📝 Words by Mike Munzenrider
🎨 Collage by Francesco Pini
Deathwish am Davey Sayles was too ripped to rip. “I couldn’t skate the first month, I was so top heavy, I was swole,” he says. Six years ago, Sayles quit college football. He took a three-day bus ride home from West Florida University to Vista, CA. At 5’10” he had a playing weight for the Division II Argonauts of 220 pounds. Sayles says his skating weight is 50 pounds lighter. “It took me three months to slim down.”
The 28-year-old says he was a skate rat turned running back who was a natural on the football field. Sayles says he played because his family has a history with the sport and that he broke records at every stop in his gridiron career; he walked away from it while having pro prospects in Canada. Still, he says, he wasn’t able to be himself as a football player – for years he watched from afar as friends like Rowan Zorilla succeeded as skaters, stacking clips and turning pro. Having given up on football, Sayles says he wanted to prove himself as a skater. And he has – check him out in Baker Has A Deathwish Part 2 for proof – cutting a fascinating career arc along the way.
