PHILADELPHIA -- All week long at the X Games in Philadelphia we have been tracking down some industry insiders to give you a different perspective on things. Just before the Skateboard Park competition, we grabbed a chair in the Athlete Lounge with skateboard veteran Dave Duncan who gave us a glimpse into the mind of a skateboard judge/announcer/company owner/ramp builder/you name it. Check it out:
Name: Dave Duncan
Age: 39 (old school)
What pays the bills? I run my own company called Dave Duncan Designs. We build and design skateboard parks. Right now we are doing the VANS skateboard parks. Also events like X Games, Gravity Games, that sort of thing. I'm also full-time with World Cup Skateboarding. I'm the announcer for the pro skateboard tour. That keeps me busy.
How did you get to be a judge? In the 70s I used to be sponsored and competed and I did a little bit of judging. In the 80s when skateboarding really took off, it was the same thing. I competed at the amateur level and I judged other amateurs. I turned pro in '87 and I broke my ankle that summer and it put me in a situation to judge some of the bigger events back in the day. Eventually I started building ramps and judging competitions and announcing.
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| Duncan, right, along with Brad Lilley, called the action during the Skateboard Vert Best Trick competition in Philadelphia. |
What is your judging style? It's your own opinion. Your overall impression of what you feel you are looking for. Myself, we have judges meetings, and the one thing you look for no matter what is difficulty of maneuvers. Innovation, the newest maneuvers. Then you have things like speed, style, consistency. You have to stay on your board and mix in a variety of the old and the new. It's an overall impression. As far as scoring, if someone has a good run, it's usually in the 80s. If it's a really good run it's the high 80's. If it's an amazingly great run, you could easily go up into the 90s. You always leave room to go higher though.
How do skateboarders view judges? I'm comfortable in my relationship with the riders. But the riders sometimes let their emotions get in there. They may feel they have ridden to the best of their abilities and done exactly the run they wanted. But when you put them with everybody else, maybe they aren't the best. It's always going to be controversial. Because things are getting more difficult, we are going to six judges and in some of the bigger events we are talking about going to seven. Skateboarding is really a numbers game and unless you have ridden you really don't understand the numbers and how to rank them.
What was your strangest moment as a judge? Back in the 80's we did a contest called the Vision Skate Escape. It was basically Tony Hawk against Christian Hosoi. The ramp had a miniramp spine connected to it. I as a judge felt that Christian, with his speed and power and lines ruled that ramp. The two judges to my left had Tony winning and the two to my left had Christian winning. I felt I was the guy who had to say who won. Christian was just flying high so I don't think anyone had a problem with him winning.
Is one discipline tougher to judge than another? Street is getting so technical with the difficulty and combination of tricks. With vert, you know they are going to have four or five big tricks, and some filler, set-up type tricks. On street, these guys are just going from trick to trick. With street the falls don't count as much because you aren't losing valuable time like you would in a vert ramp.
What do you see in your crystal ball for the future of skateboarding? I don't want to say I see tricks maxing out, we thought we had seen everything 10 years ago and here we are with a whole bunch of new varieties. With the Tony Hawk Pro Skater game, you could see a kickflip into a crooked grind and then you shove it out. You are seeing that now. Guys are getting so consistent with their trick that you are seeing all kinds of new things. The difficulty of the tricks is amazing.
I see the terrain changing though. We can always build better street courses and do more to the vert ramps adding hips and bowls. I've seen lots of stuff in the past that we haven't redone yet. I see us adding obstacles, for example, on the vert ramp like ledges and rails that help bring that street tech up to the vert or the same with street, trying to simulate more of the real street with the rails and ledges to bring a presentation of skating that is true to the sport. It has been difficult the past couple of years working with the corporate sponsors and all the budget issues to try and get it just like we like it.
What did you think of the crowd that turned out at the First Union Center for the skateboard events? By taking that energy in there, it definitely pushes the riders more and more. Like Tony Hawk doing the 900, there was just an energy there that he felt. To take that and put it on TV, and show millions of people world wide, it's the Super Bowl of skateboarding. To show it on TV is great for the sport. The industry is growing, there are more kids in the sport, it's a new generation. The millennium kids dream now is to be a pro skateboarder. I couldn't make a living as a skateboarder as a kid so it never was a dream of mine. I'm just happy to be traveling the world with my friends. It's kind of like living a dream.
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