MERCER WAS A REAL HERO

IN a sport that produces champions who deservedly rise to “household name’’ status, Dean Mercer ticked the boxes.

He went head to head with some of the giants of surf lifesaving, among them Trevor Hendy, Guy Leech, Guy Andrews and his own brother, Darren Mercer.

And he clinched that most coveted title of national ironman champion twice.

NSW-born Mercer’s shock death at the age of 47 yesterday, after he had been training with a masters group, has rocked surf lifesaving and the wider community.

His wife Reen – former ironwoman champion Reen Corbett – and their four sons have occupied a special place on the Gold Coast lifesaving scene since the family moved here from the Sunshine Coast.

Friends and old rivals were quick to pay tribute to Mercer as a tough-as-they-come competitor from a family hailed as “surf lifesaving royalty’’.

But of course the real purpose of the sport is to produce lifesavers equipped with rescue skills – and Mercer was a champion in that regard too, putting in enormous hours as a volunteer and saving hundreds of lives. His legendary status stems from all those unsung rescues as much as from what he achieved as a hero of a sport contested by what author and former Bulletin journalist Barry Galton once described as “gladiators of the surf’’, particularly in the glory days of the 1980s-90s when the clashes of lifesaving’s titans were riveting viewing across the summer.