NSA NO.1 HOUSTON
Well, yeah, it seems like only yesterday,
or was it last November, and already we were
back in Houston, Texas for another Pro/Am
at the skate park of Houston. N.S.A. was
in town, to sanction their season opener
with a Kaypro computer and a new code of
ethics in tow. A promise to restore order in
the Pro touring ranks was in the air and in
everyone's ear. Without a doubt the extra
curicular activities of skate types, whether
pro, am or otherwise, has, at times, gotten
out of hand. The season premiere at the
Hot Tropics Southern Fried Shred in Mobile,
only two weeks before, had already seen
some highlights (blazing skating by amateurs
and pros in an unreal hangar setting) and
some lowlights (an all points bulletin to the
Hotel Owners of America, beware of guests
attired in Converse and baggy shorts).
That's what happens when you get 250 ska-
ter dudes and 5 girls in one place at one
time. Didn't someone once say, "Skaters will
be skaters."?
Certainly the N.S.A. had picked a tough
venue to kick off the '86 schedule and kick
out the riff-raff. As we history buffs will re-
member, Texas has had its share of 'problems'
regarding skate infiltration (Blackhart, take
a bow). A hosting contingency of skate out-
laws with last names like Gibson, Johnson,
Fillion, Phillips, Chasen, Prince and
Guimond certainly were not strangers to
the happy-go-lucky lifestyle that we've
come to know and live on the contest trail.
Nonetheless, the writing was on the wall,
either shape up or ship out was the call. To
further clarify the intentions of the N.S.A.
for the '86 campaign, here is a further break-
down of the rules and regs dictating the
activities as outlined in the Official Contes-
tant Information Package.
Title: 1986 N.S.A. Southwest Amateur
Qualifier and Professional Competition.
Underline professional here. Contestants
are expected to be on their best behavior,
no exceptions. The amateur division is
being limited to regionals only, effectively
limiting any high school high jinx by the
younger gen.
Title Holder: Harmony Surf and Skate
of Houston.
A well-stocked retail outfit paying for the
right to set up shop on the premises. Visa
and Master Charge accepted.
Dates: March 28 & 29, 1986.
The rumored Easter egg hunt on Sunday
the 31st never materialized but it was a
novel idea none the less.
Location: The Skatepark of Houston.
For the record, located at 4818 Orange
Grove, Houston, TX 77039. Telephone: 713-
442-9441. Former site of the Texas Twister,
a cement park in the dinosaur days. Now
featuring 3 ramps and plans for expansion.
Texas Contact: Dennis Eppinette.
If you get lost just go to the Holiday Inn
off of the Eastex and ask the desk clerk.
Southwest Regional Am Qualifier:
Only sponsored ams from the states of New
Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas,
Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi or Alabama
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need apply. Alan Midgett, Lonny Rieter, Pat
Clark and Fred Smith claimed residency
status for this one. Maybe Midgett will go
pro for the shoot-out at his home ramp in VA
Beach. Maybe Fred Smith just doesn't care
and plans to scam a ride at every contest.
IMPORTANT: Read This.
The Sponsored and 3A division is limited
to 40 regional skaters. The final tally on Am
Friday at this event was something like 22,
signed and sealed. Effective.
Who Qualifies:
Top 10 plus 2 alternates qualify for the NSA
National Championships in Anaheim, CA. To
be held on December 13 & 14, 1986. Bring
the folks, it's an indoor venue that seats 10,000
plus. Come early for a good seat. Popcorn
sales are expected to be heavy.
When we're all old and grey and a new generation
is spinning double back flips we can flash back on
the current stunts courtesy of Unreal Productions.
John Gibson being viddied for posterity
Schedule Of Events For Houston:
March 26 (Wed)-All day practice for contest
entries only. Pro and Am, unscheduled snake
sessions.
6-9 p.m. Sign in with the NSA and pick up
your Membership package. Sign in for Thurs-
day's practice by heats.
10 p.m. Pro riders meeting at Holiday Inn,
with head judge Ridge and the trainer' Barry
Zaritzky. Room service optional.
March 27 (Thurs), 8 a.m.- Am riders meeting
at the ramp with Bryan and Barry
9-5 a.m.Practice by heats. Prince, Fillion,
Chasen and Koesel showing strong local
knowledge of the metal skinned ramp. Clark,
Midgette, Reiter and Smith challenging with
every thrust.
5-9 p.m. Pro practice by heats. The usual
damaging skating being displayed by Hosoi,
Hawk, Phillips, Magnusson, Losi, Mountain,
Cab and Rogowski. Gibson and Johnson
showing local dominance. Groholski, Ken
Park, Blender, Nolder, Staab, Joe Johnson,
Ruff and rookie Grosso coming on strong.
Roskopp out with a sore foot due to being
stepped on by a real cowboy's boot. Gonzo
thinking of joining the vert pro ranks. Joe
Lopes thinking of his next female challenge.
McGill showing determination and a well-prac-
ticed routine. Danny Webster thinking of ex-
tending his visa status for a pro debut. Chris
Miller, plainly bio. Jeff Kendall, working out.
