Surfing Community Remembers Scott Woodworth

Although the seas were too rough for the memorial paddle-out that had been planned for 1 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, Scott Woodworth wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

"It turned out to be perfect, this is the way it was supposed to be, Scott would have enjoyed it very much. The surf, everybody here, his friends getting wet unexpectedly," said Dean Trevethan, his words just barely heard over the pounding 15-foot swell behind us.

Trevethan was a longtime friend, and one of around fifty people who gathered on the beach below Pleasure Point on Sunday to remember Scott Woodworth, 60, the Ben Lomond man who 

"I'm just overwhelmed by all of the people that he surfed with, didn't really know him but knew him from out in the water. The comradery and the surfing community that came together to honor a fellow surfer, it was just really touching. I don't surf myself, but people who do surf came to say goodbye to somebody that they hardly knew, but they knew him in the water as a kind and gentle man," said Trevethan. 

Ron "Ike" Eichhorn, one of Woodworth's surf buddies, said they were used to being called "old crustaceans" by young groms in the water. 

Eichhorn never knew Woodworth as "Scott," but called him "South Paw" because he was a 'goofy footer' on his board, or "Polar Bear," because he was "the hairiest guy I've ever seen in my life," said Eichhorn, who iterated Woodworth's kind attitude in the water. 

"I'd get a wave, and he'd paddle by and say 'nice wave' or 'great take off' and I'd do the same," said Eicchorn. "It was always a good vibe. Everytime I paddled out with him I knew I'd have a good session. I'm not real aggressive, but there are some real buttholes out there, and when they're out there then you're just not going to get a wave," said Eichhorn

"South Paw was a very, generous guy. 'Who's up? You haven't had a wave,' he'd say, and if you paddled out you got the wave, it was just like that, you know? Just having fun," said Eichhorn.

"South Paw" also always got in the ocean on his birthday, no matter what the conditions were, according to Eichhorn.

But Woodworth was remembered by more than just the surf community.

"He was a real gregarious guy. I knew him from bass fishing, I knew him from sobriety, I knew him from surfing. He was into a little bit of everything," said Steve Cottrell, of Los Gatos. 

Woodworth also seemed to have a lot of close women friends.

"I called him a 'guy girlfriend.' As someone said earlier, he had the ability to be close friends with women without being creepy. He was just a gentleman," said Kathy Beattie, a close friend of Woodworth's for the past six years. 

Another one of his women friends remembered him to be "very chatty, too. If you started talking to Scott you could count on an hour going by," said a friend who preferred to go by Cheri D. "He was always good to me. He always used to say 'Cherriii' always with that flirty tone, a flirty, positive guy." 

Although initial media reports speculated that Woodworth had had a heart attack in the water, Woodworth's brother, Lawrence "Loo" Woodworth said that the coroner had absolutely ruled that out. Woodworth's brother also says reports that the surfer had hit his head on the reef and drowned were also false.

"They found almost no water in his lungs," said Loo Woodworth.

According to the coroner, Woodworth actually died very fast, and with much less suffering than initially speculated.

"He [the coroner] said that Scott died from a neck injury that he couldn't figure out," said Woodworth. "All of the other abrasions on his body were after he had died, and but he had had a little tiny slight bump on the head prior to death." 

It was that small bump on his head that the coroner thinks caused Woodworth's death.

"Two weeks before his death he had had a full physical examination and they told him that he had a 20-year-old broken neck and two breaks in his back that were also many, many years old too," said his brother.

The neck condition was most likely from a ski accident Woodworth had almost 20 years ago, according to his brother.

"When I told the coroner that, he went 'Oh, now this makes sense.' He was probably pushing through a wave and just kind of bonked himself on the forehead and it was at the right spot, right angle, and that was it," said Woodworth's brother.

To view a slideshow of the memorial contributed by Loo Woodworth, .

Did you know Scott Woodworth? What do you remember about him? Tell us in the comments.