etnies Goofy vs. Regular 2005: The Pools Jams

Posted on Saturday, October 22, 2005 by Ryan

Words by Ryan Clements
Photos and Captions by Rob Meronek

Just in case you want to still do gorilla grips but don't want to take your socks off, you can wear these things. This is Alex White (center) and her friends. Alex called me out for talking about her undies creeping in some article I wrote. Her undies still creep out when she skates and I'm still looking at it

Steven Reeves - this kid is like 18 or so and he's going to be the next tranny champ you start hearing about. He's real good. This is a frontside tailslide

My favorite to watch - Jimmy Marcus

If you know at least two out of six of these old guys, welcome to the 30 and up club, pal

Pat Ngoho - if you just said to yourself, "No way, I remember that guy," welcome to the 30 and up club

This is Darin Cookiehead Jenkins doing a FFLTL. Everyone on this site knows what a SSBSTS is or a KFBSNB is, but have you figured out FFLTL yet? If you have, congrats on reaching the ripe old age of 30. I remember on the mic at Surf Expo - Schaefer and Clements were having an open discussion on how many black dudes have done a 540. I can't remember who else was mentioned besides Cookiehead here, but I do remember that Clements said, "Chris Gentry!" Now that was funny

Omar Hassan almost broke his tail off every time he punished the coping with it

Remember how Jenny used to give the Cutest Boy of the Contest awards at the Tampa Pro contests? I'm keeping the tradition alive and giving Nicole Zuck here the Cutest Girl of the Contest award. Oh and she kills it in the pool, too

This must be the Hurricane Wilma evacuation route or something. I spotted myspace champ Lea, aka Brunettes Are So Hot Right Now, at the Contest. She's from Orlando, Florida and here to see her boyfriend. Boyfriend??? Booooooooooo. To her left is Grant Brittain and to his left is Dave Swift. Are either of those two "the boyfriend?"

This crew was outside the hotel late night attracting trouble and danger like a magnet. Matt Milligan, Pat Duffy, and Braydon Szafranski

Mike Rogers and Ryan Clements. Mike is a cancer survivor. Check out his site: GrindForLife.org

Mike Rogers' front rock in the shallow end looks like a no make, but it was

I'm pretty sure this girl's name is Mandy

I heard everyone calling Josh Sandoval "Screech." This is properly done crail slide in the deep end

Heidi Fitzgerald rips the bowls

This is Heidi Price - frontside air in the deep end

This is Jeff Grosso. Before the internet was born, I rode Grosso decks. This is a Texas plant

I can't remember this guy's name. He aired from the bowl behind him into the deep end of the bowl he's now doing a frontside air in. The old guys were psyched on that. Update: This is Will Powers

This is Dave Rule. I'm not too well versed in my invert variations. I'm pretty sure an invert with your back hand grabbing mute has a name, but I can't remember

Christie Sanders - this girl was having a blast the whole time and definitely skating the fastest out of all the girls

Chris Cook is a MANIAC. I saw him trip up on a roll-in into the deep end. He bounced on the flat from slamming so hard. I didn't think he was getting up. Then, somehow he got up and was skating again. I couldn't even understand how someone could take that slam and still skate. Plus, he's no spring chicken either. I'm old enough to have ridden a few of his Alva pro models from way back in the day

Benji Galloway is one with the pool. This is a frontside tail grab

Brian Munk serves one up for Florida - a hurricane. This guy's hurricane is legit, but I just took the photo too late

Apryl Woodcock can do feebles to fakie in the deep end and has been skating pretty good lately. This is a frontside 50-50

When you poke a hole in the bottom of a beer with a key and then slam it through the top, it's commonly known as a "shotgun." I like beer but I'm not a fan of that frat practice. Ragdoll here shotgunned it, then puked back into the keyhole so all that's left is the chunks on the outside of the can. I hope you weren't eating just now

Girls

Or should I say “women?” That pool was gnar and these broads stepped up. If you would have seen these girls skate, you would have been hyped like I was, too. We’re not talking about your average girls that ride at you local park here…you know, the ones that are more concerned about being skaters than actually skateboarding. These girls are the real deal and they belong in pools. Here’s how it went down:

6th – Heidi Fitzgerald – rad by default because her boyfriend is Jimmy “The Greek” Marcus. Heidi represents SPoT and ripped with crail snatcher fs grinds

5th – Holly Lyons – sorry Sweetie, but I can’t remember you at all. My bad…

4th – Mandy – I’ve seen the girl around a lot in the past few years, but I had no idea that she rode pools so well. Her fs airs were hot

3rd – Annie Sullivan – never seen this chick before, but here bs airs over the hip from deep to shallow grabbed my attention

2nd – Nicole Zuck – if the results were based on looks alone, then Nicole gets first on my score sheet. When I went up to her and introduced myself she remembered me from the last time I met her…aw, isn’t that sweet? I think she really likes me as much as I like watching her skate. I could keep going on about how cute she is, but I’ll leave it at that

