W. Scott “Douva” Lewis
Position: Skysurfer
Birthdate: February 14, 1980
Marital Status: Single
“Real Job”: Struggling Filmmaker,
Commercial Real Estate Leasing Associate
Container: Javelin
Main Canopy: Sabre 2 120
AAD: Cypres
Home Drop Zone: Skydive San
Marcos
Date of First Jump: August 4, 1998, at Skydive St. Louis
Total Number of Jumps as of September 27, 2008: 974
Jumping Accomplishments / Ratings: Skydiving Consultant on 2004 Student Academy Award
winning short film “The Plunge”,
United States Parachute Association “Coach”
rating, USPA “Accelerated Free Fall Instructor” rating, winner of a bronze medal in skysurfing at the 2005 National Skydiving Championships
Other Hobbies: Water Skiing, Snow Skiing, Rock Climbing, SCUBA Diving,
Motorcycling, Writing, Photography
Warning: The following biography is absurdly long, but that’s what you
get when you ask a writer to write about himself, so if you want a shorter bio,
skip ahead to Jeff’s.
I was born on Valentine’s Day 1980, in Lubbock, Texas. For most of
my life, my three obsessions have been writing, cameras, and any activity that
made me work to stay alive. I first got my hands on a movie camera in 1985,
when my dad let me use his Super 8 Chinon to film some family members walking
down the steps of the Texas State Capitol Building. It was shortly after this
that I began writing short stories. My best received piece of that era was the
critically acclaimed “Six Days With the Chicken Pox,” a daring tale of
shattered dreams and newfound glory, as a little boy overcomes the rarely life
threatening disease to enjoy a mandatory weeklong school absence.
It was also around this time that I saw my first
real, live skydivers. Stadium speakers trumpeted the theme from Superman
as these gods of the sky drifted downward, trailing pink smoke behind them, and
landed in front of the crowd at the annual Reese Air Force Base air show. I was
immediately enamored. My dad wouldn’t build me a parachute large enough to let
me jump out of my tree house, so I was forced to settle for the small ones he
made from old rags and tied to soda bottles. I would scour the yard for
insects, and whichever bugs were unlucky enough to be caught earned their
airborne wings as passengers in my canopied soda bottles.
Over the years, my fascination with skydiving was
forced to take a backseat to my other interests, patiently waiting until I was
old enough to make the leap. I built cameras out of cardboard boxes and wrote
stories about cowboys and lost campers. In 1990 a skydiving drop zone opened up
next to my cousins’ farm in Bowling Green, Missouri. One day our curiosity
about the men and women under the colorful canopies overtook us, so my sister
and cousins and I chased the canopies across corn and soybean fields until we
arrived at the small airport where they were landing. The skydivers at the drop
zone were more than happy to show us their gear and tell us how it all worked,
fanning the flames of my ever growing obsession.
In 1991 I saw a man on TV skydiving with a snowboard
strapped to his feet. He road the board across the air just as easily as my dad
road a water-ski across the lake. I immediately tied an old pair of tennis
shoes to a skateboard, hung the skateboard from a tree, and was sitting on the
edge of the trampoline strapping this homemade skyboard simulator to my feet
when my dad came outside and stopped me. My parents stopped me from trying all
sorts of fun stuff in those days.
In 1992 I annexed the family camcorder only weeks
after it was purchased. I quickly began making videos featuring me water
skiing, snow skiing, and rappelling. I later progressed to short films (with a
lot more action that plot) starring my friends. It was about this time that I
decided what I wanted to do with my life—I wanted to become a professional
stuntman when I grew up. It just fell in line so perfectly with everything I
wanted to do. I began trying every extreme sport I could—from rock climbing to
whitewater rafting to bull riding. I was blessed with very understanding
parents.
When several of my friends, on the verge of their
sixteenth birthdays—several months before mine, found a drop zone in West Texas
that would allow them to make static line jumps when they turned sixteen, I
doctored a birth certificate so as not to be left out of the fun. As my friends
one-by-one turned sixteen, thoughts of jumping from airplanes were quickly
replaced by thoughts of cars and Friday night parties. I would have to wait a
little longer to jump.
