Hermosa Beach Surfer Walk of Fame inducts Woodward, Daley, Jerger
2018 Hermosa Surfer Walk of Fame inductees Kip Jerger, Candy Woodward and Scott Daley with (left to right) emcee Jani Lange, Mayor Jeff Duclos, emcee John Joseph and Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi. Photo
Former pro surfer Candy Woodward recalled when surfers used to say she surfed like a guy, she took it as a compliment. But not any more.
“Look at you now,” she said pointing to the female surfers in the audience during her induction onto the Hermosa Beach Surfer Walk of Fame, Saturday at the Hermosa pier. “Now woman are surfing as well, and even better than a lot of guys.”
As she spoke, friends in the audience held up letters that read “BADASS,” Woodward’s nickname when she was a pro surfer in the ‘70s and early ‘80s.
Woodward then called out the names of some of pioneer women surfers who were in the audience. Among them were former world champions Joyce Hoffman and Margo Godfrey Oberg, former South Bay pro Wendy Gilley and 2017 Hermosa Surfer Walk of Fame inductee Mary Lou McGinnis Drummy. Patti Paniccia, who introduced Woodward, was a founder in 1975 of the first woman’s pro tour.
Woodward said her father told her only boys surf when she asked for a surfboard after watching surfers from the deck of her home above Bluff Cove in Palos Verdes. When her father finally relented, she was generally the only female in the water.
During her remarks Woodward thanked the Haggerty’s Surf Club for finally accepting her as a member — two years ago.
Also inducted Saturday onto the Surfer Walk of Fame were former pro surfer Scott Daley and former Los Angeles County Lifeguard and adventure surfer Kip Jerger.
Daley was introduced by pro surfer Alex Gray, who thanked Daley for mentoring him when Gray was a young Body Glove team rider and Daley was the Body Glove team manager.
Gray told how Daley calmed him down when he was a nervous 12-year-old entering one of his first surf contests at Huntington Pier.
“He said, ‘When you get nervous, look down at the stringer in your board. It’s black. Black is nothing,’” Gray acknowledged not understanding the advice, but said it worked.
Jerger was introduced by fellow, retired lifeguard and former World Body Surfing Champion Mike Cunningham. He recalled Jerger as the complete waterman who earned the Medal of Valor for a heroic rescue of a fisherman being pounded by big surf on the rocks at White Point in San Pedro, a top lifeguard competitor and winner of the 1982 Catalina Classic Paddleboard race. ER
