competitiveness that was pretty much unbounded, so he would end up against these kids who were avid runners but he would just go out there and just sheer will himself to excel.”
He spent his entire childhood in Manhattan Beach, and like most local kids, loved the ocean. He followed the usual progression, from boogie board to surfboard, and was a strong swimmer from early on. It was when he joined the LA County Lifeguards Junior Guard program as a fifth grader that being in the water went from something fun, however, to something he was intensely passionate about.
“It caught fire,” his mother said. “He started JGs the first year you could…And then one of the instructors was like, ‘Oh, you’re a wonderful swimmer and you’re great in the water. You should try water polo.’”
“I remember one of his experiences was working Venice Beach on Labor Day weekend, and that was obviously a very busy weekend,” his father said. “He got a lot of experience pulling people out of the water that day. He’s always been a water kid, and waterman, whether it be the pool or the ocean.”
Todd was a junior on the Costa team that took home the CIF title in 2013. He would become team captain his senior year, but was just as essential to the title team. In the championship game, he was never subbed out. He played every minute.
Andrew Todd playing for the Mira Costa CIF championship water polo team in 2013. Photo by Ray Vidal
“That kid could have played at any Division I school,” Durham said. “He could have played at USC, UCLA, any school. But he went to Michigan to study. His ability to take over a game, his defense…For a guy who was so nice, you put him inside the pool walls, I can’t even imagine what any players felt like having that guy against them. I mean, he was just a terror, absolutely a terror, and a champion. If Andrew Todd is not on that team that won the 2013 CIF championship, they don’t win it. And he was a junior at the time. They had some great upperclassmen on that team, but that kid, he was huge.”
Durham saw Todd in nearly every stage of his young life, as a volunteer at Robinson, a youth coach, later handling communications for the aquatics program at Mira Costa, as a friend of the family, and finally, as a friend.
“I am 34 years older than him, but he was like a friend,” he said. “I was always around these boys, with the carpools and all that stuff. He just had that total dynamic of competitor, teammate, supporter, and friends everywhere. Just the total package. Still to this day, it doesn’t make sense that what happened, happened.”
Andrew Todd at the Manhattan Beach pier. Photos courtesy of Andrew Todd’s family. Photo by Scott Hrybyk
End of the rainbow
Todd chose to go to Michigan even though there was no water polo program because he was accepted into Ross Business School, one of the best in the nation. He majored in finance and minored in computer science and once again built a large following of loyal friends. Several came to Manhattan Beach for the paddleout memorial in December. They didn’t know him as a water polo player, but they bore witness to his stout heart. One of those friends, Greg Schwartz, later roomed with Todd in New York City after they each entered the business world.
“He was a really good roommate,” Schwartz said. “ He was the best roommate in all the ways that actually matter. That’s because of how much he cares about other people. Anytime I looked like I was feeling down or upset, he would bug me to tell him what was wrong, which actually got pretty annoying. But he didn’t care because he had a bigger heart than anyone.”
Due to the pandemic, Andrew spent a lot of time in the last few years at home in Manhattan Beach. He reunited with the Pacific Ocean in a big way.
“He would go down pretty much every morning, noon and evening to get in the water,” Steven Todd said.
“Even in the dead of winter,” Lori Medicus said. “He’d come home and I’d touch his hands and they were cold as ice. And he’d go, ‘It was great. The waves were great.’”
Even as the pandemic waned, Andrew lingered in Manhattan Beach, so much so that it became a point of mostly laughter and some concern with his parents.
A rainbow appeared outside Dome’s Beach, the surf break where Andrew Todd surfed his last wave, the morning after his passing. Locals said this was uncommon.
“He was home for a few months before COVID arrived on the scene,” his father recalled at the memorial. “He then was home with his two brothers for a number of months, which turned our home into a veritable frat house. After his younger brothers went back to school he remained at home to the point where he took to referring to Lori and me as his roommates….He traveled and visited friends during this period, mostly disregarding our increasingly less subtle admonitions that he should get a job, until he finally went to work this past spring, moving to New York City.”
He went to work in business development for Ironclad, a computer security company, which allowed him to work remotely. In Puerto Rico, things began to crystalize.
“He enjoyed his life,” his father said. “Sometimes we think maybe he just wanted, not to be a beach bum, but maybe he strived and competed to be at the top of things, and then at some point maybe he decided, that’s not my passion, anyway. He wanted to live life and not chase the traditional career path.”
“He was able to do a little bit of both,” his mother said. “He was able to do what he wanted to do, which I think a lot of people are finding out these days.”
His younger brothers, Trevor and Michael, spoke of the sense of devastation each felt in the wake of Andrew’s passing. He’d been an attentive brother to each of them, and through the pain, what each saw in terms of a way forward was the trail their brother blazed for them.
“When we were kids, you led by example,” Trevor Todd said at the memorial. “Everything I aspired to be and worked for originated with a longing to be like you. I so badly wanted to prove myself in your eyes, as I saw you as the pinnacle of what success could be. You were smart, athletic, ambitious. Most of all, you could always lighten up a room and fill our family with laughter and love. As we continue to get older, I look to you as a role model in many facets of life…You never stopped working towards being a better person.”
“Here are some words I wish I could have told Andrew one last time,” Michael Todd said. “Andrew from the first moment I can remember, I looked up to you. You mean the world to me and set the best example for Trevor and I to follow in your footsteps and try and become great young men who bring joy, love and laughter into the lives of those around us. You did just that.”
Williams said that even among his friends, Andrew was a role model, and would continue to be.
“While we can’t text and call him anymore or even hug him, we can still bring him with us,” Williams said at the memorial. “So instead I will offer you all this as you go through life. Andrew loved adventure and was a phenomenal teammate, so take him with you for your big moments and your small ones. Take a moment and show Andrew your world. Show him your world by honoring your own gifts, and letting your talent speak for itself. Let Andrew be the reason you no longer wait until tomorrow and instead you do it today. Do these things, because it’s what Andrew Todd did best. And I encourage you to continue that relationship with Andrew in whatever facet of life he comes to you, whether it is in the office, on vacation, out here in the water, in a place that is beautiful or one that is dark, Andrew will be there, and will be there for you.”
“Now Andrew can be your guardian,” he said. “And I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of someone better for the job.”
His parents went to Puerto Rico immediately after Andrew died. His friends showed them around his favorite surf spots. They were struck by the beauty of the area out by Rincon where he spent his final, extraordinarily happy days.
“They are wilderness areas that culminate in beach with great surf,” Steve Todd said. “It’s hard to beat. It’s not your traditional Manhattan Beach Strand and beach. It’s nature and trees, almost to the waterline. It’s fabulous.”
The morning after his passing, a rainbow appeared directly over the water outside Dome’s Beach where Andrew Todd had surfed his last wave. It was the talk of the little surf community at Rincon.
“We met some locals, some of the guys who actually pulled Andrew out of the water, and they said, ‘We don’t have rainbows in the morning,’” Steve Todd said. “We take that as a sign from Andrew that he’s okay….We take some solace in the fact that he was doing what he loved in a beautiful place with great friends. I mean, if you’re going to go, if it’s your day, being somewhere you love doing something you love with good friends, it doesn’t get better than that.”
“We’re just so glad he got to really live life to the fullest,” Medicus said. ER