Ten Question Tuesdays with Jesse Lash

Jesse Lash has one hell of a busy life. Jesse works with the NCSA, Redbull, Gator Skim Club and now Skim Invasion. Two years ago Jesse Lash formed the NCSA and he’s  been having an impact on the sport of skimboarding ever since.

SI: What got you into skimboarding?

Jesse: I grew up in South Florida, and was always at the beach. I saw kids skimming and thought it looked like a good time, so my friend and I decided to buy some boards at Ron Jons. Over the years, I’ve just kinda stuck with the sport and kept getting more and more involved and it’s been awesome.

SI: What got you to form the NCSA?

Jesse: Well I initially founded the Gator Skim Club here at the University of Florida. Soon after that, the FSU Skim Club began, and then the USF and FAU clubs. I noticed that there was a possibility for national competition between these schools, just like in any other sport, but for this to be possible, there needed to be a governing body over the sport. I also had a lot of free time freshman year.

SI: What do you see in terms of growth for the NCSA?

Jesse: In the future there’s an incredible opportunity in the works for collegiate skimboarding to take the stage nationally in a mainstream medium. I don’t want to give away too many details until it becomes official, but there is a potential for something HUGE to go down at the 2010 National Collegiate Skim-Off. That’s a really exciting part of the growth of the organization…. we’ve been growing steadily since our inception a year or so ago. The teams in the NCSA has also been growing steadily. A week doesn’t go by that I don’t get an email from a student asking for information on how to form a club. There are currently 4 or 5 that are finishing up the paperwork with their school to form up a team.

SI: NCSA came out with memberships…What can students get for becoming members?

Jesse: Well there’s the fringe benefits of membership…. giveaways, discounts on purchases from all Corporate Members (Exile, EOS, Skim City, Skim Academy, Skimtastic, Swell.com), member t-shirt, and the discounted entry into all NCSA events for the year. It requires a lot of money to put on large scale skimboarding events, and the money we receive from the Student Membership will help us organize more and better events in the future.

SI: Has the industry supported the NCSA the way you wanted it?

Jesse: We’ve received such an incredible amount of support from sponsors for every one of our events, it’s really a amazing. We’ve also received a ton of support from some of the biggest and most respected names in skimboarding with our Corporate Membership program which continues to motivate us, knowing we have their support.

SI: What are your thoughts on the current state of skimboarding?

Jesse: To be completely honest, I’m not sure. I’ve only been involved in the “industry” side of the sport for around a year or two, and I’m still learning how things work. It seems like in general, there’s a steady growth in all forms that the sport takes, and that the respect and recognition will come with time.

SI: You have ran a few events in those two years…How hard is it to run a skimboarding event? And how was your learning curve?

Jesse: The first event I ran went very well, mainly because Frank Hastings “helped” (by helped, I mean he ran the whole thing, and I stood there and pretended like I knew what I was doing. At last year’s 2009 College Skim-Off, I decided to try and run the event by myself. And to compete. And to hang out with friends and have a fun time relaxing. These things do not work together, and because of that, the event’s level of professionalism suffered. This was one of the best things that could’ve happened though because I have learned a TON through it. Next year’s event, no NCSA staff members will be competing. We will all be working the whole time, making sure things run smoothly. We are also budgeting to have paid judges which will raise the level of impartiality and uniformity throughout the competition.

SI: Are you starting to feel that the free time is starting to get squeezed with your boat load of responsibilities inside the sport and out?

Jesse: To be completely honest, yes. I’m currently working 4 part time jobs, and it’s really a challenge to make time for everything. I really see it as an opportunity though, not as a bad thing.

SI: Is gingeritis contagious?

Jesse: Yes actually. My kitten caught it, and it’s a very serious condition.

SI: What’s en-store for the future for the NCSA?

Jesse: The NCSA has an incredibly bright future because of the collegiate aspect of our organization. We can reach a lot of mainstream audiences because there’s the aspect of college pride intertwined into the competition we host. Because of this, the future has a lot of really amazing opportunities that the NCSA Staff is extremely excited to see come to fruition.