Tyshawn Jones #3.

The General.

Tyshawn joined Danny Way and Chris Cole as the only two time winners of Thrasher's SOTY award this past December. He first won it in 2018. Tyshawn dropped three heavy duty video parts to end the year that put him at the forefront of the race for the coveted shorts wearing trophy. He also announced his new company, King Skateboards, with Na-Kel Smith at the same time. Both had been pro for FA until the spring of 2022. If you look back at assorted ads from 2022, you will see clues that this was coming and what tricks Tyshawn was going to be doing. It's one of those neat things that pops up in retrospect.

We hadn't heard too much from Tyshawn in a sense since he won the SOTY in 2018. I don't follow much of anything on Instagram so I'm not up on the latest news and possibly wrong on that. I figured he had made his mark on skateboarding and was maybe moving onto the next part of his life. The young businessman certainly has several other options to invest his time in. It was cool to get an extra large size helping of Tyshawn's street skating powers. His approach is the type of thing Thrasher has written essays about in prior decades. You, your board, and whatever is in front of you in the street. Only few skaters are blasting over large obstacles off flat in traffic, regular and switch, or taking flip tricks across dangerous gaps the way Tyshawn is. It's both pure and raw.

The heated internet debate over the SOTY was a tad ridiculous. It's OK to root for your favorite to win and then be disappointed when they lose, but people need to chill out on taking things so seriously. It's only skateboarding, which for better and perhaps worse, now can be a very lucrative industry, which leads to an inflated sense of value for contests and prizes.

In much more local skateboard news, New Year's weekend was what could be considered warm and spring-like. I got to skateboard three of the four days. My friend Paul was in town to visit his family for lunch so we got to skate together for about an hour on New Year's Day. I set up a new board, too.

The photo is by Jonathan Mehring.

Thrasher - February 2019 Volume 40 Number 2