DEREK HO
By Steve Russell, Special to the Star-Bulletin
Derek Ho in a happy surfing moment in 1986.
‘Lucky to be alive’
He's always been at home
By Greg Ambrose
on a surfboard; now he's just
at home, recovering
Star-BulletinNo one will ever forget the sight of Derek Ho perfectly poised amid the maelstrom of a big Banzai Pipeline tube. His heroics in Hawaii's most majestic waves earned him international admiration and a world surfing title. No one will want to remember the image of Ho flat on his back on the couch of his Pupukua Heights living room, surfing the TV with his remote control as he waits impatiently for his severed right patellar tendon to heal so he can get on with his life.
Fortunately, people won't have to wait long to see Ho back in the barrel at Pipeline. "I'm taking the doctor's six- to nine-month estimate and cutting it off at six," Ho says.
After being mishandled by a perfect wave on the edge of the jungle in East Java, Ho is now completely dependent on his loved ones, unable even to hobble to his back yard for a customary morning cup of coffee at his mother's house.
The fierce surfing competitor is bathed and waited upon by the tag team of his wife, Tanya, and his mother, Joeine, and the forced helplessness is driving him mad. "Derek will survive if Tanya and I don't go nutty first," says Joeine as she prepares for a trip to the mainland.
"When he gets touchy or edgy, Tanya and I look at each other and roll our eyes and I say, 'Sorry I have to leave for a month.'"
Although he is the penultimate senior citizen on the elite World Championship Tour behind Australia's Barton Lynch, 33, Ho manifests the same ageless efficiency as his older brother Michael, who still strikes terror in the hearts of opponents at the verge of 40.
Derek, 32, was in prime form at the previous WCT contest, the Marui Pro at Torami Beach in Chiba, Japan. Ho taught a hard lesson to tour rookie Michael Lowe, 12 years his junior, by dispatching Lowe easily while earning a nearly perfect 9-point ride in ugly little 3-foot waves.
By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
Derek Ho recovers at home, surrounded by his family,
wife Tanya, son Makoa, 14 months, and daughter Kianaho, 5.
Ho later knocked Hawaii's top-ranked pro, Sunny Garcia, out of the contest, a feat few can boast.Ironically, or perhaps appropriately, Ho was cut down while surfing the kind of waves that made him famous: long, deep, peeling-left tubes.
And now in a lightning-fast moment of wave slamming surfboard into soft flesh, the ocean seems to have taken away the stellar career it bestowed upon Ho.
The statistics are impressive: half a million dollars in contest earnings and much more in sponsorships and prizes; a world title; two Pipeline Masters wins; three Triple Crown of Surfing titles; 15 years on the world tour; seven years among the tour's top 10.
But the stats can never reveal the wonder of a surfer versatile enough to triumph in weak, windblown waves at Sandy Beach and perfect, pitching Pipeline pounders. You must read between the lines to see the years of training needed to stay ahead of a pack of hungry young hopefuls.
The numbers can't communicate the sacrifice of leaving his wife, daughter and son to follow his career to the far corners of the planet. Ho reckons that in 15 years of competition, he has been home only a total of four years. His plan was to finish this season strong, then take it easy next year and surf only in select events.
"I made up my mind that it's time to watch my kids grow up. I wanted to stay home and hang out with my family more. I just got it earlier than I wanted," he said.
Each year, Ho has had an uneasy premonition that something was going to happen during the Quiksilver Pro at Gradjagan. Last year, he was starved for waves in his heat. Last week, as he stood on the beach and watched the surf, he wondered, "What's it going to be this time?" The answer came within minutes after a wave collapsed on him while he was cruising through a 6-foot tube.
The turbulence slammed Ho and his board together, and he felt a searing pain. "You should see the board," he jokes. "It was all smashed in different places from my elbow and knee."
But it was no laughing matter at the time. He was seriously injured and a long way from home. Everyone pitched in to get Derek to shore and stanch the bleeding, while Sunny Garcia's wife, Anela, telephoned Ho's mom and wife in Hawaii every few minutes to describe the action.
