Curren created the game while waiting for a volleyball court and later founded the Old Mission Beach Athletic Club in 1953, leaving behind an enduring legacy
Mike Curren, the man credited with inventing the Over-The-Line game that helped make San Diego beach culture famous, died Friday at his longtime home in south Mission Beach. He was 92.
The Over-The-Line tournament, which drew 700 teams last summer, is famous not only for the game itself but also for the related hoopla and partying of the contestants and the crowds who gather to watch. Bawdy team names and cheeky costumes are among the highlights of the raucous event. “As a stopgap and something to keep us out of getting into trouble, we set up an Over-The-Line court,” said Terry Curren, 88. “It was pretty loose because we didn’t have anything as sophisticated as a measuring stick for dimensions.”
Curren’s romantic partner of more than four decades, Helen Duffy, said Monday that he defied the beach bum stereotype and was a quiet intellectual who read extensively about history, philosophy and other subjects. “He was my little Irishman,” she said, describing Curren as “wiry, athletic and extremely powerful” despite being relatively small in stature at 5-foot-8.
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