I skated in my first contest when I was 13, which, come to think of it, was a good long while ago even though I remember the day clearly. In the free-for-all session that followed, I broke my arm - an ominous sign worthy of the number of my years. I was never destined for pro skater stardom, but I like to think that my 13-year-old self would be stoked on some of the things I’ve gotten myself into anyway. I’ve occasionally even made some career path choices by asking myself: “What would your 13-year-old self think of this?” As a direct result of some of those choices, I’m now following the AST Dew Tour (in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I write most of the skate content that ends up on the official AST Dew Tour website) and other contests in my various capacities as a freelance writer, skate blogger, and full-time action sports fan. The other day, each of those roles converged nicely in a way I have to think my 13-year-old self would approve of. As the Dew Tour website’s skate content guy and the illustrious skate blogger for your favorite action sports website – which just so happens to be the exclusive video partner for the Free Flow events – I was asked to be a judge for the Free Flow Amateur Skate Park contest in Cleveland, held on the same sick course where Ryan Sheckler put some more big bucks in his account the day before for winning the Finals at the Right Guard Open. If you’re a 13-year-old skater reading this, and people keep asking you what you want to be when you grow up, let me tell you: A guy could get used to gigs like this. The skate groms in the contest were awesome, the other judges were awesome, the Park course was awesome, and I had a ton of fun watching the contest, making notes, and making the big decisions that would ultimately help send 13-year-old Morgan Burgess from Lebanon, Ohio on to the Free Flow Finals in Orlando, Florida. If you haven’t been to a good amateur contest lately, get out there and get to it: Kids these days are busting out the damnedest tricks, and I was duly impressed. Afterwards, I got to briefly interview Burgess (the kid in the middle, wearing the shades, in the pic above), just moments after he’d ollied up a massive step-up gap originally built with BMX riders in mind. In other words, 5boro pro and Dew Tour course-design guru Charlie Wilkins probably never figured on some little skate grom soaring up and over that gap, but there was this little dude, sure enough floating right up it. Not only do these groms have big bags full of hammers and bangers to drop all over the place, they also have some serious media savvy: I stuck a mic in front of this kid after the contest, and all of a sudden it was like he was a celebrity on NBC. The Dew Tour site is already running my interview, so I’ll just say that I was stoked by how much he used the word stoked: Stoked enough that the whole thing reminded me of when I was 13. Watch out for this kid Morgan Burgess: Great skater, great attitude, and on his way out to skate the Oregon Trifecta concrete park contests next month. Life works out pretty well some of the time after all.