Mom Made Sure Surf Was Always Up

The dilemma seemed formidable: Surfing requires waves, of which there are none in Woodland Hills.

But among the infinitely landlocked kids at Taft High in the late 1970s, Willy Morris possessed an advantage. A steady ride to the beach. Namely, his mother.

Sandra Morris would pull young Willy out of class on days when 6-foot sets found their way to south-facing beaches. As a schoolteacher, she was free to take him on surfing trips to Mexico every summer.

“She was the most important person in my surfing career,” he says.

Thus Morris became the rarest of specimens, a Valley surf star.

He joined the professional tour in 1981, traveling from Hawaii to Japan to South Africa. Even as he took his lumps in the early years, Morris attracted magazine photographers and corporate sponsors with his clean-cut image. His amiable nature won friends.

“All the surfers like Willy,” a surfwear executive said at the time. “He’s a really nice guy with a lot of charisma.”

On the water, a strong if sometimes reckless style eventually pushed Morris to a No. 22 world ranking. He won the 1995 Katin Team Challenge at Huntington Beach, not far from where he had learned to surf.

Morris retired from professional surfing in 1986. These days, he lives in Thousand Oaks with his wife, Jenny, and 3-year-old daughter, Alex. At 34, he still surfs, snowboards and fishes for tuna along the coast.

“Being on the tour was a ton of pressure,” Morris says. “But after all is said and done, I wouldn’t trade it for world. That was a real experience.”