Debbie Beacham – Biography

Debbie Beacham – Biography

Debbie Beacham contributed more to surfing than her 1982 world title performance. Rather, the powerful regular foot found purpose in both maintaining and improving women’s surfing by all means available. Through her work as a contest organizer and promoter, Beacham became integral to the very survival of women’s professional surfing in its earliest incarnation and is thus historically significant to its flourishing today. Debbie Beacham made her journey count not only as a part of the first crew of traveling women competitors on the pro tour and as world champion, but also as an organizer of the WPS and later as member of the budding ASP tour’s administrative team where she worked to insure equality and opportunity for women surfers on tour.

Debbie Melville was born in 1953.  As the daughter of a naval pilot, she lived in many different locations and at age twelve she and her family moved permanently to La Jolla, California.   Melville taught herself to surf on a used board she bought at a garage sale.  “There was a surf culture boom with cool surf music and Gidget on TV.  It was hard to resist”

Beacham later recalled, “[surfing] seemed so mysterious and different and not many girls did it where I lived.” By the time she was 18, Debbie Melville was one of the state’s hottest surfers, taking top honors in two of the Western Surfing Association’s AAAA events. In 1971, she placed 3^rd in the US Championships and then 2^nd in the same event the following year. In 1972, she also placed 5^th in the World Contest in San Diego.

As the IPS (International Professional Surfing) created the inaugural women’s world tour alongside of the men’s tour, in 1977, Beacham was onboard and finished in 8^th place.  As Lynne Boyer and Margo Oberg famously traded world titles during those early years Melville-Beacham was part of the field of competitors who were managing to travel worldwide and create a world ranking.  As this was an expensive and non-lucrative endeavor, the women on the tour were keen to create better events and add more prize money to the newly formed World Tour.

During this era, interest in women’s surfing often paled in comparison to the bikini contests happening on the beach. Prize money was half of that in the men’s event, and the ladies often were sent out when the surf was at its worst during the contest waiting period.

In 1981, in an effort to improve the state of women’s surfing, Beacham resurrected the Women’s Professional Surfing (WPS) association which had never really gotten off the ground. Including some dozen members, the new WPS held a series of professional events, a mini tour of sorts, and under Beacham’s leadership, the new organization secured sponsors such as Mazda, Bucci Sunglasses, Hang Ten, Michelob, and The Limited.  However, the world of surfing was still a man’s world.   In 1982, Beacham and the women of the WPS joined with the ASP in hopes of more visibility and richer contest earnings.

1982 turned out to be a banner year for Beacham. Representing her sponsers Hang Ten and O’Neill, Beacham made the year count.  After winning her first ever world tour event at Bells Beach against then “school girl” Pam Burridge, she sparked a series of finishes that would earn her the world title alongside Mark Richards, who had just won his 4^th title.

Both a strong competitor and an aggressive surfer, Beacham  performed especially well in large surf with a functional and purposeful approach to the wave. To put her accomplishment in perspective, Beacham won the 1982 world title and the 1983 Surfer Magazine Readers Poll during an era riddled with historic talent: Pam Burridge and the soon-to-be dominant Frieda Zamba were climbing the ranks while juggernauts Lynne Boyer and Margo Oberg were still in prime fighting shape.

From 1985 to 1991, Beacham worked for Surfer Magazine’s advertising department while also pouring remaining time and focus into promoting and organizing contests. She served on the board of the ASP as the women’s representative from 1982-1991, during which time she worked toward insuring equality, if not in prize money, at least in opportunity by pushing the ASP to pressure contest organizers to hold both men and women’s divisions. Beacham later co-produced Surfer Girl in 1994, a surfing documentary shot in 16 mm film starring Beacham, Frieda Zamba, Pam Burridge, Wendy Botha, and Jodie Cooper. In the film, the ladies ride perfect Fijian reefs and talk about their passion for the sport and their experiences in the world of surfing. In the film, Beacham herself equates elevated surfing success a result of  a “burning desire…that overcomes you to focus on your goals”. The film won an award at the Chicago International Film Festival and has shown on both Discovery and National Geographic networks.

Debbie Beacham still resides in La Jolla, California with her husband and three children. She is still involved in surfing, helping to organize the annual Moores UCSD Cancer Center Luau and Longboard Invitational which raises money for cancer research and treatment. The contest has raised a reported $5 million for the Moores UCSD Cancer Center.

She was recently elected to the ISA Executive Committee as a Vice President .  The International Surfing Association (ISA) is recognized by the International Olympic Committee as the World Governing Authority for Surfing.

At the end of Surfer Girls, Debbie Beacham calls for young girls to focus on “overcoming the obstacles” and to “have faith in yourself.” For a woman who rose to the zenith of her sport and continued on to fight to gain more opportunities for the next generation of women, these words do not ring hollow. Instead, they stand as blueprint for all the girls who today make a living and follow their dreams in the competitive surfing arena Beacham helped to shape.