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.

Lesson #3 = It’s all about who you know.

If you think you can just send in a video to Girl and they’ll put you on the team, you’re setting yourself up for some disappointment. Now if you’re really, really good, and you’re not an idiot but in fact a real cool guy, and you hang out with the Girl team all the time, and those guys are like your best friends and invite you to their wedding receptions, then maybe, maybe, MAYBE!, you’ve got a shot at being sponsored. Maybe. But probably not. They’ll probably put you on Skate Mental and tell you it’s like wanting to be on Zero but being put on Mystery instead, and when you ask “Wouldn’t Chocolate be to Girl like Mystery is to Zero?” then they’ll pat you on the back and say “Just hang out with Brad for a while, you’ll see.”

But seriously, you’ve got to have connections. And getting Steve Berra to accept you as a friend on Facebook doesn’t count.

You know that guy who skates who is always talking about what trick he did, and how he did it first try, and how he did it just like P-Rod would do it, and how Jereme saw him do it and said he did it better than P-Rod would do it, and how Girl wanted him but he’s turning them down because he wants the $120K per year from Plan B? And then you know how you saw him skating once and he couldn’t do a kickflip on flat? Don’t be that guy.

You know that other guy who always gets mad when he doesn’t land a trick? You know, he was trying to do a kickflip down a three-stair, but he couldn’t get enough speed to clear the last step, so he fell? And then he got up and started throwing his board and cursing and acting like he was Kerry Getz, except Kerry is patient by comparison because he waits until the third missed attempt to lose his temper? Don’t be that guy. Be patient like Kerry, keep working on it, and you’ll land it by and by.

So once again, lesson #2, don’t be an idiot.

First, ride a skateboard good.
No, seriously, you need to be really, really good. Amazingly good. Better than the guys in the videos, because everything you see in the videos is what they were doing months or even years ago. So once you can put together a video part like the guys in the videos, you’re good enough to have gotten sponsored last year. Now you have to come up with some tricks you haven’t seen in videos yet.

Style is part of being good too. Remember style. Also, remember that doing a kickflip front board on a flat rail in your driveway while you’re moving about as fast as your grandpa can shuffle down that same driveway to get the mail doesn’t come across the same to a team manager as doing it down the Hollywood 16. I know they’re both rails, and they’re both made of metal, but the stairs really make a difference.

So remember lesson #1–be good on a skateboard.

Here’s the first one, Daniel Suarez from Peru. The guy is amazing. I’ll give the guy one month before he gets picked up with a full sponsorship from a set of major companies.

If anyone knows anything about this guy post a comment. In English! My translation skills aren’t that great.

Seriously, Daniel’s got one of the cleanest 360 flips down stuff that I’ve ever seen, not to mention that huge set of stairs at the end.