Former Skateboarding Pro and Executive Bringing Extreme Sports to the Masses

Jay Turner looks like any standard, nondescript young professional. He's trim, fit, polite, looks to be on the far side of 30 with well-kept cropped hair.

It's hard to picture him as a pied piper of extreme sports.

But that's sort of Turner's unofficial title. A former professional skateboarder himself, Turner is doing his best to make skateboarding a sport of the masses, just like baseball and basketball.

Turner is the manager of the 688 Skatepark at Ross Norton Athletic complex in Clearwater. There he monitors youngsters after school as they manage the maze of obstacles at the skatepark. Turner also teaches classes, directs camps and manages extreme-sports competitions at Ross Norton.

"I've been doing this a long time," Turner said of his skateboarding days. "I've been skateboarding nonstop since I was 11. I took to the board right away. I skated competitively since I was 14 and traveled, competing."

The former manager and owner of Central Skatepark in Clearwater and director of the Skateboarding Association of America, Turner puts his years of experience as athlete, executive and international tournament judge to good use with the local extreme-sports enthusiasts.

"It is always growing; it's not going to stop," Turner said of extreme sports. "Tons of kids skate. It is on TV, it's everywhere. It continues to grow."

The city of Clearwater likes to boast that the extreme-sports complex at Ross Norton is state of the art with ramps and obstacles for both beginners and well-schooled extreme athletes. Included in some of the ramps are street-style rails and ledges that reach 6 feet tall along with a monstrous 24-foot-wide half-pipe.

Part of the reason the extreme sports complex at Ross Norton is so popular is that Turner had a direct hand in making it so. 

The center and Turner host various extreme sports camps that generally run when school is out including summer and holiday breaks. 

Turner offers lessons for both beginners and intermediate extreme-sports athletes twice a week at Ross Norton. Lessons for neophytes are on Mondays and Wednesdays from 6-7 p.m., and for intermediate athletes the classes are Mondays and Wednesdays from 7-8 p.m.