“It seems suspect that no one can even contact the facility he is in or speak with anyone who is connected to him.”
This should be a happy time for fans of professional surfing. That gloriousTriple Crown season. The three north shore gems of Haleiwa, Sunset and Pipeline once offered a sporting feast during the holiday season in times’ past. Mastery over the three unique venues and earning a vaunted Triple Crown was as glorified as a season championship. More glorified in some corners. Alas, the World Surf League took its sledgehammer of incompetence to the tradition but we will always have our surf history.
Many etched their names on chaplet but none as indelibly as Vincent Sennen “Sunny” Garcia. As surf’s preeminent historian Matt Warshaw notes, Garcia was a, “Surly Hawaiian power surfer from Waianae, Oahu; 2000 world champion and six-time winner of the Triple Crown; described by surf journalist Derek Hynd as ‘a modern-day Cassius Clay…a slick, black nightmare come to whup some ass.’”
That six-time Triple Crown winner really something. Nobody, not even the world’s greatest surfer Kelly Slater, did it more and, yesterday, surf writer legend Jim Kempton honored the memory. Taking to the thoroughly disgraced Surfer Magazine, a title he helmed when it was respected and true, Kempton wrote, “If there is one record that is not likely to be broken is Sunny Garcia’s Triple Crown six victories. It is a monumental achievement and since the WSL has let it fall dormant, there may never even be a chance to take a shot at this crown again. And for those who follow surfing over the years, this record is probably untouchable anyway.”
Poignant but tinged with tragedy. Garcia, of course, attempted suicide nearly four-years ago in his Oregon home though was found before death.
According to Derek Rielly:
Sunny was subsequently hospitalised, put into an induced coma, was on kidney and liver dialysis, sent to a hospital in California for lung surgery and, now, according to close friends, he’s in a coma in a Texas hospital and undergoing treatment paid for by his wealthy Harvard-educated girlfriend Lori Park, one of the first software engineers at Google. Our source says Park has the “resolve and the resources” to, if not cure, at least improve Sunny’s condition.
What has unspooled since has been nothing if not confusing. Garcia’s children claiming they are not allowed to see their father, Garcia’s father sued, etc.
Kempton detailed the bizarre turns and the complete silence from Garcia’s caregivers before penning a sincere plea.
If I am mistaken then please whoever is close to him contact his family and clear this up. Otherwise, how can anyone trust the care and control that SOMEONE, must have in order to isolate him like this? It is a mystery. One that conjures up the possibility of criminal negligence or at the least, purposeful cruelty. Hundreds of his friends are worried about him. His children are disconsolate, confused, and distressed. It’s a situation no well-meaning human being would continue to keep his kids sad and empty. I’m not an investigative journalist, but there are certainly some out there. Chad, where are you? For the sake of his Ohana the surf community needs to find out what this is all about.
The investigative surf journalist named “Chad” an absolute mystery but I, too, have heard rumors of his existence and will lend my voice for him to get off his rump and do something socially and literarily valuable.
That Google robot and its harsh punitive sting be damned.
More as the story develops.
