An Ode to the Chris Cole Who Wore Yellow T-Shirts

chris cole yellow tee

I’ve been to two Street Leagues in my life. Between the mush of free alcohol and conversations with #industry #friendz who you otherwise only see at such events, memories of tricks at those contests are foggy. Except one.

Chris Cole needed some high score to avoid elimination (pretty sure that’s what was going on…), and there weren’t a lot of tricks available that would yield a score high enough, especially with one try at his disposal. The dude rolled up to a handrail frontside, did an alley-oop frontside 270 over it (he’s not rolling backside so nobody say it’s a 270 lip), and front boards down it. No test run, no warm-up. Just threw his board down and did it. Needless to say, he got whatever score he needed.

Other than that, I can’t remember a single Chris Cole part since he got on Zero. Not “hating” at all — the dude is probably one of the top five skateboarders working today if you’re using raw talent as your metric. Either Cole or Mariano are the first names that pop up to answer the question “Has anyone ever done..?” His skating just never crossed that 1% threshold of relate-ability required for repeat viewings of a part for an adult sk8r boy. It’s on another planet.

More »