1st – April Woolcock – this young lady can’t be over 14-years-old, and she kills it for real. Give April a few more years and she’s going to be light years ahead of the rest of the girls that skate tranny. She earned top spot with longs lines of multiple tricks and a layback fs boardslide

Masters

This part of the Contest was epic. It sounds gay to say epic, but it was epic to me. There were a few guys skating in it that I’ve never seen before in real life. Those that didn’t make the cut that need some recognition are listed here:

Jim Gray – always repping the anti-China gear, Jim killed it as usual

Marty Jiminez – Jinx gets a mention just ‘cause he’s sick and almost hung up on a bs ollie

Ricky Barnes – while watching Ricky, Salman said, “The former junkies rule,” and I have to agree with him. Ricky came up to me and told me that he liked the tattoo of the van on my arm…he’s down forever for that comment

Lester Kasai – he didn’t skate, but he was there watching. How sick is that?

After everything was over I tried to get all of the results. I managed to get the Girls and Pros, but no one could give me copy of the Masters. So here’s how the top six went down from my perspective (Note: These are not the real results. These were made up by Ryan):

6th – Mike Smith – the inventor of the fs smith grind didn’t grace us with any, but he did several proper smith verts, which he also invented. Mike gets 6th because of his choice of attire. Looks to me that he’s in need or a wardrobe consultant

5th – Chris “Cooksie” Cook – here’s a dude that I’ve never seen before in real life, but I seriously think that he might be out of his mind. He was rolling in, not even caring if someone else was skating, with total disregard for anyone but himself. It looked to me that the rest of the finalists were bummed. He did an acid drop to flat and piled so hard that we were convinced that he wouldn’t get up

4th – Nick “Mad Dog” Henderson – this is the only guy in the Masters Jam that bothered to do a tailslide

3rd – Dave Rule – if your last name is Rule and you ride pools, it’s just too easy to rhyme. Although Rule pushes mongo, it don’t matter ‘cause you don’t push in the pool anyway, especially when you’re doing fs 50/50’s around the hip

2nd – Pat Ngoho – it’s always easy to remember the most stylish guy out there. Pat backs up the style with boarslides (and to fakie), 360 rocks, hurricane rocks, and fluid runs that are worthy of notice

1st – Jeff Grosso – my favorite skater when I was in high school, Jeff is the only guy that can shake the ground when skating a pool. His inverts are still the best and he was grinding the paint off of the coping…literally. Props for the Texas plant, too

Pro

The jam format was sick, but the finals were split into two heats, which seemed kind of weird. That didn’t hinder the ripping though, because The Skulls were rocking and the pros were putting a hurting on that pool. Here’s the top 10 and some dumb commentary:

10th – Eric Britton – OG Venice legend that got bummed when I called him Chuck Dinkins at ASR as a joke. Eric had fs lipslides in both the deep and shallow and one of the best layback grinds to revert ever

9th – Lance Lieshet – random kid that was “pro” for the event. Started one of his runs by getting into a noseblunt and yanking it in frontside in the deep

8th – Steven Reeves – TA look-a-like may possibly be as fluid as Alva himself. This kid must have been “pro” for the day…he killed it

7th – Darin Jenkins – how you not gonna’ love “Cookiehead?” I didn’t know Darin is originally from Orlando. He ripped with 5’ bs airs, Madonnas, and eggplants

6th – Bruno Passos – a couple of years ago he was chaperoning Brazilians that couldn’t speak any English. Now he’s placing top 10 in pro contests with manly 5-0’s to fakie and backlips throughout

5th – Will Powers – I love this guy simply because of his name. He fs air transferred from the bowl into the pool…something very, very few are capable of doing

Random Etnies Stuff

4th – Josh Sandoval – this kid might have some brain cells missing, but he annihilated the pool. He did fs crail reverts, bs bonelesses to fakie, and a roll-in revert

3rd – Omar Hassan – even though I love The Greek and he’s my boy, I still think that Omar should have been 2nd and Greek should have been 3rd based on what I saw Omar do. He skated the pool like it was a mini-ramp, with full runs and loads of tricks. I especially liked the roll-in to fs lipslide all the way around the shallow end

2nd – Jimmy “The Greek” Marcus – who would have ever guessed that one of the best pool riders of all time would have come out of Florida, where the pools are pretty scarce? The Greek plans nothing and could care less – that’s why he’s one of the most entertaining to watch

1st – Benji Galloway – he won it last year and took it again this year. Benji made the pool look even more like a mini-ramp than what Omar did, but he threw in some great moves like eggplant reverts and full speed fs layback boardslides, as well

I went right from the pool party to the hotel lobby party. The etnies Skatepark is in a really nice part of town and there are offices all over the place here. The Hilton Garden Inn that we’re staying at obviously caters to the corporate business traveler. That’s why the lobby looked funny with the rock star status that was conglomerating there. It’s time to name drop: Elisssa, Herman, Ragdoll, Braydon, Milligan, and other rock stars were enjoying Natural Light with us. Good times…

Ryan

etnies Goofy vs. Regular 2005: The Pools Jams

Posted on Saturday, October 22, 2005 by Ryan

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