My New Deal Skateboards Story 1990-1996

I grew up skating in the mid 1980’s in the rural suburbs of Lewisville, North Carolina, which is about 15 miles from Winston-Salem. There were no sidewalks and there weren’t any stairs or rails, so we built crappy little quarter pipes in our driveways. Eventually we met other skaters who had backyard mini ramps, and soon after that some mid-sized 7 or 8 foot ramps that went to vert. The closest skate shop was about an hour and a half drive, but I managed to find a local bike shop that carried a few legit boards and sold Thrasher . We saw vert and pool skating in Thrasherand the scarce videos we were able to get our hands on, and we tried to do those tricks on our sketchy driveway quarter pipe. After a couple years, we were able to find out about some vert ramps just a few hours away and started begging my parents and others to drive us to Raleigh, Virginia Beach, Atlanta, and other places that seemed to have massive skate scenes compared to where we were from. Usually, we would just show up unannounced, hungry kids, and awkwardly asked to skate these strangers’ ramps. I remember the older skaters that I encountered during that time period being incredibly welcoming to us. I guess that was the southern skate hospitality. It was super intimidating though, going from our crappy little backyard ramps to the 12-foot monster Farm Ramp (outside of Raleigh). It also made me respect the skating I saw in the magazines even more. I dug the music I was hearing at those places, and when I got back home from those sessions, I’d search for places to buy Bad Brainsand Minor Threattapes.

My favorite skateboard company when I was younger was always Schmitt Stix. It seemed to have a rad DIY feeling to it, and the skaters weren’t the glam superstars that everyone knew about; like the guys on Powellor Vision. Plus, Chris Miller was always my favorite skater from the videos I had seen and he rode for Schmitt Six for a while.

In 1989 I started skating some contests around my area. Even though I didn’t have any sponsors yet, I felt like I was already good enough to skate in the sponsored division. I skated some contests around North Carolina, and then in September 1989 I went to St. Petersburg, Florida to skate an NSA District Qualifier contest where all of the top guys from the east coast were going to be competing. Much like the monster farm ramp, it was again super intimidating. All of the guys were so good, and all the sponsored skaters had perfect, brand new gear; whereas I was riding a haggard Schmitt Stix Reese Simpson board that I had bought a few months ago. That weekend I ended up meeting a few people that are, to this day, some of my closest friends. People like Mike Frazier, Brian Howard, Ryan Clements, Bucky Lasek and Brian Schaefer. I also met Paul Schmitt from Schmitt Stix for the first time. He came up to me during one of our practice sessions and said “Hey, nice board, where’d you get it?” I clumsily replied that I bought it at some bike shop in North Carolina because there weren’t any skate shops by me. He thanked me for supporting Schmitt Stix, told me that he thought I was “ripping” and said that he’d like to give me boards in the future. I had no idea what that even meant, or what it could lead to, but I knew it was good news and I was stoked. It also validated why I had been a Schmitt Stix fan in the first place. Somehow I did well enough in the contest to advance to the next event in Huntsville, Alabama the following weekend. Now I just had to figure out how I was actually going to get to Alabama. Paul Schmitt told me he would be there so I knew I had to make it work. I managed to make it to Alabama the next week, and true to his word, Paul Schmitt was there and gave me a couple boards, some wheels and Schmitt Stix shirts. It was the first free skate stuff I had ever been given. Once again, I did well enough at the contest to advance to the NSA Amateur finals in Phoenix (as an alternate) at the end of the year. The next 2 months I begged, borrowed and stole (not really), enough money for a plane ticket to Phoenix and went to Arizona by myself to skate in the Am finals. I was 2ndalternate for the vert contest, and I only got to compete because Tom Boyle had decided to turn pro, and Bucky Lasek broke his wrist in practice. It was ironic that those two skaters played a role in my being able to skate in the event, since they ended up being two of my closest friends and I would travel the world skateboarding with them years later. I think I was the only guy in the Am finals vert contest that wasn’t factory sponsored, and although I didn’t make the finals at the contest, it was an amazing experience getting to skate with and meeting all of the top ams from all over the country.

