HISTORY – Velzy plaque claiming “World’s First Surf Shop” is reconsidered
by Mark McDermott One day in 1949, 13-year-old Bing Copeland was bodysurfing just down from his family’s house, which was at 9th and Highland, when he happened to look up towards the Manhattan Beach pier and behold something he’d never seen before. Men were standing atop boards, riding waves. “Oh my god, look at that,” Copeland thought to himself. He took a wander up the Manhattan Beach pier, so he could get a better look at what was going on. As he stood along the pier railing, his buddy Greg Noll, who worked as a bait boy selling to the fishermen on the pier, walked up and just stood beside him. The two boys just gaped at what was going on in the water below. “Dale Velzy and some of the older guys, they were riding redwood balsa boards,” Copeland said. “Hundred-pound boards, and paddleboards. There were no modern surfboards then.” Velzy was a well-known character who had acquired the nickname “Hawk” due to his knack for spotting coins in the sand. He was a gregarious, charismatic local waterman about seven years older than Copeland. Some days after the boys had witnessed him surfing, Velzy was working as a lifeguard at the station on the pier when he saw Copeland and Noll…
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