Still intent on becoming a stuntman, I studied
everything I could find on filmmaking. It was also about this time that my
obsession with cameras lead me into the darkroom at my school. I soon had my
own darkroom, and it wasn’t long before my skin had lost most of its pigment,
and my eyes had completely lost their tolerance for daylight. My study of
filmmaking, my love for cameras, and my penchant for writing soon blended
together to spawn a new ambition. No longer content with the idea of risking my
life in front of the cameras, I wanted to run the show behind the cameras—I
wanted to be a filmmaker.
At the age of 16, I talked my dad into buying me a
three-hundred dollar computer card that was supposed to allow me to edit
videos, complete with special effects, on our home computer. Six months and
five thousand dollars later, the system was up and running perfectly. My first
jobs were highlight reels for my school’s sports teams. I loved the work, but
high school was always in the way.
After my junior year, I’d had enough. I took my senior year of high
school by correspondence. Most of my time that year was spent working at my
video productions and planning my inevitable transition to Hollywood.
The summer after graduation, my dad and sister and I
took our annual trip to visit our cousins in Missouri. It was then that I hit
my dad up for the graduation present I really wanted—skydiving lessons. He
agreed. Our time was limited, so I asked the instructors at Skydive St. Louis
if it might be possible for me to complete my training in three days. They
scoffed and said that although three days was not possible, it was
theoretically possible to graduate in four days; however, they had never had a
student do so. On August 4, 1998, I finally jumped out of an airplane at the
small drop zone I had followed four rainbow colored canopies to eight years
earlier. Fifty-four hours after showing up for my first jump, I was an
Accelerated Free Fall graduate. (When Skydive St. Louis was shut down for good
in 2000, I still held the record as the school’s fastest graduate.) Including
my training jumps, I made a total of 13 jumps in my last six days in Missouri.
When I returned to West Texas, I was saddened to
learn that the nearest drop zone was a hundred miles from Lubbock, in Stanton,
TX. Not one to be easily dissuaded, I made the almost two hour trip to Westex Skysports the following
Sunday. The skydiving operation wasn’t as polished as the one I was coming
from, but all I really needed was an airplane. I made a single jump that day—a
“hop and pop” from 6,000’—I had to exit early due to mechanical troubles with
the aircraft. The next weekend I was back, complete with a 16mm helmet camera
setup I had rented for the weekend from a rental house in California. I hired
the drop zone’s head videographer to make three jumps with me, using the 16mm
helmet camera to film me jumping from the plane.
I used the footage in a commercial for my dad’s
quicklube, along with rock climbing footage I shot in Hueco Tanks, outside El
Paso, and SCUBA diving footage I shot on Lake Alan Henry. The commercial was to
be my calling card—my ticket to success in West Texas. Although the commercial
production aspect of my business never took off (Who knew small West Texas
businesses aren’t looking for high dollar advertising campaigns?), I was able
to make some money buying and selling used motion picture equipment over the
Internet, and I kept jumping.
I bought a small travel trailer that stayed behind
the hangar at the drop zone. For two years, this was my home from Saturday
morning through Sunday evening. I quickly earned a reputation at Westex
Skysports as the guy who would try anything (or the guy with more balls than
brains, depending on who you ask).
With the birth of online auction houses, such as
eBay, my online equipment sales began to dwindle. By summer of 2000, it was
becoming clear that it was time for me to move on, if I was ever going to have
a real film career. After a brief scouting expedition to Los Angeles, I decided
that either trying to take the boy out of Texas or take Texas out of the boy
would both be bad ideas. In August of 2000, my parents split up, and I moved to
Austin, TX, in order to pursue a career in feature films.
Despite landing full-time work on The Rookie and the occasional
shorter gigs on other films, TV shows, and music videos, the next three years
were rough. I worked odd jobs as a dockhand, waiter, and courier driver, but
none lasted very long. I was quickly learning that I don’t function well in the
nine-to-five world.