Cut to 1990: My skateboard world completely changed. A perfect indoor skatepark opened in Winston-Salem, only 20 minutes from my house. I was in high school and would go straight after school to the new skatepark and skate until closing, and I would be there every waking hour during weekends. After spending years skating homemade backyard crap, this was a dream come true and this is the time period that my skating rapidly progressed. A couple months after the park was open, someone came and told me “Neal, Steve Douglas (pro vert skater) from Schmitt Stix is on the phone for you.” I figured they were bullshitting me, but I went and picked up the phone to this barely intelligible British accent that was indeed, Steve Douglas. Steve informed me that Schmitt Stix was soon to be no more, but Paul Schmitt and most of the Schmitt Stix team were forming a company called The New Deal; and they wanted me to be a part of their official amateur team for the new brand. I was blown away that one of my favorite pro skaters was calling me with this offer, but at the same time, I was totally bummed because I always wanted to ride for Schmitt Stix, a brand that now ceased to exist. It was hard to get excited about a brand and a vision that I didn’t know anything about, but these guys were willing to give me an opportunity and I was super grateful. A few weeks later when I got my first New Deal box with boards, stickers, shirts and everything else, my attitude totally changed and I was fucking stoked to be on New Deal. The logo and brand looked completely different from anything out there, and judging from the reactions of my friends and the kids at the skatepark, I knew people were going to be into it. When New Deal boards finally came out, nearly everyone I saw skating by me had the boards. It was fresh and new, and for the first time all of the skate companies from the past (even Schmitt Stix, my favorite) looked and felt dated and stale. For the first time, I had a team that believed in me, wanted to give me opportunities, and help me live my dream of being a pro skater.

First, New Deal flew me to Southern California for a “team meeting” and it was my first opportunity to meet most of the guys and the beginning of a huge learning experience. I was still a junior in High School and New Deal was going to help me travel in the summer between my junior and senior year. That year I did much better in the NSA Amateur contests. Having a local skatepark where I skated every day was definitely paying off. I skated the vert and mini ramp contests at the district, regional, and amateur final contests that year, finishing in the top 3 or 5 almost every time. Later that fall, New Deal flew me to the annual Shut up and Skatecontest in Houston, where there was both Am and Pro vert contests. I ended up winning the Am contest, my first major National Am contest victory. The Pro event ended up getting rained out the next day, which meant all of the skate magazines that were there covering the event had only photos of the ams to run, so I ended up getting a ton of coverage in the magazines just from that one weekend in Houston. 1990 was also the year that I filmed my first video part for Useless Wooden Toys.It’s worth mentioning that filming a video part at this time meant something totally different than it would end up meaning years later. Douglas told me that they needed some footage, so I asked the only guy I knew that had a video camera to film a few runs for me. I sent Douglas the tapes and he called me back and told me to just send the raw footage and to not do any editing to it. Confused, I told him that I didn’t do any editing, just did a few runs. That was how my first video part happened.

After my success in the Shut up and Skate contest and the response to the Useless Wooden Toys video, that winter, Douglas told me that they wanted me to turn pro in 1991. The plan was for me to skate in my first pro contest in May 1991, with my pro boards coming out at around the same time; which coincidentally was the same month I was graduating from high school. Looking back on it, the timing was absolutely insane. I was turning pro a year after getting sponsored, and exactly 18 months after Paul Schmitt gave me my first free skateboard. It was an unheard of timetable, since a lot of top skaters spent years as a sponsored amateur before making the jump to the pro ranks. Schmitt and Douglas thought I was ready, and I trusted them. Sacramento, California was where I competed in my first pro contest in May of 1991.

That weekend I competed against all of my heroes that I grew up idolizing: Chris Miller, Christian Hosoi, Tony Hawk and Steve Caballero to name a few. Also on deck were a ton of guys my age, who I competed with as amateurs, and that I would eventually travel and compete with for years to come. Guys like Mike Crum, Mike Frazier, Omar Hassan, Bucky Lasek and Chris Livingston. When I look back on that contest, I also think of Tom Boyle and Sean Miller; both were Pennsylvania vert legends who left us way too soon. I made the finals that day. I think I ended up 6th, but the number didn’t matter because I had shared the deck with all of my skate heroes and proved that I belonged there with them. I then went home to North Carolina and graduated from High School. As all of my friends prepared to go to college, I left for 6 weeks in Europe (with the New Deal team) for what was the start of my skate education.

