Jay Kincaid’s last day as a single guy!

Photos

Jay Kincaid has been dominating kayaking competitions, running the gnar, and paddling just about every day since long before I met him in 1997. When I met him, he was one of the few hard core, 200 pound, all muscle types in the sport and he used his strengths to his advantage. While narrowly missing the USA Team in 1999, and 2001, he didn’t slow down. In 2002 and 2003 he charged onto the team and dominated the USA scene getting a top 3 finish in every event for 25 events straight. At the World Championships in Graz, Austria (home of Arnold Shwartzneger), he took home the title of World Champion in his first worlds, in a big trashy hole that scrared many of the competitors. What I loved about Jay, was that I could train with him and not have to be nice about it. What I mean by that is when you train with people that can’t beat you in any ride and you do it for very long you depress them, so if you want them as a training partner, you have to encourage them the whole time and be super nice about how they are doing. That is like playing a game with your kids when they are little and there is no challenge in that. With Jay, he is ALWAYS game for a head to head competition and always has a good chance of beating me. This means that we can play like two grown adults in a male dominance battle, the way boys are supposed to play. We talk smack and try to bring each other down into submission with our paddling prowness, but it just makes for a fun game that is over as fast as it started and we are good friends. Of course, sometimes (3 times so far), I carry it into a full on wrestling match, but then it is Jay that is playing with me as if I was a little kid and he pins me as quickly as he wants. Don’t get me wrong, Jay is a sensitive guy, that switches from being a hardened competitor, to a nice guy instantly. If you aren’t paying attention, he’ll be all nice and supportive, and you’ll still be playing hardball and feel like a jerk for not noticing. Of course that may be part of his game, who knows.

Lisa Beckstead (her last day with that name!) has been around as long as Jay has in my life. I met her for the first time in Montreal. Lisa had just returned from Africa that day and was hanging out at Corran Addision’s apartment to recoup before heading home the next day. The Jackson family just pulled into Montreal ourselves and Corran asked if we wanted to go out on the town. We needed a baby sitter and Lisa was too tired to go out after her 24+ hour travel stint from the Zambezi. While she didn’t have any experience baby-sitting, and we didn’t know her yet, we left Dane who was 6 and Emily who was 9 there with her while we went out. That was our first introduction to Lisa. She was clearly as tired as a person gets, barely able to stay awake as we explained to her that she was now the baby sitter, and we left her with the kids. We got to know her quickly after that as she made the Canadian Freestyle Team and became a member of Team Wavesport (I was the brand manager then). Since then she worked at Patagonia and was in charge of the whitewater gear program for a couple of years before switching over to Kokatat where she works now in marketing.

Jay and Lisa have been working and playing together for many years now, and have endured many changes in their lives. It appears that they are off to a great start so far and certainly have withstood the test of time. This wedding will prove to be yet another chapter in the lives of these wonderful people.

Good Luck Guys!

🙂

EJ