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.

How many times have you watched the video? I’ve been watching it a few times per day and I’m jonesin’ for more. I wish I could have seen it live.

So yes, we all know Chris Cole is amazing. If he had only done the 360 or the switch frontside flip that would have been all that was necessary, but doing both, and the frontside flip absolutely flawlessly…well, that’s Cole for ya.

What’s a bit sad about an event like this is that it’s kind of dillutes each trick. Of course there’s going to be one trick that overshadows everything else (obviously the 360 in this case) but dang, what about everything else. Imagine that Hoffart had gone and done a heelflip varial a week ago–it would have been a cover for sure. He would have made history. But as it stands, a year from now most people will forget that the trick was ever done down Wallenberg. The same goes for Nick Merlino’s switch heelflip. I mean, that was one of the tricks everyone was saying they wanted to see, right? A switch flip down Wallenberg? And he did it as a virtual no-name, but unfortunately he won’t get the cred from it that he could have gotten if he did it on his own without the contest. And Lindsey’s backside 180 heelflip. Did you see how easy he made that look. Not a hint of sketching. It couldn’t have been any cleaner. And I think Catfish’s backside bigspin might have been my favorite, but again, it will mostly be forgotten a year from now, and Cole will be the indisputable King of Wallenberg because everyone will remember the 360 flip and the 360 ollie.

Then again, maybe none of these guys would have landed those tricks if it weren’t for the raging crowd egging them on. And in all likelihood they never would have gone there to try those tricks if it weren’t for the Phelper putting on the contest in the first place. For myself and skateboarding, I’m stoked it went down, I just hope people don’t forget that history wasn’t made just once last Saturday, but 10 times…wait, 10 times? Oh yeah, I already forgot about Lizard King’s three tricks, and Pott’s hardflip, for goodness’ sake! See what I mean?

So here’s the question, will anyone go there and get a trick on their own before the thing gets demolished? I’d still like to see a girl do it, and I’d like to see some sort of nollie trick down it, even if it’s just a plain straight nollie.