It was Jesse Billauer’s 17th birthday and the last day he would ever walk into the ocean, the last time he would stand up on his board.
The Pacific Palisades native had started surfing in 1988 and within just a few years had secured a sponsorship with Billabong, traveling the world to exotic surf breaks and living his pro surfing dreams.
But on March 25, 1996, Billauer broke his neck surfing, suffering a spinal cord injury that would leave his body paralyzed.
“The ocean has bought us all so many of our funnest memories, and for some of us there’s just one memory we would do anything to erase. But we can’t. We can’t take it back. My heart was broken,” said Billauer, who went on to form the nonprofit Life Rolls On to help people with disabilities feel the thrill of surfing.
Billauer was one of several influential and inspirational wave riders honored in several categories during the Surfing Walk of Fame in front of Jack’s Surfboards on Thursday, Aug. 3. Also inducted were Dick Metz as a surf pioneer, Pauline Menczer as woman of the year, Don Hansen for the honor roll, Roberto “Chuy” Madrigal as a local hero, Patagonia’s Yvon Chouinard for surf culture and Cheyne Horan as a surf champion.
The induction is held each year during the US Open of Surfing.
Billauer, the first to accept his award, talked about his many accomplishments following his surf accident, including three International Surfing Association adaptive surfing world championships, being featured in the Dana Brown film “Step Into Liquid” and, his greatest feat, his twin sons.
Life Rolls On, created in 2001, is dedicated to giving people with disabilities the ability to “feel the freedom of riding waves, being out in the ocean with nature and enjoying the wind, the water just splashing on their face,” he said, adding it is “an opportunity to get out of their wheelchairs and feel free from the pain, the struggles and daily grind of being confined by a…
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