SURFING / BODY GLOVE OCEANSIDE OPEN : He Graduates With Honors From School of Hard Knocks

His posture is impeccable, his style fluid. He can carve a wave nearly as well as anyone in the world, and he isn’t shy about trying new maneuvers.

At 20, one year after turning professional and five years after suffering a major back injury, Taylor Knox of Carlsbad is regarded as one of the most inspirational and respected contestants on the Professional Surfing Assn. of America Bud Pro Surfing Tour. This week it is making its fifth 1991 stop--the $35,000 Body Glove Oceanside Open at the Oceanside Pier.

Knox’s life today is a 12-year-old dream come true--he has traveled the world and is starting to make some money doing something he truly loves--but it nearly turned into a nightmare after a skateboarding spill left him with a severely damaged lower back.

At 15, heading into his sophomore year at Carlsbad High, Knox underwent 4 1/2 hours of surgery to repair the fifth lumbar bone of his vertebra. He was fortunate, surgeons told him, that he was wasn’t paralyzed from the waist down.

Knox, normally upbeat and personable, didn’t feel lucky.

For the next six months, he had to wear a restrictive body brace that extended from his upper chest and back to his lower hips. Another part of it ran down his left leg, making it difficult for him to much of anything.

“For someone that was as active as Taylor, that was hard on him,” said Janet Watson, Knox’s mother. “He was really concerned about the whole situation. But he was pretty young, and it was hard for him to understand why this was happening to him.”

Surfing was out of the picture for a while, perhaps forever. And that hurt Knox even more.

“I was bitter and angry about the whole thing,” Knox said. “I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to get out again, and that was the toughest part. The uncertainty of it all nearly drove me crazy.”

Still, Knox could not stay away from the ocean. Something inside of him kept driving him to return.

Janet and her husband, Fred Watson, would hoist Knox into the back of their van and take him down to the beach nearly every day. Knox would endure the five-minute drive, lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling. Once there, Janet and Fred would help him out of the van and prop him up along the boardwalk wall like a mummy.

Once in a while, Knox would venture down and dip his toes in the surf to tease his senses--or was it to punish himself?

“I hated going down there,” Knox said, “but something kept making me go back. It was painful, watching everyone else out there surfing and knowing I might not ever again be one of them.”

School was another subject. Because of his limited mobility, Knox spent the first semester of his sophomore year being tutored at home.

And when he returned to school: “There was a rumor going around that I had moved to Australia. Yeah. I was really missed,” he said, laughing. “They didn’t know what had happened to me. I was Mr. X. A few close friends knew but not many after that.”

His return to surfing--about seven months after the operation--caused less of a ripple.

“I had so much desire to come back, but a lot of people gave up on me,” Knox said. “They said I was washed up. They said I would never make it back. That made me even more mad, and it made me hungry.”

Knox did make it back, sooner than many thought possible. By the end of his senior year, he had won the California high school championship, leading Carlsbad to a second-place team finish, and became the first person to compete for the National Scholastic Surfing Assn. national team and the U.S. Surfing Federation world traveling team in the same season.

In 1988, Knox won the NSSA nationals at Huntington Beach and last year was the highest placing American at the World Championships in Japan.

He had a shot at winning in Japan, but with 30 seconds left in the final, he was the victim of a controversial interference call and was dropped to fourth.

Said USSF teammate Rob Machado of Cardiff, “In Japan, everyone was out to get the Americans. It’s always like that. He had a good shot at winning with that last wave. He just got gypped.”

That tournament convinced Knox it was time to turn pro, and when Ocean Pacific was added to the list of his existing sponsors--Linden Surfboards, HydroLight Wetsuits, Carlsbad Pipelines Surfshop and chiropractor J.J. Heaivilin--Knox made it official last summer.

Having to go through arduous qualifying rounds, Knox finished 43rd and earned $2,400 last year on the PSAA tour. This year, after four events, he is 17th. His goal is to make it into the top 16 by the end of the year.

“He’s a great surfer,” said Machado, the highest ranking amateur (22nd) on the PSAA circuit. “He’s fun to watch. He’s progressive, always experimenting with new maneuvers. I like watching him just to pick up some new ideas.”

Knox said he got some new ideas about life from a book titled “The Psychology of Winning” by Dr. Dennis Waitly.

“That really helped me get a new perspective on life,” Knox said. “It was all about positive thinking and living life. It taught me that life is too short to be in a bummer all the time.”

Surfing Notes

San Diego surfers advancing to today’s third round of the $35,000 Body Glove Oceanside Open were: Travis Molina, Paul Barga, Joe Schirmer, Guto Carvalho, Jamie Stone, Takeyuki Wakita, Joshua Millisap, and Larry Keast. Seeded surfers, such as Carlsbad’s Taylor Knox and Cardiff’s Rob Machado, begin competing Friday. Surfing each day begins at 7:30 a.m. The main events for the Pro-Am Surfing Division and the Easy Rider Bodyboarding Division begin Saturday. Sunday’s finals are scheduled for 1 p.m.