The plan was for me to fly to the UK by myself for 2 weeks, where I would compete in smaller pro vert contests on the weekends, and do some demos and appearances during the week with the local New Deal distributor. I was handed a plane ticket and told someone would be at the airport to collect me. After the UK, I was off to Münster, Germany to link up with fellow New Deal pros Ed Templeton, Mike Vallely and Andrew Morrison to compete in the World Championships in Germany, a pro contest in the French Alps, and then 2 weeks of demos in Germany and France. I hadn’t ever thought of myself as being sheltered until this very summer. I mean, I had been able to travel a bit when I was a kid with my family, but now I was 18, trying to figure out these different cultures, sleeping arrangements, food, languages and everything else. It was such an amazing learning experience, but it definitely wasn’t easy. The UK tour went well, I got 2ndand 1stin the contests there and except for leaving my board in a parking lot when we were changing vehicles it was a good trip. I then headed to Germany to hook up with my teammates. The Germany leg got off to a very inauspicious start. I walked into the lobby of our hotel in Germany and saw Mike V, Ed and his wife Deanna, and the next thing I knew there was a huge fight happening and Mike V was smashing a wooden chair over someone’s head. Welcome to professional skateboarding, Neal!

The next few weeks with Ed, Mike and Morrison were some of the most important weeks of my life. I was young and inexperienced, but lucky to have the opportunity to learn from some of the top pros in skateboarding at the time. Mike and Ed were only a couple of years older than me, but they were already veteran pro street skaters. Ed had burst onto the scene and was winning all of the biggest contests, including the Münster World Championships in 1990, a year before I joined them for the Europe tour. I learned a ton from them on this trip, both on and off the board. They were super professional (except for maybe that hotel lobby chair smashing fight) and hardworking when it came to the demos we were performing on tour. They both had a lot of fans at the time, and they wanted to make a good impression on them; even if it meant standing in the rain for hours to sign autographs. Mike and Ed didn’t drink or smoke, nor did I, so it was healthy to be around influences like them while some of my other peers who had just turned pro spent their Europe skate trip in bars and hung-over. This first summer trip to Europe was a total culture shock and a learning experience, but it has always been something I look back on fondly, and it ended up being the first of over 25 years of going to Europe in the summer for skate contests and demos. It was also the start of something that became a huge part of my life in the future: Mike V and I would reunite 21 years later in 2012 for a summer Europe tour when we both were riding for Elephant Skateboards. No hotel lobby fights this time ‘round.

Vert skateboarding was in a really bizarre place in the early 90’s. 1980’s skateboarding was built on vert skating, and in the late 80’s street skating influences like Ray Barbee, Tommy Guerrero, Mark Gonzales, and Natas Kaupas would change skateboarding forever. I skated street when I first started, but just didn’t have access to any good street spots, so we built ramps and that is what my passion became. 1991 was really the last gasp on 1980’s- style skating where everyone was riding big, wide 9”+ boards, and in the few years after that, everything about skateboarding completely changed. Most of the New Deal riders were street skaters, but there was a mutual respect amongst everyone and I felt like they respected what I did even though it was totally different from what they did. At the time, nobody knew if vert skating was going to continue to be around, everything was totally focused on street skating, and the big pro vert contests in 1991 that had 70 competitors, had about 12 competitors when 1992 rolled around. I talked to a ton of older pros at the time, and the winter between 1991 and 1992 was the breaking point where a lot of them had to give up the dream and get a “real job.” I was young and living my dream, so I thought everything was perfect, but for the guys that were older than me, some with a wife and kid(s), the reality of the early 90’s skate recession was real. When you look back on the history books of skateboarding, 1992 and 1993 were transformative years that would forever change skateboarding. The white suburban skateboarder of the 80’s was replaced by an ever-changing multi-ethnic, urban skateboarder, with different influences in music, fashion and attitude. I was a relic of the past, and I always respected that New Deal continued to support me now that I was a vert dinosaur. I realized how lucky I was because all of my fellow young, pro vert skating peers were getting dropped by their sponsors left and right, while New Deal continued to support me.

