3/10/2023 0 Comments Olympic skateboarding commentator![]() I’m not sure where they got the word “amplitude” from, but there must have been a clearance sale somewhere, because they had an endless supply of it. Since Jack and Paul were unable to quantify how well someone skated based on the tricks they were doing, they judged the skater on how “smooth” he rode and how much “amplitude” was in his run. Then, best of all, they lie and make shit up, like this line after one of Rodillo’s runs, “No one can remember someone doing five flip tricks in their run!” The vert commentary was where it was at, though. For the first couple of days, they kept calling the channel, “the extension”: “What’s so nice about this soul grind is that he does it over the extension.” And then they were getting names wrong: “Next up, in the vert doubles, Tony MacDonald and Andy Hawk.” I really liked that one. I can understand calling a trick wrong here and there, anyone would be hard-pressed to accurately name every trick in one of Bob Burnquist’s runs, but they screw up the easy stuff. Paul Higgins and Jack Edwards, the skateboard commentators, have no idea what they’re talking about. Here is a selection from that review of Paul Higgins’ Extreme commentating: In 1998, for instance, I decided to make a mockery of the contest by covering it from my couch, taking pictures of ESPN’s horrible footage on the TV screen, while transcribing all the ridiculous things that came out of Paul Higgins’ mouth as he announced the skateboard contest, something he quite obviously knew very little about. Back in the late 20th century we- Big Brother-were so disappointed by the stupid Extreme Games (as they were then called) we decided to boycott all of their stupid events because they were so stupid. Not only do I know who Paul Higgins is, but he was the inspiration for this article. One of the first questions I often ask in an interview is, “What’s your title?” In Paul’s case I genuinely didn’t know: Olympic Skateboarding Commentator? Color Commentator? Announcer? What’s the proper term here? “Do you remember Paul Higgins?” Paul asked in reply. OH! DEW TOUR! HA! And then I realized: Dude Sewer! That’s what it’s called from now on: Dude Sewer. Pauls’ description of cohost, Tina Dixon, for instance, came back as: “Gina Dixon, yeah, does do sewer and she was a snowboarder.” It took me a minute to figure out “do sewer?” …. Paul’s interview was transcribed by a machine and while it’s about 90% accurate, it does create some interesting interpretations of what was said. ![]()
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