Fortunately, tour doctor Steve Kramer treated Ho on the scene and prepared him for the hellish trip by boat, 10 hours in the back of a truck, a few taxi trips and two airplane rides. The exhausted patient was taken to Queen's Hospital, where Dr. Daniel Singer and Dr. Jay Marumoto spent an hour sewing Ho's lacerated patellar tendon back to the bone.
By Steve Russell, Special to the Star-Bulletin
Derek Ho hangs on the face of a huge Pipeline wave.
It was an unfamiliar situation for his mother. "I was really lucky in life with my five kids," she says. "My kids weren't klutzes, while other people's kids ended up in the emergency room once a week."If my kids ever bled at all, I would send them next door because I couldn't stand the sight of blood."
"I'm just lucky to be alive," Ho says. "We've lost Ronnie Burns, Mark Foo and Todd Chesser to the ocean."
Lying flat on his back with his injured leg elevated, Ho has a lot of time to contemplate the meaning of life. He dismisses his achievements in surfing, saying, "The family is most important. It's not that I didn't appreciate my family before, but I appreciate them even more now.
"My proudest moment has been to take my family out to the North Shore to live. To make it off of surfing and live this type of lifestyle with my wife and two kids and taking care of my mom is my greatest accomplishment. Everything else was just a bonus."
Now he has time to enjoy watching his children grow. He got a double dose of domestic bliss when his daughter Kiana turned 5 on Father's Day. Son Nakoa is 14 months old, his personality emerging more and more every day as his delighted dad watches.
"The hardest part is being at home and not able to do anything," he moans. "Not being able to surf is the worst."
The sedate lifestyle is torture for someone who usually is a blur of activity, whether surfing, skateboarding, golfing, playing ping pong or riding mountain or motocross bikes.
"Even when I'm home from competition, Tanya couldn't get enough of me. I'm gone at 6 in the morning surfing or making boards or doing something. Now she's got to bathe me and totally take care of me until I am more mobile in three months," Ho says.
Dr. Singer has cautioned Ho that the tendon needs time to heal and that he could rupture it by pushing too hard.
"Around six months before he gets back to surfing and returning to competition by next March at the earliest would be a good goal," Singer says.
But Ho is optimistic that he can amaze the doctor with his quick recovery. Ho is inspired by a karate expert friend who was told that an injury would sideline him for a year. With hard work he was back in action in six months.
"It's all in the mind and I have a positive attitude. It's just another stepping stone along the way. I'm still going strong and still competitive."
Ho is bearing the cost of the medical bills and rehabilitation, as a medical plan for Association of Surfing Professionals members fell by the wayside this year. "It's tough when you're self-
employed like pro surfers are. When something like this happens, we get left behind.
"The ASP also needs to put money aside for each of the surfers for when they are finished. If they put away $100 for me for each event, after 15 years I would have $20,000 to retire with. Maybe I can work to help the next generation of top pros get something."
For now, Ho is concentrating on prolonging his own career. As usual, he is getting assistance from his older brother. "From day one when his brother was yelling at him to come out and surf the break at Ala Moana and Derek was inside crying, Michael was a big part of the tutelage for Derek's success," says surfing coach Ben Aipa.
The secret to Ho's longevity on the world tour is his ability to adapt to changing surfing styles, Aipa says. Ho has seen youngsters come and go, and now he's competing against their younger brothers on the tour. He will certainly adapt to this new situation.
"It might be the end of the ASP tour for Derek, but never the end of his career," Aipa says.
And it might not even be the end of the ASP tour.
"I talked to Sunny, and he said they already offered me a wild-
card slot in every event next year," Ho says.
And his sponsors are content to reap the publicity of Derek just hanging out in Hawaii, competing in select events and surfing at the Banzai Pipeline.
"All these years went by so quick, this will be my slowest six months," Ho says. "Then I think about how time flies, and before you know it, I'll be surfing again."
His older brother Michael shares Derek's confidence. "They're saying it will take him six to eight months until he gets back in the water, but I'm betting he'll win the Pipe Masters this year."
