Tiger of the big waves is inducted

New Surfers Walk of Fame inductee Tiger Makin is flanked by fellow inductees John Joseph and Mike Purpus at a Saturday ceremony. Photo

A sun-splashed crowd was treated to tales of a dashing surfer and epic waves as James “Tiger” Makin was inducted into the Hermosa Beach Surfers Walk of Fame in a Saturday ceremony at the city pier.

The soft-spoken Makin, 58, was honored with a bronze plaque on the pier for an aggressive style and daring approach that earned widespread attention to his big-wave prowess, and brought him to competitive heights including a fifth-place finish in the U.S. Surfing Championships.

Fellow Walk of Fame surfer Mike Purpus introduced Makin to the assemblage by telling a Tiger story in which the two surfers challenged a wave that saner men would not have ridden, with a smiling Makin dragging Purpus along into danger and glory.

It was winter, sometime in the early 1970s, and the two were staying on Oahu’s North Shore. They had spent the morning at Log Cabins hanging out with legendary surf photographer Leroy Grannis – who also would be inducted into the Walk of Fame – watching a rainy, blown-out ocean that offered no apparent opportunity for surfing.

“There was no one out on the whole North Shore,” Purpus recalled.

In the afternoon Makin looked out a window and pointed out that the wind had shifted and the ocean was forming towering waves.

“I said so what, they’re too big to ride,” Purpus said.

After some discussion, an astonished Purpus found himself approaching the waves with his friend, while Grannis came along to photograph the event.

“I don’t know how we paddled out there,” Purpus said.

Once out, he realized that wiping out on the way back in, and drowning, was a real possibility. In those days the surfers did not wear leashes, there were no lifeguards there, and certainly no jet-ski rescuers idling by.

“I said ‘Tiger, this is scarier than hell,’” Purpus recalled. “He just smiled.”

It was every surfer for himself, Purpus told his friend:

“I’m taking the first wave that will take me in. If I’m in front of you, that’s your problem. I’m going.”

Makin just said, “Okay.”

“It was bigger than a telephone pole,” Purpus marveled. “It was so big I couldn’t tell how big it was.”

Purpus went right and Makin went left, and as it turned out, Makin’s route took him through a minefield of razor-sharp rocks that seemed to leap out of the water. Purpus could see Makin weaving his way through the hazards as he flew along.

“He was like that penguin in the surf movie,” Purpus said.

Makin road the wave all the way in, coming in down the shore after covering roughly the distance from the Hermosa pier to 19th Street, Purpus said.

Having survived, Purpus could then look forward to being immortalized by Grannis. But as it turned out, the photos didn’t turn out.

“The pictures came out all fuzzy. I said Tiger, we did all this for nothing. And he just smiled and said yeah, we did. But it was a lot of fun, wasn’t it,” Purpus recalled.

“Tiger wasn’t scared or anything. I was ready for a change of my Pampers,” Purpus told the crowd. “That’s the way he was then, and that’s the way he is today. And he’s the nicest guy in the world, which made him even harder to surf against.”

Makin, with a purple lei around his neck and numerous family members on hand, strode the podium to a huge ovation.

“I haven’t been back here in a long time. It’s nice to see some faces I haven’t seen – in 40 years, I was reminded. I thought it was only 30 years,” he said.

“We used to play and surf and do whatever we wanted, and the lifeguards watched us and took care of us,” he said.

Makin expressed gratitude for his family, which includes six grandkids and his wife Iris, his “surf partner for 31 years.”

“We’ve been surfing together since the day we met, and we’re still surfing together,” he said.

Earlier in the ceremony businessman Roger Bacon, who spearheaded the Walk of Fame until city officials wrested away control in 2007, leaped from his seat in the audience to make two guerrilla presentations of his own. Bacon presented Makin with a plaque, and also presented Mayor Pro Tempore Pete Tucker with a sweatshirt bearing a Walk of Fame logo.

Bacon pointed out a collectors-item mistake in the logo’s lettering.

“If you look closely you’ll see there are two “S”es in Hermosa,” Bacon said. “So that’s something for the Historical Society.”

Following the induction, Spyder Surfboards threw Surf Fest 3 on the Pier Plaza, featuring popular musician and free-surfer Donavon Frankenreiter, along with Musket, Latch Key Kid, Brendan Lynch, and the Spyder Girls bikini and surf-wear fashion show.

Fest-goers received giveaways from companies including Billabong, Hurley, Volcom, Electric, Quiksilver, Reef, Rip Curl, Roxy, Sanuk and L Space. ER

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