Jeff Deffenbaugh, Jamie O’Brien and Ilima Kalama inducted into Surfers’ Hall of Fame
Longtime Huntington Beach High School surfing coach Andy Verdone remembers when Jeff Deffenbaugh graduated from Dwyer Middle School and entered high school.
Verdone put Deffenbaugh on varsity immediately. He saw the freshman win many heats, but he believes true character was revealed when he lost one.
“That’s when you know someone’s got it,” Verdone told the crowd assembled at Friday morning’s Surfers’ Hall of Fame induction ceremony. “You look them in the eye and they take the loss hard. They don’t say anything. They internalize it, they go back and they work it out. He hates to lose, but he’s a great winner, Jeff Deffenbaugh.”
Deffenbaugh was one of three surf standouts honored in the 2024 class. Hawaiian surfers Ilima Kalama and Jamie O’Brien also put their hands and feet into the wet cement in front of Huntington Surf & Sport, as per Surfers’ Hall of Fame tradition.
Deffenbaugh represented Huntington Beach on the big stage throughout the 1990s. He won seven professional titles, including the Katin Pro-Am crown in 1992 and ’98.
Nowadays he continues to give back to the next generation through the Huntington Beach Boardriders Club. This year, he also served as the surfing grand marshal at the annual Fourth of July parade.
Two-time U.S. Open of Surfing champion and Surf City local Brett Simpson, who served as emcee of Friday’s ceremony, said Deffenbaugh has always made a big impression on him.
“He just turned 51 and he still goes out there and drops nines with ease,” Simpson said. “Everyone goes, ‘How does he get the waves?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know, just watch him, he knows where to go sit.’”
Deffenbaugh, during his comments, gave advice to his children.
“It does move fast,” he said. “You guys gotta follow your passion, stay focused and stay true to yourself, too. Sometimes you have to bend a little bit in life, but just don’t break, OK?”
Kalama, originally from Oahu, moved to Newport Beach with his family at age 16 and immediately made his mark on the mainland. Serving as a Huntington Beach lifeguard, he won the West Coast Surfing Championship in 1962, the eventual predecessor to the U.S. Open of Surfing.
After returning to Hawaii, he came back to California and relocated to Costa Mesa, where he still lives.
Corky Carroll, who also competed in that 1962 contest, offered some thoughts on Kalama during Friday’s festivities.
“It was the first year the surf was really big and gnarly,” Carroll said. “It was like 10 feet, it was blown out … nobody could ride it except for Ilima. He was like this royal Hawaiian kind of dude, with a beautiful stance and just shredding through the pier like it was nothing.”
O’Brien, 41, has the nickname “JOB.” He won the 2004 Pipeline Masters — at 21 years of age — but ended up earning more notoriety as a free surfer, as well as with a very successful YouTube channel.
“What an icon to the sport,” Simpson said. “Is there a more barreled surfer in the world? I don’t think so.”
O’Brien said when he got an email about being inducted into the Surfers’ Hall of Fame, at first the family didn’t think it was real.
“A couple of days later, it was like, ‘Oh, I think this email might be real,’” he said with a laugh. “The way they reached out to us was kind of cool. I felt like they could have just asked Brett Simpson, ‘Hey, can you hit up Jamie?’ But maybe Brett didn’t want to talk to me. He still owes me a board.”
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