Jay Adams, skateboard pioneer and one of the original Z-Boys, suffered a fatal heart attack Thursday while on a surfing trip in Mexico with his family. He was 53 years old. It’s a tragedy he died so young, a wonder he lived so long.
Anyone who’s seen Dogtown and Z-Boys, Stacy Peralta’s documentary of the earliest days of California skateboarding, remembers Adams. He was the mischievous-looking blonde munchkin who grew up to become a grizzled, face-tatted ex-con. His segment in the movie is both enthralling and oddly unfinished, as he was incarcerated at the time it was made. Still, his style and charisma were unmistakable, as was his talent. "Some kids are born and raised on graham crackers and milk,” fellow skater Tony Alva said in the film, “[Adams] was born and raised on surfing and skateboarding."
Adams battled with substance abuse and did time on multiple occasions, but skating and surfing always remained part of him. Asked in a 2001 interview why he left skateboarding, he didn’t hesitate to set the record straight: “Leave where? I didn't leave anywhere. Skateboarding's popularity might have left for a while but I never did.” A few questions later, he clarified further: “I mean out of all the Z-Boys, only Alva and I still skate mostly every day.”
The sole time I saw him in person was in Huntington Beach, Calif. at 2011’s Converse Coastal Carnage contest (see images of Adams at the event in the thumbs gallery above). He didn’t skate, but spent some time on the deck, easily recognizable despite dark Oakleys and a Hurley hat. A tanktop and shorts exposed full-sleeve tattoos and a perpetual deep tan. When he removed his hat, what remained of his receding hair was dyed blue. Even then, Adams seemed to be 50 going on 15.
Which made it all the stranger that his 15-year-old self seemed to be there, too. Easily the most compelling skater of the weekend, 15-year-old Curren Caples was also born in California, was also introduced to skateboarding and surfing at an early age, also sported shaggy blonde hair, and skated with an easygoing aggression and natural flair that could only result from untold hours on the board. It was as if Adams was reincarnated while he was still alive to see it.
Adams’ own style had no forebears. There were skateboarders before him, yes, but before Dogtown it was primarily a groundbound sport with slalom races and flat-ground competitions representing the pinnacle of advancement. Guys like Alva and Adams (and Shogo Kubo, who also passed away this summer while surfing) took things vertical, using inground pools left empty by a California drought to propel the sport forward and upward. Adams may not have invented groundbreaking tricks, but his attitude and his insouciant style (both adapted from surfing) played an equally large—if not larger—role. The Dogtown style of skating as portrayed by Glen E. Friedman’s photography and Craig Stecyk’s writing laid the foundation for modern skateboarding.
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“The fact is, Jay Adams' contribution to skateboarding defies description or category,” Stacy Peralta once wrote in Thrasher. “Jay Adams 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. 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.”
Adams is gone now, but as long as there are skateboarders his contributions will live on. Mahalo.
