Jake Phelps Dies at 56; as Thrasher Editor, a Skateboarding Guru

“It would make this rad sound when you were grinding it,” Mr. Reyes said.

Fausto Vitello, Tony’s father and a founder of the magazine, named Mr. Phelps to replace Mr. Thatcher in 1993, liking his outspokenness and his connection to the skate scene. .

Over the years, Mr. Phelps transformed himself from a somewhat traditional editor in chief into something more like a figurehead. Not always one for the office, he preferred the so-called “hellride” trips he would go on with pro skaters in producing feature stories for the magazine.

“Jake didn’t even have a computer on his desk,” Patrick O’Dell, a former Thrasher employee, wrote on the website Vice. “He didn’t have an email address. His voice mail wasn’t set up.”

Mr. Phelps loved “bombing” the hilly streets of San Francisco on his board, a dangerous thing to do in your 20s, to say nothing of your mid-50s. He would sometimes make his way up to the intersection of Dolores and 20th Streets in the wee hours of the morning, wait for the traffic lights to be just right and fly down the hill. One day in 2017, Mr. Phelps, then 54, fell and struck his head on the pavement hard enough to put him in the hospital, and on the local news.

Mr. Phelps spent a lot of time in hospital beds. He claimed to have a 290-page medical record that detailed seven knee surgeries and fractures to his legs, pelvis, collarbones, thumbs and skull.

“He’s put together with a lot of pins and screws,” Mr. Reyes said.

Mr. Phelps’s easy access to pain medication, and the drinking that went along with his lifestyle, led him to struggle with substance abuse. Mr. Reyes said the habit had grown out of the surgeries and his love for skateboarding: The pain pills allowed him to get back to skating.

Mr. Phelps’s sister, Marie Phelps, described a wide gulf between the man in private and his public self. One “saw a different side when he let down the mask of the Phelper,” she said. “He was a vulnerable, deep, thoughtful person.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/20/obituaries/jake-phelps-dead.html?partner=rss&emc=rss