In January of 2002, my dad moved to Austin to be
near my sister, a student at The University of Texas, and me. He and I moved in
together, and in 2003, his commercial real estate firm, Lewis Commercial Realty, Inc., began doing
well enough that he was able to hire me as a full-time employee. As his leasing
associate, I help design shopping centers and prepare lease presentations.
In March of 2003, I was hired (pro bono) as the skydiving
consultant for a student thesis film being produced by students from the
Florida State University School of Motion Picture, Television, and Recording
Arts graduate program. This was my first real chance to bring my love of
skydiving and my love of filmmaking together. The three-week shoot was a dream
come true. On the final day of principal photography, I got a chance to work
with free fall cinematography legend Norman Kent. The short film went
on to win a Student Oscar
from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences. This production also marked my return to skydiving, following a
period of only sporadic jumping since moving to Austin. I took most of the
summer off to travel (a week in New York City and a month in Europe—It was nice
not being completely broke, for a change), but in August I was finally able to
reopen the floodgates.
I quickly became a regular at Skydive San Marcos in Fentress, TX.
In the 2003-2004 skydiving year (starting and ending on August 4, the
anniversary of my first jump), I more than doubled my total number of jumps
from all previous years. During that period, I also earned both my United States Parachute Association “Coach” and
“Accelerated Free Fall (AFF) Instructor” ratings, and I progressed
from a skysurfer with only nine jumps on a beginner board to a skysurfer with
over one hundred seventy total jumps, over one hundred being on an advanced
board. The following October, I competed in the national skysurfing competition
in Perris, CA, with my friend and teammate Jeff Standley. At this time I continue
to work for Lewis Commercial Realty, Inc., I train students at Skydive San
Marcos, and I continue to pursue my interests in the film industry—I am
currently working to develop a film based on a true story set in the world of
competitive skysurfing. Que sera, sera.
--Douva
The origin of the nickname
“Douva”
or
THE MOST BORING STORY EVER
TOLD
In ninth grade I was the equipment manager for the
ninth grade football and basketball teams. In school athletics, it is common
practice for all participants to be referred to by their last name. Often, a
participant’s last name is shortened into a nickname. My last name “Lewis” had
been shortened to “Lew.” It was around this time that my friends and I began
holding boxing tournaments in my backyard. One night two of my friends, Jordan
Wheatley and Ryan Schwertner, were watching TV when they saw a piece about
famed boxing manager Lou Duva. Ryan immediately had the brilliant idea that
they should start calling me “Lew Duva,” instead of simply “Lew.” Ryan informed
me in Physical Sciences class the next day that my new nickname would be “Lew
Duva.” It immediately caught on. When I started signing my name “Scott ‘Lew
Duva’ Lewis,” my friend Erik Thorvilson informed me that I needed to change the
spelling of “Duva,” to match the different spelling of “Lou,” by adding an “o.”
I spent the rest of my ninth grade year known as “Lew Douva,” but do to the
ever shortening nature of nicknames, the “Lew” was completely dropped by the
time I graduated high school, and I was known simply as “Douva.” This was one
of those rare cases where a nickname so overpowers a person’s identity that
even teacher’s and school administrators forget his real name. Probably less
than half of the people I went to high school with know my real name. For my
eighteenth birthday, my mother gave me vanity license plates for my pickup
truck that read simply “DOUVA.” When I started skydiving, I introduced myself
as “Scott Lewis,” but the skydivers at Westex Skysports quickly picked up on my
vanity plates and started calling me “Douva.” When I started skydiving at
Skydive San Marcos, the vanity plates were long gone, and I again introduced
myself as “Scott Lewis.” But visiting skydivers from Westex Skysports quickly
had everybody at Skydive San Marcos referring to me as “Douva.” After nearly a
decade, I’m quite fond of the nickname “Douva,” and since it’s how I’m
generally known amongst skydivers, It’s usually how I introduce myself in the
skydiving community. Family members and old church friends usually still call
me “Scott,” but even they have been known to slip a “Douva” into the
conversation, from time to time. And that’s the rest of the story.
My autographed photo of the real Lou Duva.