Tom Morey’s lightweight invention allowed millions of people the thrill of wave riding.
Morey, creator of the Boogie Board and one of the most influential inventors in the sport of surfing, died on Thursday, Oct. 14. He was 86. The Boogie Board this year turned 50.
“The Boogie Board was such a versatile tool – you could use it behind boats in lakes or kick around in a swimming pool. It had a huge impact on recreation, not just surfing. It had a huge market,” said Dick Metz, founder of the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center in San Clemente.
Morey was born Aug. 15, 1935 in Detroit, his family moving to Laguna Beach when he was a youngster, a new home where he joined early era surfers exploring the area’s expansive coastline.
“Tom just fell into that cult right away, he was born for it,” said Metz, who was just a few years older than Morey and also grew up with him in the tight-knit beach town.
By the 1950s, Morey was one of the area’s best surfers, as well as a jazz drummer and music lover who attended USC and worked at Douglas Aircrafts. But he quickly tired of the office life and started the surf shop Morey Pope & Co. in Ventura with college friend Karl Pope.
Morey, who had a degree in mathematics, had an inventive mind even in his younger years. He thought if the nose of his surfboard was turned slightly up, it might get into waves better. That “wing tip” design was Morey’s first major invention, and it had a big influence on board shaping, especially when shortboards hit the scene years later.
He’s also credited with popularizing the removable fin, allowing boards to travel easier and change performance on waves. He came up with wave pool designs way before their time.
Morey promoted what today is touted as the first professional surf contest – the Tom Morey Invitational in Malibu in 1966. First prize was $1,500, and Mickey Munoz was the winner.
It wasn’t until 1971, while living in Hawaii, that he cut a big piece of surfboard foam in half, wanting to ride a bombing surf break when the wind was too strong to stand up on a board.
He put on his swim fins and swam out, all while lying down on his new, homemade board.
“The first thing that happens, I feel the ocean,” Morey said in a past interview with The Orange County Register. “You don’t get to feel the contour of the ocean until you get on a Boogie Board.”
Morey described that first ride, closing his eyes and recounting every movement of that wave. He was thrown onto the sand, he said, his hands clutching the sides of this new kind of board.
“And I think,” he said, pausing as he held back tears, “‘This can really be something; this thing can really be something.’”
His wife, Marchia, then eight months pregnant, was the second person to give the Boogie Board a spin.
In a past interview, he recalled his early rides, every turn and bend, like it had happened yesterday.
“My first good wave, I tried to angle. I had this turning flat, I’m skidding. On the second wave, I start to bend,” he recalled. “This thing caught and went phhhhewww.
“I’m going up the face of it a little bit, I’m bending the thing down. I straighten out, it bends down over the drop and instead of going stiff, I’m part of the ocean.”
After one of his early sessions, a guy walked up and asked: “How can I buy one of these? Do you want to sell one?”
Morey came up with a price on the spot. “Ten dollars,” he told the man, making his first sale.
The Moreys moved from Hawaii to Carlsbad to get a factory going, with help from friends who loaned money and believed in his wild idea.
He first named his board the SNAKE, an acronym for “Side, Navel, Arm, Knee and Elbow.” But Morey though the name made people uneasy, so he renamed it the Boogie Board, after his love for jazz tempos.
He picked a number for pricing when he put an ad in Surfer Magazine: $37, because he was 37 years old.
His first ad sold three boards and soon it was hundreds a week.
Surf shops weren’t quick to ride the Boogie Board wave, so Morey created clinics around the country, his early saleswoman Patti Serrano setting up on the sand and letting kids test the boards out, their parents having no choice but to buy the boards once they felt the thrill.
Surfboards take balance and athleticism. The Boogie Board was something anyone, at any age, could ride with ease.
Morey sold the Boogie Board and the trademark in 1977. Today, it is owned by Wham O, which mass produces the boards and sells at big-box retailers around the world. The company owns the trademark – including the Tom Morey name – which is why similar wave-riding boards must be called a bodyboard, and not a Boogie Board.
Morey didn’t become rich off the invention and lived a modest life, for many years in north San Clemente before recently moving to Laguna Woods. He wasn’t into material objects or fame, and was still thinking of ideas for the next best thing.
For Morey, the Boogie Board was just another way to surf waves. He often scoffed at the divide between surfers and bodyboarders – a name he also didn’t like – never understanding why there was a separation between the groups despite a common love for the thrill of the ride.
Morey in recent months received much-deserved accolades as the Boogie Board turned 50. Celebrations were held in Carlsbad and San Clemente, and just last week the city of Oceanside honored Morey with a proclamation for his invention.
Surf historian Jim Kempton called Morey the “Ben Franklin of surfing,” an inventor of many ideas who also had a philosophical mind.
“He probably brought more people to ride waves than any other single person in the history of surfing. That’s a huge accomplishment,” Kempton said. “He was a pioneer in so many areas.”
Kempton, president of the California Surfing Museum, said a celebration to honor Morey scheduled for Nov. 6 at its annual Oceanside gala will still take place.
“It will be a wonderful send off, so to speak,” he said. “I know it will be very heartfelt.”
Hawaii earlier this year made an official proclamation to stake claim as the board’s birthplace, giving Morey official recognition as the “Father of Boogie Boarding” and declaring July 9 the “Day of the Boogie.” There are also plans for a monument not far from where Morey was living and first rode his board near the surf break Honl’s at Wai’aha Bay on the Big Island.
“Life is about the joy of being here to learn our lessons,” said wife Marchia – both were strong believers in the Baháʼí Faith. “We had so much fun. We’re so blessed … we had some laughs.
“He’s in a good place,” she said. “And I’ll be with him when my time comes, and we’ll go out in the wave and beach or whatever it is up there, and we’ll be floating.”
Plans for a memorial are pending. Morey is survived by wife Marchia, daughter Melinda, sons Sol, Moon, Sky and Matteson, and grandchildren Max, Nick and Dane.