Cover article: BakeNDestroy premier, oct 2011 via Active ride shop
Recently I watched the “Sandra” video. Maybe I had already seen it before (yes, I had—I remember the fakie big spin down the stairs), and I started wondering: why hasn’t this video had a strong impact on skateboarding?
I know, Trevor Colden is a strange cat in skateboarding. He rode for Jamie Thomas, he skated and produced for Nike SB for a long time, he won contests, got coverage, had a good look—he was basically a skateboarding golden child.
Then something happened, and the infamous “check” deck for Skate Mental was pretty much one of the biggest jokes.
Don’t you remember what happened?
Well, go check it, it’s pretty much everywhere on Google, but we can sum it up : basically Trevor wants to leave Mistery Skateboards (is it still alive?), Jamie has a contract, and Trevor has to pay like 15.000 bucks to skate for SkateMental (is it still alive?)
If a kid wants to ride for someone else, usually the rider and the company come to some kind of agreement, wait until all the boards with his name are sold, and then he leaves. It’s skateboarding—it’s not that serious. But Jamie handled it in a very serious way: “We invested time and money to build your name, and now all of a sudden you want to leave? You have to respect your contract, and the energy and money we put into helping your career start and grow, so you have to pay us.”
Jamie looked like a bad boss, Trevor paid $15,000 to leave the company… and he looked like a spoiled kid.
Maybe neither of them was really like that, but that’s how the skate world perceived it.
A guy wants to leave his contract and pays a fee for the entrepreneur who holds the contract. In a normal world, where the business is something sad and serious, this shit is pretty much normal, but in skateboarding, and in this particular scenario, nobody wins. And basically now nobody cares (except us, because we’re nerds till death)
Anyway, we heard from Trevor that after that he had some trouble—financially and with family issues—so when he came back and talked about it, I was really happy to see him doing fine and skating at a really good level.
The style was immaculate, he wasn’t the “golden child” anymore, he was skatein’ at a very mature level, good trick and spot selection, classic soundtrack, good filming.
Everything was on point, but that part didn’t stick in my mind (except the fakie bigspin obviously), and I think it didn’t stick in the very short attention span memory of skateboarders worldwide.
We all love a good comeback story.
We all love good skateboarding, and a kid that find a way to rise in life, and put energy in that usefull toy we all love.
Why a good part like that didn’t find a way to be relevant, and relaunch Trevor skateboarding career ?
We just guess: Trevor, the shoes (and maybe the skate channel)…Trevor THE SHOES !
So kids, if you’re out there trying to come up or trying to make a comeback, choose wisely what you promote and where your paycheck comes from.
Sometimes it’s not worth the “stigma,” because skateboarding is all about love—but when skateboarding hates something, that can last forever.
Now, rewatch the video, forget about the shoes, and think about how cool that kid is, seriously.
We love you Trevor
And this is just to give some boost at your wonderful skateboarding
– S
Loved this one