Nerdsday Thursday: How Old Are Top Am Skaters? Article at Skatepark of Tampa

Nerdsday Thursday: How Old Are Top Am Skaters?

Posted on Thursday, February 7, 2013 by Rob

By Rob Meronek

This week, I'm continuing the age analysis of last week but switching the data to Damn Am skaters over the years.

Sure, from last week, we can see that most of the skaters coming through the doors here at SPoT are generally older than years ago. How about the top ams? The skaters that are deep into it, fully engrained in the culture, and good enough to skate something like Damn Am, including getting past my video footage scrutiny?

Let me start with a description of the data. We've been doing Damn Am since 2001 when Brian Schaefer decided that the world needed to experience firsthand the vibe and style of Tampa Am. Since then, there have been 5,239 Damn Am contest placings consisting of 1,655 unique skaters. The top five skaters that have the most entries in Damn Am events are:
  1. David Loy
  2. Dylan Perry
  3. Collin Provost
  4. Cody Davis
  5. Curren Caples
Alright, let's get going on how old top am skaters have been over the years. It's actually pretty amazing that the data matches last week's Nerdsday Thursday showing how skaters coming throught the doors at Skatepark of Tampa are getting older.
The average age of Damn Am skaters since 2001 has steadily crept up from early 17 to mid-19. Wow, what does that mean? It could be a lot of things. Here are just a few possible explanations:
  • More kids are trying harder to make a skateboarding career work by skating am contests longer. Long live the man am.
  • Less younger kids are entering contests.
  • Less younger kids are skating in general.
  • Less younger kids are following skating through to a top am level.
  • Skateboarding is damn hard not that many people get good at it at a younger age.
Who knows. I can come up with a bunch of examples to counter all the above points as easily as I can back them up. Tyshawn Jones aka Baby Ishod is a good example of a super young kid killing it, but he's also the exception pretty much. What do you think? Next week on Nerdsday Thursday, maybe I'll continue the age thing and just look at Tampa Am data. Thanks for geeking out with me.

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