A skate rock/streetstyle blowout at the
Tradewinds roller/skate disco with Bark Hard
and Contortion Sesh proves that Texas style
hospitality concerning pre-contest activities
leaves California and other skate regions in
the dust. Noil Blender's RnR board slides on
the 4% foot high spectator railing had to be
witnessed to be believed.
Back at the Holiday Inn, all's quiet on the
southwestern front. The only difference be-
tween this contest and last November's
S.U.A.S. gathering was that the motel pool
was now totally dry and skateable, except
nobody was dropping in. Well, almost nobody.
Only the names have been changed to pro-
tect the guilty.
March 28th (Fri) 8-10 a.m. - Am practice
according to contest draw. Luckily, Spring
vacation was in effect, which explains the
lack of truant officers on the premises look-
ing for hooky players. A common problem
at skateparks in the past.
10 a.m.-finish- For the first time in NSA
history the format was ahead of schedule.
Even with the addition of an extra seeding
run in the interest of fair play, we actually
got a lunch break before the final jam. A
neighborly entrepreneur across the street
from the park was offering BBQ beef bet-
ween two skins of white bread. Reasonably
priced and tasty to boot. Spectator turn-out
at this point was fair to middling at best.
Padding up and reporting to the roll-out
decks for the 25 minute 10-man Am jam-off
were Texans Gene Hare, Bryan Pennington,
Tommy Koesel, Troy Chasen, Todd Prince
and reigning number one Ken Fillion. Also
included were transients Pat Clark and
Lonny Reiter from Florida/ Walker, Fred
Smith from Dighton, Mass. and Alan Midgett
from VA Beach. Despite gutsy displays of
skating destruction by all of these upstarts
the outcome was clear from the first few
runs of the jam. Lonny Reiter established
himself as a major power skater with a
Nolderish-like tendency for burly maneuver-
isms. Gene Hare and Bryan Pennington
displayed maximum style and razor sharp
flair, respectively. Pat Clark, thick around
the middle, but always on edge, delighted
the crowd and pushed the betting even
higher. Fred Smith showed a ballsy display
of frontside aerial antics and his patented
tuck-knee handplant flappas. Alan Midgett
skated strong enough to threaten any con-
tenders, but just couldn't hang on. Tommy
Koesel retained his smooth flow and mastery
of Texas terrain with his patented double-
channel plants. With five minutes left to jam
it was obvious who was in control.
Crowd response was definitely leaning
towards local skate rockers Todd Prince
(Bark Hard vocalist), Troy Chasen (Contor-
tion guitarist) and Ken Fillion (Contortion
skins-man) as the favorites. Nobody was
disappointed by jam's end. Chasen and
Prince, the big men, literally heated up the
metal ramp surface with backside air dis-
plays, Texas plants and bomb drops to as-
sure them of top notch placement. However,
it was all Ken Fillion, with a backside seminar
of aerial heights that grabbed the spectators
by the throats and tore 'em out. Winner and
still Am champ, Ken Fillion followed by Cha-
sen, Prince, Koesel, Hare, Midgette, Reiter,
Clark, Smith and Pennington. If this is to be
any indication, the Southwestern confer-
ence skaters will be the top guns at year's
end, the Nationals. Oh boy!
With a scant five hours of daylight still
ahead (unbelievable by NSA standards) Pro
practice was next up. Believably, except for
the everready, always skating, Tony Magnus-
son, no pros were immediately on-site to
warm up for Saturday's main event. So be
it. Grab a dog and some suds, Texas style.
Cut to downtown Houston. While Hosol
was demo-ing the local skate shops and
Lopes was still searching for accomodating
geishas, a streetstyling faction of pro skaters
were exploring the finer points of skate ar
chitecture amongst the phallic giants of a
deserted Houston skyline. Downtown beat
walking Houston cops were alerted to skate
activities being performed on and off some
of greater Houston's finer street spots.
For rockin' skate amateurs Ken Fillion and
Troy Chasen taking top honors in the day's
event was only the beginning of their Friday
activities. Whereas last November's
S.U.A.S. program schedule involved the
local hip Houston discos for relaxation, with
skaters welcome and nightly contest videos,
this time around the clubs weren't so keen
on adopting skaters for the night. The events
that weren't on the NSA's itenerary were a
bit more underground. Contortion Session
was due for a support gig with the touring
Samhain at a condemned tinder-box of a
club called Cabaret Voltaire on the greasier
side of Houston's downtown. Patrons that
actually made it inside the...club?, helped
Ken, Troy and George heat up the stage for
Glenn Danzig and his boys. Big Boys from
Austin, Tim Kerr and Biskit were on hand to
provide immoral support while G.S.D.
positioned himself front and center, raising
a fist at every power chord. Lopes was still
looking for Miss Right. The only incident
besides a cruel set by Samhain was the
putrid smell of natural gas creeping inside
the shoebox sized hall during the height of
the performance. Luckily an alert type found
and shut off the main valve before someone
flicked their Bic.
