New Games Report

This site is dedicated to Jay Adams.

Support Jay, Get the book "JAY BOY"
 

"Jay Adams' contribution to skateboarding defies description or category. Jay is probably not the greatest skater of all time, but I can say without fear of being wrong that he is clearly the archetype of modern-day skateboarding. Archetype defined means an original pattern or model, a prototype. Prototype defined means the first thing or being of its kind. He's the real thing, an original seed, the original virus that infected all of us.

He was beyond comparison. To this day I haven't witnessed any skater more vital, more dynamic, more fun to watch, more unpredictable, and more spontaneous in his approach than Jay. There are not enough superlatives to describe him. . .Watching him skate was something new every second; he was "skate and destroy" personified.

I believe this photo of Jay is the most stunning and strikingly clear representation, of any photo ever taken, of modern skateboarding. It contains all the elements that make up what modern-day skateboarding has become: awesome aggression and style, power and fury, wild abandon, destruction of all fear, untamed individualism, and a free-spirited determination to tear, shred and rip relentlessly.

Jay Adams may not have been the world's best skater, but he was the man, the real deal, the original, the first. He is the archetype of our shared heritage."

-Stacy Peralta

Jay Adams is just 8 months younger than me and while he was learning how to skateboard in the early 70's I was learning how to throw. 

In reading what Stacy had to say about Jay, it has always resonated with how I've felt about my own existence in the Ultimate Frisbee World.  I may not have been the best, but I was the first on many, many fronts.  As Stacy says, the original seed, the prototype, the model from which much of the modern game sprung from.  Except.......

Except that the modern game never happened in Ultimate Frisbee and rather than being recognized for any innovations I may have brought to the game, I have been hated, loathed and despised.  And still am.  To this day, players leave games that I attend because their feelings of hatred for me run so deep.  Imagine Tony Hawk showing up at a skatepark and skaters going home out of pure, unadulterated hatred.

For over twenty years, I've been public enemy number one in a culture where I should have thrived.  Try to picture Jay Adams being hated and loathed by all of the old school skateboarders who were somehow able to promulgate their hatred in an effort to maintain a grip on the status quo and never allow the sport to evolve. 

That is as best as I can compare what my life has been like in the Ultimate world.  It has not been fun and the worst part is that the game itself has become a completely unwatchable and boring sport completely devoid of any innovation.

A special thanks to Stacy Peralta for producing the acclaimed documentary Dog Town and Z-Boys, a movie that has proven to have inspired a great number of people to begin their own revolutions.

Mine is Dischoops.

Enjoy.

Frank Huguenard