words: bobbyhundreds
fotos: zachcordner.com		 I first met homeboy years ago when, as Editor-in-Chief, he hired me as an intern at Warp Magazine. Back then, it was just me, Jason Stein with a broken arm, and Kevin. Transworld stuck us in this God-forsaken cave-of-an-office where we toiled without sunlight and air ventilation, and were forced to deal with each other amidst half-opened boxes of free Ecko product. We soon ventured into this disgusting monster otherwise known as Transworld STANCE Magazine, where Kevin introduced me to now-household names like Nigo, Futura, and Kaws. He blessed me with earfuls of REAL music, like Nation of Ulysses and Karate. Because of Kevin, I contracted a severe action-figure-fiending addiction. But most importantly, Kevin instilled within me a strong spirit for Nike sneaker collecting.

Unfortunately for myself, Kevin realized that all of his talent and experience could be better focused as a Communications Manager for Nike's Skateboarding division than mentoring a lonely college student. So he moved to Portland and helped launch one of the biggest deals ever in the skateboarding and sneaker industry. I often cry myself to sleep.		 >[ME] I remember Nike having some kind of skateboarding division back in high school, but then it got axed..

[KEVIN] Yeah, they had an attempt around '95 and they pulled the plug on it around '97. That's when I started working at Transworld and heard about it, but I never saw the shoes.

>I had a pair!

Really?

>Yeah! They were a blue pair..I got clowned for wearing them because that was back when nobody skated. So kids were pissed Nike was getting into the skateboarding scene and trying to make it mainstream. Anyways, back to you. How did you get involved with Nike and Nike Skateboarding?

 

 I did an article on Nike and their air technology for Stance because we were doing a theme issue on AIR. I wanted to do a feature on Nike Air because I was a huge fan since about '97 (of course, after I went through skateboarding in Jordans and stuff like that in the late '80s). I did the article about 2000 or 2001. I kept in touch with Sandy Bodecker - right around the time he was kicking up the skate program - through him, I met a guy by the name of Marcus Tayui and just kept in touch with both of them. After a certain point, they let me know of a job opportunity with the skate program. I said "Absolutely, let's go for it!"

>So what prompted Nike to jump back into the skate thing again?

I think Nike saw that if they weren't communicating to this segment of the population, there was gonna be a huge chunk of kids growing up not knowing about Nike. If you grow up skating and don't care too much about anything else, you're probably not gonna give Nike too much mindspace. And those were the consumers they didn't wanna lose out on. They saw the opportunity, figured out the right shoe to put out in the market - that would be the Dunk - and it kinda went from there. It sparked off a lot of the Dunk craze that's going on now.

 >Why did they choose the Dunk exactly?

It goes deeper than the '80s. If you look at any of Glen Friedman's books, I would say about half the pages are covered with Nike Bruins or Blazers. Guys like Tony Alva, a lot of the dudes from the Dogtown era, were wearing those shoes - that was the premiere skateboard shoe. If you weren't wearing Vans, you were wearing those. (The Converse All-star thing caught on later.) In the '80s, a lot of guys were skating in the Jordan 1 - Chris Miler, Marc Gonzalez, Neil Blender, the entire Bones Brigade, Tommy Guerrero. That shoe basically spawned the Dunk.

As far as Nike reissuing the Dunk and having that be the kickoff shoe, it was kinda the middle ground for skating as far as the shoe that everybody could use. Obviously, the Blazer was a cool-looking shoe and that's what people wore back in the '70s, but performance-wise, it's not really up to snuff. People were skating in Delta Forces, Court Forces, and people were even skating in Jordan 3s, and basically any basketball shoe Nike made.

But to capture the essence of that vibe as far as a shoe that grips really well, has good board feel, has protection in all the right places, the Dunk was the ideal shoe. Because of all the color tie-ins they did with all the College basketball teams that the shoe was originally designed for back in the '80s, it offered unlimited potential as far as color hookups and different things you could do for it. It had the right feel, the right look, and it was an iconic shoe that stuck out in a lot of skaters' heads.

We went with that and Nike did some modifications in it: Put some "Zoom Air" in the sockliner, made them limited, came up with special materials for the riders - the original 4 guys - Gino Iannucci, Reese Forbes, Danny Supa, Richard Mulder - "the City Series" - it all spring-boarded from there. Based on the Dunk, Nike worked with the riders and developed the 2 new performance shoes - the E-CUE and the URL. They developed the Angus and now they're working on the Zoom Air FC which is dropping in December.		 >What's that shoe look like?

It looks like an indoor soccer shoe. We basically built the shoe for Gino Ianucci because he likes to skate in really low profile, minimal protection, maximum board-feel shoes. But we made it skate specific. We even put a Zoom Air bag in the heel so you're getting as low to the ground as you can, but still have cushioning.

>With the sneaker trend boom, I figure the audience for Nike Skateboarding (especially the Dunks), would be more sneakerheads over actual skateboarders…what's up with that?

It's evolved over time. It started off with a large percentage of it being sneakerheads and the rest of the percentage being older generation skaters who skated in these shoes back in the '80s and appreciated it. Or maybe someone who had an older brother who skated in those shoes and they knew them as being really good shoes.