March 29 (Sat.) 9a.m.-12:30p.m.-Pro prac
tice by heats. Heat is right. By 10 o'clock
the Texas temps were well into the late 70's.
Early rising pro contenders were dicing for
their last routine honing practice sessions.
Late wakers were checking in throughout
the morning and padding up. After a lunch
break the seeding round of one run apiece
served to familiarize the growing crowd of
spectators with the Pro field in attendance.
Qualifying proceeded without incident,
each skater taking two runs to vie for the 10.
man jam final. Monty Nolder just missed the
cut with a surly display of skating on his
second run. Groholski was nipped out of
contention despite his consistency and an
outrageous frontside ollie to grind over chan-
nel. Caballero demanded respect from the
crowd but not the judges with his skating.
Grosso, in his pro debut, hung it out but
came up dry. Neil blender even borrowed a
board during a run but couldn't cut the rug
or the mustard.
2p.m. finish - Pro finals. Jam time. The
Warriors in war paint. McGill, Park, Kasal, Phillips, Lucero, Nolder, Caballero, Grosso, artist Mountain and
Malba ready for battle.
ten skaters that could were scheduled to
drop in from 10th to first. In that order the
skaters were: Rogowski, Kasai, Magnusson,
Gibson, Losi, Hawk, Phillips, Hosoi, Moun-
tain and McGill
For the first 10 minutes of the 25 minute
jam session, the skating was a bit sluggish.
The monster halfpipe had been taking it's
toll on the skaters all week and it was begin-
ning to show. A metal skating surface doesn't
forgive as much as wood, draining a skater's
energy with every bone-jarring bail or knee
slide, and making it that much harder to
climb back up on the deck and drop in for
more. But that's what separates the boys
from the old men in the realms of pro vertical
and by mid-jam the shredding was getting
out of hand.
Somehow, during the semi heats, Lance
Mountain (who had been seen soliciting au-
tographs on his own t-shirt from adoring
skate fans, probably in compliance with the
new NSA guidelines) saw fit to adorn each
pro skater's mug with facial tatoos using an
El Marko, reportedly procured from trainer
Barry's bag of tricks. Well into the middle
minutes of the orderly jam session the color-
ful participants began to mix it up and do
battle run for run. Jeff Phillips, sporting a
twisted Spanish moustache routinely alley-
ooped lien airs over channel, stalled Grigley
airs, foot plants to fakie and the Phillips 66.
Losi was performing backside lapover grinds
and mutated Japan airs. Tex Gibson couldn't.
do less than five feet of height on back, front.
and indy airs, Lester Kasai is out for blood
this season with his every maneuver on the
brink of insanity, showing multiple variala-
tions. Magnusson's small but powerful frame
consistently pierced the atmosphere with
ollies, mutes, and McTwists at eye levels.
Tony Hawk dropped in with McTwists at the
get go and added alley-oop varials for effect.
Hosoi, skating hurt, nonetheless went rocket
to rocket and slapped jars and liens. Rog-
owski, coming on strong, landed a frontside
air in a grind down the channel edge. McGill
had the twist re-dialed and showed big fast
plants and indy's at full loft. Lance typically
floated around the whole skating surface with
a 'shoot eating grin on this face throughout.
By the final minutes it was obvious that
the skaters were beginning to burn out.
Lance was having trouble staying on until
he finally pulled consecutive McTwists, but
then had to look for suggestions from the
crowd to finish his run. Lester seemingly
changed his jam strategy in mid-flight, grab-
bing his board every which way and losing
his final run on a triple grabbing frontside
air attempt. Magnusson was winding down
with slow rolling McTwists and gay spins
over channel, but still skating strong. Along
week of rockin' and rollin' had Tex Gibson
stopping the action with stalled frontside.
handplants and stepping on toes during
wicked backside boneless ones while the
crowd cried "Johnny." Al Losi finger-flipped
inverts with huge air and frontside rock 'n
rolls in between. Backsliding rock 'n rolls
and Gatairs were Rogowski's last gasps
while the Hawk kept adding up the tricks.
A 720 aerial on his second to last run, then
a first trick McTwist on his last, Tony finished
up the day with a frontal flip dismount onto
the rollout deck. Christian stuck it out to the
end but couldn't hang like his usual self. At
jam's end, Jeff Phillips, although frontside
boosting ala alley-oop and performing bi-
zarre new twists to old aerials, couldn't
finish his last routine as strong as he might
have. It was McGill who silently and consis-
tently blazed throughout and looked strong
all the way up to his final maneuver. Pulling
two Mc Twists in succession Mike ended up
in a stalled eggplant from which he twisted
into a bizarre fall-in re-entry, and somehow
came up with feet on board. The judges
gave it the nod for when the scores were
downloaded and then spit back out for the
Kaypro it was McGill edging out Powellmate
Tony Hawk for the upset win and the 'grand
prize of 1,000 clams. Jeff Phillips had edged
his way to third followed by Magnusson,
Rogowski, Losi, Hosoi, Mountain, Kasai
and in 10th John Gibson.
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