So Clyde says winning Tampa Am is one of the ways to ruin your skateboarding career. “…has there truly been anyone whos won that contest, and went on to become a top pro- or is it me? id personally always considered it the Rose Bowl of skateboarding contest. but the more i pay attention, im starting to realize its more like a Patriot League championship game. weird…”
Normally Clyde is gold, but I’ve learned that even with Clyde you’ve got to trust but verify, so I went to search things out and find out if Clyde is on the money. The first problem I encountered is that I couldn’t find a complete list of Tampa Am winners on the SPOT website, so I’ve created one here. Let’s see who we’ve got. Bear in mind, Clyde’s not saying these guys are lame people or lame skaters, he’s just saying their careers as skateboarders may not have exactly flourished.
1997 – Judd Hertzler. Who? Ok, I actually have heard of Judd, so I can’t really say “Who?”
1998 – Nathan Smith. Ditto, who? Except in this case I really have no clue who Nathan Smith is.
1999 – Mike Petersen. Mike seems like a nice guy, and there’s no doubt he’s good, and no offense to Consolidated because I totally respect those guys, but if you’re on Consolidated you’re not a “top pro” by definition. Geez, I’m totally going to get beat up by Birdo or Kharma now. Sorry guys, but you know it’s true.
2000 – Kyle Berard. Ditto.
2001 – Colt Cannon. Hey, Colt had an ok career there for a while, but then what happened after Element?
2002 – Caswell Berry. Hmm, I think Caswell has had an ok career. Maybe not a “top pro” per se, but everybody knows who he is, don’t they?
2003 – Kevin Long (Spanky). I don’t know about Spanky…I’ve never really seen anything from him that makes him stand out to me, but he does seem to be fairly popular, if not “tops”.
2004 – Sierra Fellers. Sierra is an amazing skater, but I think it’s gets hard to judge what his career will be like. I don’t think we can say he’s reached “top” status as of yet, although seriously, the guy is amazing.
2005 – Nyjah Huston. Who’s this guy riding for anyway? Again, I think we’ll have to wait and see on Nyjah.
2006 – Cody McEntire. Cody definitely has the potential. You see his part in that Digital vid from a while ago where he was skating in Australia? Dang.
2007 – Felipe Gustavo. We’ll have to wait and see, I guess.
2008 – Ryan Decenzo. Ditto.
2009 – ? I’m predicting…well, who knows.
So I think I’ll have to agree with Clyde, at least somewhat. I don’t know if I’d say that any of these guys have ruined their careers, but then again we don’t have a P-Rod, Koston, Reynolds, or Ladd on this list.
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Colt Cannon had a good career, Berry is on tour, I saw him recently.
It’s a tough one to gauge though.
i think anything post 2003 is yet to be determined, give ‘em some time and they will do something.
Nathan smith is from Nashville, TN.
Nyjah is riding for Element, he has some good parts in the Elementality videos and This is my Element
Just saw Nathan Smith practicing at a local skate park up North…he’s still got it. He said he was touring for awhile then was teaching kids. He has just recently returned to back to roots in Nashville to continue what he loves.
Caswell and Spanky are the shit, Clyde is an idiot.
yeah im not sure it ruins your career, but just to clear some things up, i heard of nathan smith back as soon as he won this comp when he was in some old logic videos, he killed it, and nyjah now rides for a company i and i, so does anthony williams, and also cody mcentire is the best skater in my books these days, along with decenzo, and this years winner luan, blew up so quick by the time everyone found out who he was he already won, no one knew who that guy was until he won this, i can remember everyone thinking who is this kid owning in skate or dice? Anyway i think that tampa am is irrelevant to how your skating career ends up besides getting noticed early if you enter it or win it.