Silas Thurman is not only a professional wakeskater, but also the team manger for Nike 6.0. This means that when he’s not riding, he’s essentially babysitting, and since the 6.0 team is on the younger side, when I say babysitting, I mean it literally. But Silas has more patience than a normal man, and so he manages to not only put up with a bunch of 16 and 17 year olds, but enjoy them as well.

So when Matt Manzari is talking about how he’d like to “get a kid, just to see what it was like,” Silas laughs. When Nick Taylor is covered in Sharpie and needs a ride to some random location in Southern Oregon, Silas just goes with it. When Ben Horan hasn’t changed his clothes in a week, Silas still lets him sleep in his tent. That’s just the kind of guy he is.

After a 3-day camp-out with not just the Nike 6.0 wakeskate team, but the wakeboard team as well, a normal man would have been running for the hills (or at least praying to the giant brass Jesus sculpture by the freeway) but Silas just shrugs and plays with his dog Gus. Then he tells me I am taking them Saturday morning, and then laughs a sort of demonic laugh I’ve never really heard before.