Jordan Trahan.

Static Ender.

Jordan is from Lafayette, Louisiana. He was pro for 5Boro and has been on Chocolate for a while now. Some of his favorite skaters include Tim O'Connor, Keith Hufnagel, Jack Sabback, Nate Broussard, and Jimmy Lannon. New Balance has been his shoe sponsor for over a decade. I like how Chocolate incorporates parts of New Orleans culture into his graphics.

It has been toasty this week. I actually had fun for a change last night skateboarding in the driveway.

Work was extra busy the last five days so there might not be anything for next week. I'm not exactly sure yet and don't really have any ideas. I'll see how it goes over the weekend.

Thrasher - December 2015 Volume 36 Number 12

Arto Saari & PJ Ladd.

Flippin' legends.

Arto was riding for Gravis prior to New Balance. I believe he has contributed photography work for them over the years. Since PJ and New Balance are both from Boston, it made sense to add a local legend to the team. I think he was on DC, but he also might have been floating in shoe sponsor limbo in 2012. I like how Arto got into both pool skating and photography as he grew older.

Arto: Thrasher - September 2015 Volume 36 Number 9

PJ: Thrasher - October 2015 Volume 36 Number 10

Levi Brown #2.

"Levi Brown is a rad stylish underrated skater." - John Rattray

Now this is more like it. New Balance found their artistic direction and everything clicked from there on out. Levi was pro for Element and moved over to office life at New Balance.

RIP Ozzy. Go watch Fred Gall's part in Timecode for some heavy duty grimy shredding that might as well be on the streets of Birmingham.

Thrasher - July 2015 Volume 36 Number 7

New Balance Team 2015.

Numerical.

After disappearing for a bit, New Balance came back in 2015. I'm saying disappeared because I couldn't find any ads after early 2014 and before this one. I checked mags other than Thrasher and nothing turned up. The team in the ad is all the riders who were in the Second Narrows video. Based on John Rattray's LinkedIn page, he was only team manager for a year and was working for Nike by the end of 2013. This supports my theory that things didn't click with Black Box. Of note is that Jack Curtin and the UK's Tom Knox have been added to the crew. Tom Karangelov is riding a 3D board. It's cool to see how long some of these guys have been riding for New Balance.

Thrasher - June 2015 Volume 36 Number 6

New Balance Team 2013.

I thought I'd take a look at how New Balance got into skateboarding. They had an unremarkable beginning in 2013. In an article on ESPN by Robin Fleming from December of 2012, it was announced that New Balance would be fielding a skateboard team. They partnered with Jamie Thomas and used his Black Box operation as their distributor. New Balance worked with Westlife Distribution for their creative and design needs. Westlife was a distributor for Dickies, Paul Frank, and a snowboard clothing brand called 686.

The team was formally announced in May of 2013. John Rattray was the team manager. The squad consisted of Arto Saari, PJ Ladd, Levi Brown, and Tom Karangelov.

New Balance released a video called Second Narrows to go with the print rollout in November of 2013. It featured John, Arto, Levi, PJ, and Tom plus Tyler Surrey, Marquise Henry, Jordan Trahan, and Jordan Taylor. Joe Pease and Russell Houghten were the filmers. It's an interesting little video with creative editing that harkens back to the days of Sheep Shoes and Physics Wheels.

After the opening serve, New Balance ran three more ads like this:

They had similarly bland ads with Arto Saari and PJ Ladd before disappearing until the summer of 2015. My guess is that the partnership with Black Box didn't work out. Other than having some top level skate talent, there's wasn't much that looked overly exciting about New Balance's debut. Everybody's got to start somewhere.

Team: Thrasher - November 2013 Volume 34 Number 11

Jordan: Thrasher - January 2014 Volume 35 Number 1

Jake Duncombe.

Gremlin attack.

Jake is from Byron Bay, Australia. He won SLAM's Skater of the Year award and turned pro for Blind in 2006. His other sponsors included Globe, Bones Wheels, Volcom, and Theeve Trucks. Jake joined up with Life Extention in 2013 and had a full part in their Theatrix video. His skating is a mix of gnarly park tricks and precise street tech with some hairball moves thrown in for good measure.

I'm still not really skateboarding so well for myself. It's made for a long week. I keep plugging away at it and hope something clicks again soon.

It's going to be a look at the early days of New Balance's skateboard program for next week.

The camera work is by Chris Ortiz.

Thrasher - November 2008 Volume 28 Number 11

Nick Trapasso #3.

"I wish I had took it more seriously now after having a real job, like how easy it was. But yeah, you're kind of on your own schedule just thinking you can do things however you want, but you really should be focused on skating all the time. I was like 50-50 with wanting to party and skate, or just make fun of it. But yeah, it shoulda just been a little more serious, for sure."

Nick reflects on how he maybe should've made better use of time during his pro skateboarding days. He also hampered by a couple of knee injuries. All things considered, he did have a pretty good run as professional skateboarder.

For the quote: Thrasher - April 2023 Volume 44 Number 4

Thrasher - December 2012 Volume 32 Number 12