Zaturdays: 21 Years of Winners

So Tampa Am has happened 21 times so far and the list of winners, with only a couple of exceptions, is a who’s who of professional skateboarding celebrity. I was at just about every one of these shindigs, paying my dues as they say, and I noticed some things along the way. What follows is a rundown on the entire gamut of winners since the very beginning. Take it for what it’s worth, which admittedly isn’t much. No disrespect to Josh or anyone who was in the first “Tampa Am,” but it was definitely not the Tampa Am we’ve come to know and love. The only international skater would have been a foreign exchange student, and the extent of the coverage consisted of kids telling their friends at school that they went to some contest that weekend. For all intents and purposes it was a local contest that didn’t matter to anyone. Josh Stewart was just another local at the time and definitely never turned pro after winning it, but maybe in some weird way it helped lead to his being an international filmer to the stars? Just one of my theories… Now THIS was the first real Tampa Am. After the success of the first Tampa Pro the idea was to resurrect what the NSA contests had done for am skating in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which was to have a truly national presence. In addition to his part in Eastern Exposure III, the exposure Donny got from Tampa Am in TWS, Thrasher, and 411VM (especially from seeing first LIVE Barley grinds) gave him a worthwhile boost on his way to an absolutely legendary pro career. I know I was in the building to see it but honestly have no clear memory of what Judd Hertzler did to win. I remember he had some weight behind his skating and might have tre flipped the pyramid. But he might not have. He rode for Foundation. For those who were there, Nathan Smith blew minds. He was super tech for the times, finishing his run with a 270 frontside flip over the hip. People who only saw his run on video told me “the dude sucks.” That happens. He’s famous for being the guy who won Tampa and then dropped off the face of the earth. But Nathan is from Tennessee and as recently as a few years ago Dee Ostrander said he would see him skating around there sometimes. Peterson gets credit for the Peterblunt, which it’s been said was invented by Wade Speyer. Who knows. But Mike is from Jacksonville, FL, and he won Tampa Am with frontside 180 melon grabs, back lips on the rail, and high speed everything, smiling through all of it. Mike was running his own landscaping business at the time but after Tampa he had the chance to skate for a living over the next decade. He’s a PBR type of guy and he rules it. Berard was a little tranny chomper from Virginia Beach that could kickflip front board any rail as well as Bastien probably. After winning the Am, he went on to win Tampa Pro the next year too. Things were going great for Kyle until he got in a car crash and jacked himself good and proper. He recovered but did his career? Kyle is one of the greatest humans alive and today runs Front Rock Concrete. He built Hoffart's backyard bowl and you should have him build yours too. Colt Cannon had more pop than anyone, but he gained most of his fame for being a jock who loved listening to Brittney Spears. His prize for winning Tampa was a free used car that said “Ain’t Skeer’d” on the windshield. They drove it right into the park and up over the pyramid. His career flamed out earlier than it should have, can’t say why. Caswell is super good. But that’s obvious. Sorry, nothing else comes to mind about it though. This was the first time I ever remember seeing or hearing of Spanky and Brian Herman. There were both ripping. Spanky did backside 270 kickflips over the hip of the pyramid and frontside flipped the rail to win it. Part of his prize was one of those pocket bike motorcycle things, Schaefer and I just asked him about it a couple months ago, it got stolen. Sierra was a complete unknown when he showed up in Tampa that year. But as the story goes, when he was checking in at registration one of his friends said, “This is the dude that’s going to win it this year.” And of course everyone around was like, “Yeah, right, we haven’t heard that one before.” But yeah, right, he did. We were just talking to Nyjah at the Super Crown about this. “I was 10 when I won Tampa Am,” he said. To which we were all like “Whhhhhaaaaaaaaa?!!!!!” But yeah, do the math, he’s 20 now, that was ten years ago. Apparently the only thing people noticed about Cody Mac the year he won Tampa Am was his XXXL T-Shirt and size 40 pants. But if you were paying attention you would have also noticed he was KILLING it. He ended his run with the nollie backside biggie down the stairs, and he’s still got it, seen it just the other weekend. Yep, Felipe was an unknown kid living in Brazil and his dad sold the family car to finance their trip to Tampa. It was a gamble. When they arrived, they found out that registration was full and Felipe would not be able to skate the contest. Somehow he’d failed to sign up in advance. He used to “no speak English” so maybe that’s why. After getting the chance to at least practice a little bit, the SPoT crew thought, “This kid really kind of rips…maybe we can make an exception.” The rest is history. The year Decenzo won was one of the rare years I missed, but I didn’t have to be there to know how hard he killed it. There were two Tampa Ams in 2008 because the second one was moved from Spring 2009 to Winter 2008. But that’s stuff for bookkeepers. Luan became the second Brazilian wunderkind to win Tampa Am. And then he won it again in 2009. And then he turned pro and in 2013 he became the second Tampa Am winner to also win Tampa Pro. This year he separated himself from everyone else in the world probably once and for all by becoming the fist two-time winner of BOTH Tampa Am and Tampa Pro. Elijah dropped in on the quarterpipe straight into a 50-50 grind up the biggest rail on the course. Basically he did everything everyone else was doing but backwards. That’s how come he won. #blessed. Trevor is a Golden Child and can do no wrong. Tampa Am was a drop in his bucket. This one was a gnarly final but Alec Majerus is a machine and had zero trouble with it. I hate when people say stuff like “zero trouble.” Jack can do most of the hardest tricks in the world switch. He won in 2013 so easy it was weird. I thought he was going to win it again in 2014…he didn’t, but he’s going to have another crack at it this year. Wait, isn’t that the Mega Ramp kid from Xgames? Yes, yes it is, but as you all found out, he can also do a hardflip to backside lipslide on a handrail. Weird, but true. - Paul