Erick Winkowski #4.

"Erick's skating is a breath of fresh air after we've all been huffing gasoline 'til we're green in the face for the past 15 years. Watching him skate reminds me of what made me want to get a skateboard 33 years ago - it wasn't necessarily about what tricks you could do, it was how you did them. For a long time skating seemed to have evolved into just spinning and flipping everything. What happened to putting your own spin on skating and making shit unique? It's dying with the generation of my heroes, the guys before my peers and I started skating (Neil Blender, Lance Mountain, Ben Schroeder, Jeff Phillips, Jeff Kendall). Those guys all have unique, distinctive styles and personalities. In my era, guys got into progressing at such an accelerated rate that all the qualities that got me hyped in the first place seem to be left by the wayside. The first time I saw a clip of Erick, I knew he got it. If he were born an era before me, he would have been in that group of heroes that I mentioned, and that's good company!" - Mike Frazier

It's a bird's eye view of an interesting Erick Winkowski trick. I dig how this has that 1980s feel, which makes sense given the boards he prefers to ride. I don't think Erick is still on Emerica, along with a couple other long time riders. I know he sells boards, which maybe didn't carry over to footwear. Skateboarding is getting rather bleak these days.

It took forever to find the quote from Mike. I remembered the article in Thrasher where assorted pros chimed in on what they thought was cool about Erick. They even got a Neil Blender blurb. The feature was a bit older than I thought it was.

For the quote: Thrasher - September 2019 Volume 40 Number 9

Thrasher - October 2018 Volume 39 Number 10