"Sport strips away personality and lets the white bone of character shine through."
- Rita Mae Brown

Marco Jay Luciano Occhilupo has been everything, nothing and everything again. He's made people shake their heads at the wonder of such a God-given talent and kick the dirt during the lost years when he couldn't shake the demons in his head. He's been angelically good, devilishly bad, deliriously happy and desperately sad. He's reached mind-blowing highs and plummeted to unimaginable lows. This has been a full life and truly remarkable career, and even though it can't be over - it just can't be - it nearly is. Time waits for no one.

Occhilupo is 41, and the Pipeline Masters this week will be his farewell to the world tour. Having been ranked No.2 in the world at 17, he won Pipeline 22 years ago and the world title was a given - but it didn't come until he was 33.

The lost years were spent locked up in his Gold Coast unit, losing his mind, fitness, willpower - everything. He was too ashamed to venture outside in case the kids who worshiped him saw what he had become: a sad reminder of what "The Raging Bull" used to be. A pathetic ghostly example of what could have been.

What could have been - they're the saddest words of all. Occhilupo kept hearing them, and the loudest voice was his own. Just when all hope seemed lost, he had a dream that told him to go surfing again. He went to Western Australia and started training, running, doing a thousand sit-ups a day, getting himself back into chiselled shape and rediscovering a love of his sport before it was too late.

He just had this gnawing feeling in his gut that he could still match it with the young punks back on the world tour, and so at the age of 30 he swallowed his pride and slogged his way through the wholly unglamorous World Qualifying Series in an attempt to requalify for the big time.

He made it, becoming the oldest world champion in history in one of the greatest imaginable examples of how you're never so far down that you're completely out. The fact that he started on the tour at 17 and is still going at 41 is beyond remarkable.

Occhilupo still has the wild spray of blond hair that screams hardcore surfer, the square jaw you want in a hero and the wholehearted respect of every other member of the tour. He's a rock, but bawls like a baby. He cried when he became world champion because his father, Luciano, his hero, was no longer around to see it.

He sobbed again in Brazil last month when his close mate Mick Fanning became Australia's first No.1 since '99. He is genuinely loved by his peers on a tour which will have gushing tears running down its collective cheek when he returns to the shore after his last heat in Hawaii.

He's made more friends than he knows. He's made a lot of people smile. Occhilupo is so magnificent he'll surf three-metre Teahupo'o like it's Kiddies Corner. But he'll stub his toe walking across the rocks at Jeffreys Bay and scream like a little girl.

He is so awe-inspiring he can terrify an opponent with nothing more than a look in their direction, but he gets so emotional he'll hug and kiss his mates as though he might never see them again. He looks like a colossus but has the high-pitched voice and giggle of a grommet. How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were? Occhilupo is 17.

"I'll be right," he says of retirement. "It's no big deal." But it is.

His mother used to think the winner of a surfing heat was the first person to make it back to shore. She now says that in some ways, she doubts her son has ever really grown out of his childhood, which is fine.

Occhilupo has two sons, Jay and Jona, and you are unlikely to ever see a more doting father. His wife, Mae, says he is a beautiful man and no one is going to argue the point.

For all the unforgettable heats, victories, comeback from oblivion and world title, one little moment sums up the man. He had just won the final at Bells in 1998, having been through hell and back to win his first event in 12 years, and thousands of people in front of the presentation dais fell into a reverential silence.

"This is such a special moment for me, and it's such a special event," he said. "I've been waiting such a long time, and I have a lot of people who I owe this win to. I'd like to dedicate this to my father, Luciano Occhilupo, who passed away in 1990.

"I've been waiting a very long time, and I feel this is a good time to say that. It means a lot to me to be a professional surfer ... I'd like to thank all of the people who have been good to me, everyone behind my comeback and my career. It's been good, so thanks. Thanks very much - and thanks."

Someone should take the last sentence of that speech, print in big bold type, frame it and give it to Occhilupo at Pipeline.

For all the entertainment he's provided, friendships he's made, inspiration he's delivered to three generations of surfers and just for everything he has contributed to surfing, someone needs to walk up to Occy in Hawaii, shake his hand, look him in the eye and say: "Thanks very much - and thanks."