We were saddened to learn that Vans co-founder Paul Van Doren died yesterday, Thursday, May 6, 2021. He was 90.
“In 1966, Paul, his brother James Van Doren, and their friends Gordon, Ryan Emmert and Serge D’Elia became partners in opening the first Vans store, according to Wikipedia. It took a year to build and set up the factory at 704 East Broadway in Anaheim.”
A week and a half ago Paul’s memoir Authentic was released.
In Authentic, he shares his unlikely journey from high-school dropout to sneaker-industry legend. A blue-collar kid with no higher education and zero retail experience, Van Doren started out as a 16-year-old “service boy” at a local rubber factory. Over the next few decades, he leveraged a knack for numbers, a genius for efficiency, and the know-how to make a great canvas tennis shoe into an all-American success story. What began as a family shoe business has today evolved into a globally recognized brand with billions of dollars of annual revenue.
Thanks Paul for all you did for all of us and for living an incredible, authentic life. Our thoughts are with the entire Van Doren family. If you have a Paul Van Doren story to share, please leave it in the comments.
Yet again we have gone through all the action sports headlines so you don’t have to and distilled them down into a long list of stories you might be interested in. If not, no worries. It was good exercise for our copy and paste fingers. Never want to let those keyboard skills get on the fade. Follow the jump and enjoy.
Yes, the USA Skateboarding Olympic Team now has an official fingerboard sponsor and it is, unsurprisingly, Tech Deck. Here’s USA Skateboarding’s take:
“The heart of skateboarding is fun, and no company embodies that better than Tech Deck,” said Josh Friedberg, CEO, USA Skateboarding. “From the day we started our initial discussions, Tech Deck’s commitment to skateboarding culture and their natural fit into our existing initiatives made it clear that we had a great opportunity – we’re incredibly excited to have them as a partner in this historic year for skateboarding.”
Now athletes will have something to do on their 13 hour flight to Tokyo and/or two week quarantines. For the official word from Tech Deck, please follow the jump.
The USA Skateboarding National Championships will go on this spring in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic thanks to an innovative competition format that will combine both digital video and in=-person Olympic Qualifying.
Originally scheduled as a live event for March, USA Skateboarding decided to pivot to virtual qualifying for the athletes’ safety during the pandemic. Video submissions will be 45-second runs for both Park and Street at the skatepark of their choice with in-person finals following Olympic event formats. The top-12 ranked Americans will be pre-qualified into the quarterfinals. Points awarded to the finalists will count towards World Skateboarding Rankings and Olympic qualifying. Men’s and Women’s Skateboard Park and Street events will make their Olympic debut at the Tokyo 2021 Games this summer in Japan.
The window for qualifying video submissions opens on April 9, 2021 with the in-person finals taking place May 27-30, 2021 at The Berrics in Los Angeles, California. For all the official details, please follow the jump.
Hi. Hope you had stellar Et tu, Brute and St. Paddy’s Days. Been missing out on the news? Here it is. Follow the jump for a list of stories that have something to do with snowboarding, skateboarding, surfing, fashion, and/or business.
Thrasher Magazine Editor Michael Burnett interviews the magazine’s founding editor Kevin Thatcher and gets a few great stories and photos from the birth of the world’s largest skateboarding magazine including, but not limited to, how the magazine got its name, who designed the logo, and what part did MOFO play.
Of course we had no money. That’s why those first issues started out as practically a newspaper. That’s all we could do. It didn’t need super gloss. It needed attitude. It needed the culture to be brought out that was bubbling underneath the surface. I’ll never forget when Fausto came to me and said, “We’re calling it Thrasher.” Duane Peters came up with the name, “Call it Thrasher, dude.” I wasn’t there. But when Fausto said it, there was no argument. Who’s going to argue with that one? It just works, and it has worked well. It was evident that was it. It didn’t need the term “skate” in there. It was a cultural thing.
The interview is a reminder of how many great people came together to make Thrasher what is it. The one thing we didn’t see was what the “humble, elusive legend” Mr. Thatcher has been up to lately? Haven’t really seen him since we slapped that TransWorld SNOWboarding Magazine sticker on his back while he was announcing a contest at Bear Valley. Oh, those were the days.
Nyjah Huston has been charged with misdemeanor “creating a nuisance” by the Los Angeles Police Department for he and Fairfax home owner Edward Essa repeatedly hosting parties that were “possible super spreader events at the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic” according to a story in the LA Times.
Nyjah Huston, a four-time world skateboarding champion, and Edward Essa, the owner of a home in the Fairfax District where authorities say parties have been repeatedly shut down by police since last fall, are among those charged.
After the last party, the Mayor of LA reportedly requested that power be cut off to the house. How is Nyjah supposed to remain an LA party person without throwing parties?
Blast? Cold blast? Arctic air freezing you pipes? As a warm up, please check out the latest news stories that caught our attention since the last time we posted a list of headlines. And that was a while ago. Admittedly.
The USA Skateboarding National Championships will go on this spring in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic thanks to an innovative competition format that will combine both digital video and in=-person Olympic Qualifying.
