Competing in Her No. 1 Sport Still Has Her Sitting on Top of the World

Mary Lou Drummy has been making waves, so to speak, for a long time. She was one of just a few women or girls in the mid ‘50s to take up the sport. “As I remember it, there were only four of us girls who were surfing at that time,” said Drummy, who lives in San Juan Capistrano. “Actually, the guys helped us learn.”

She was learning to surf at 13 on a board that was a Christmas present from her grandfather, and she began competing four years later. Now, at 47, she is still winning surfing contests. Her most recent triumph was at the Women’s International Surfing Assn. meet last month in Santa Cruz, where she rode to victory in the senior division.

“I got some really good waves there,” she said modestly. “I do quite well surfing against my age group,” which means anyone 27 or older.

She competes on both long and short boards and is ranked among the top 10 in the association in both categories. Drummy, the association’s oldest active female member, is also executive director of the 100-member group. She is a certified surfing judge for four groups, among them the National Surfing Scholastic Assn. and the Christian Surfing Assn.

“I just love the ocean and surfing,” she said. “It’s my No. 1 sport and always will be. Riding the water is thrilling.”

Surfing can be dangerous, though, she said.

“You have a lot of elements out there that you don’t have control of. You get banged around, and it’s a rough enough sport that a lot of women wouldn’t like it.”

Drummy, who is divorced, has passed her enthusiasm for the sport on to her children--Erin, 28, Maureen, 17, Chris, 16, and Patrick, 9. Maureen and Chris are members of the Capistrano Valley High School surfing team, and any of the four can be seen out on the waves with their mother about four times a week.

“We’ve been surfing all our lives,” Drummy said. “They don’t think it’s strange their mother is still out there competing.”

Drummy looks forward to another five years of competing before she retires “to a South Sea island.”

“If there was something I could have done in my life,” she said, it is to travel more, “and that’s what I plan on in the future. I’ve been to Hawaii and Mexico, but there are a lot of other wonderful places in the world to go surfing.”

But retired or not, surfing will always be part of her life, she believes. “I don’t think most people who get into surfing ever get out of it,” she said.

In fact, she is championing the cause of surfing as an Olympic sport. She would like to see surfing become a California Interscholastic Federation high school sport, as swimming, baseball and football are.

“If we get surfing recognized as a high school sport,” she says, “it will make it easier to make it an Olympic sport. I hope it comes about in my time.”

“It was like winning the lottery,” said Peter Sloan of Orange, the owner of South Coast Stationers in Costa Mesa.

It may not get him a Forbes ranking, but the the $40,000 worth of office furniture Sloan won in a drawing is a substantial prize by anybody’s accounting.

Actually, it was the name of one of his sales representatives that was picked as one of the two winners of furniture set up in a mock store at the recent Western Regional Office Products Show in Anaheim. The rules for the drawing, however, meant that the store owner would be the actual winner of the prize.

“I couldn’t believe it when my name was called,” said Shirley Bridges of Brea.

She believes it now. Sloan gave her a $1,000 bonus.

The noncommissioned officers at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station put on a “We Remember” night this summer at the base to honor 18 military heroes.

Each of the honorees told his war story before a crowd that included 150 disabled veterans.

The heroes’ feats had some of their table mates in awe. “I didn’t realize I was sitting next to such a decorated veteran,” said Marine Sgt. Alex Pacheco of El Toro of former soldier William Lawrence of Bloomington, Calif., winner of a Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star and seven Purple Hearts. “I can’t believe he led an assault that killed 35 Viet Cong.”

The 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing band played, and members of a stateside USO troupe entertained.

“What the Marines have done for us tonight reassures me that what happened to me and other disabled men was worth it,” former Marine Dan McDaniels said.