Big-wave surfer aids Hall of Fame goalie
Hall of Fame hockey goalie Grant Fuhr and his wife were among those fleeing the Wine Country fires in the wee hours Monday morning, and as an increasingly chaotic scene unfolded, they realized they were stuck — without a ride to San Francisco, where they were scheduled to catch a flight later in the day.
They made it, thanks to one of the many great Bay Area athletes in Santa Rosa for Ronnie Lott’s charity event and golf tournament. That man, it came to light Tuesday, was legendary Mavericks big-wave surfer Jeff Clark of Half Moon Bay.
Clark, a regular at the annual event, had been seated with the Fuhrs at the evening dinner. He was asleep at the Vintners Inn around 2 a.m. when he was awakened by the commotion of evacuation. Outside, he was approached by Fuhr’s wife, who asked him, “Are you here to pick us up?”
Clark wasn’t surprised — “my van looks like a people mover,” he said — and told her, “I’m not the person you called, but I can give you a ride.”
The Fuhrs were getting desperate, having called several local taxi companies without success. And the scene was horrific. “Flames were coming up to the east side of the freeway, we were on the edge of the west side, and stuff was just falling out of the sky,” Clark said. “The wind was swirling around in different directions. It was unbelievably hot. And just the glow of that fire — something I’ll never forget. It just stirs you to the core.”
Clark headed off with the Fuhrs and drove them to Burlingame, where they met with Lott’s event organizers and were able to change their flight. “Outside of my friend Joe Martin, I think I was the last vehicle to leave that area,” said Clark.
This has been an autumn of regret for Clark, who pioneered the Mavericks break in the 1980s and became the driving force behind the annual bigwave contest. He remained a central figure through the years, but the event was recently purchased by the World Surf League, an experienced organization that is expercted to rely primarily on its own people to organize the contest and determine the invitees (still in the process of securing permits, the WSL hasn’t been able to set a specific time frame).
Clark, by all accounts, will be an outsider this time. But there are moments in life that surpass the annoyances of day-to-day existence. One of those moments confronted Clark in a life-threatening crisis Monday morning, and his timing was impeccable.