1992 came around, and boards were about 2 inches wider and suddenly we were riding 40 mm wheels; even on vert. One good thing about street skateboarding taking over is that it gave us vert dinosaurs new ideas for tricks to do on the vert ramp, influenced by what was going on in the streets. It was an ironic turnaround, since just a couple years earlier street skating was influenced by pool and vert skating, with jump ramp airs and street plants, and now the tables had turned and vert skaters were trying to replicate what was going on in the streets. I went back to Europe during the summer of 1992 for more contests and demos, and unfortunately, the trip ended early with a badly broken collarbone at an indoor mini ramp in Copenhagen. I flew home to North Carolina to recover, and also had to have hip surgery to have a giant piece of scar tissue removed that was giving me grief. New Deal already had a ticket for me to go to California in the fall for the biggest pro vert contest of the year, the NSA Pro Finals, and since I didn’t know if I would recover in time to compete, Douglas told me to go ahead and make the trip anyway. Whether or not I was able to compete, he felt it would be good for me to spend some time around the New Deal offices in Costa Mesa. I skated for a couple days at home before the trip and felt like I was feeling good enough to compete, so I went to California and ended up winning the biggest contest of my young career when I beat Tony Hawk for the first time in a head to head format contest at the Encinitas YMCA. I won a grand prize of $500 (sarcasm intended). Just being able to skate a few weeks after being in a wheelchair with a surgically repaired hip and broken collarbone meant as much to me as the contest victory.

A few weeks later I flew to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic with Ed Templeton and some of the New Deal team for a demo and some appearances. I was now accustomed to traveling overseas, but this would be my first time going to a third world country for skateboarding. The trip was amazing. It was sketchy, dangerous, unorganized and awesome. I remember they had a little street course and a ramp set up in this giant stadium. When we walked in to do the demo they played the Odd Numbersmusic from the New Deal videos and the kids went crazy. It was amazing to me that skateboarding and our little skateboard company could transcend cultures like that, and that these skate kids who lived completely different lives from us could have that much passion and joy about us and our brand. It was even crazier to me that they completely associated that band with us, our skateboard company and the videos. I always thought the dudes in the Odd Numbers would have laughed their asses off if they knew there had been a stadium full of skate rats in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic that knew all of the words to their songs.

I spent the next few months on the road, returning home to North Carolina to skate at my home park when I could. When I got back to NC at the end of my summer travels in 1993, my home skatepark was closing and there was absolutely nothing else to skate in the area at the time; so I knew I had to uproot and move somewhere else for the first time in my life. I considered Tampa, since the Skatepark of Tampa was now happening and some of my best friends lived there, but I ended up moving to Costa Mesa to be close to New Deal HQ. New Deal had grown to a point of starting Giant Skateboard Distributionto distribute New Dealand Underworld Element, and would soon start 411 Video Magazine. At the time, Schmitt and Douglas offered me $100 a week to help out at New Deal in addition to my board royalties. It also helped that Schmitt was willing to co-sign on an apartment for me to help make the move out west. I had absolutely no life skills whatsoever at the time, but I was passionate about skateboarding and New Deal, and it ended up being an amazing learning experience for me. New Deal still had a lot going for it, but the one area it was lacking was in art direction. Andy Howell had been the initial creative visionary for New Deal from the beginning and a huge part of the early success, but now that he had moved on to other projects and Giant had these new brands to take care of, the look of New Deal suffered. There was a lot of skills that I could learn to help steer the ship at New Deal, but I have never been a good artist (I painfully wish I was!) so that was one area that I couldn’t help out with.

I don’t think I was ever officially the New Deal Team Manager, but I was the guy that had the company credit card on tours and contest trips, and now at the age of 20, I was the one handing out per diem to the knuckleheads I was traveling the world with. Ed Templeton and Mike Vallely, who were my early mentors on New Deal, had moved on to start their own short-lived brand; so I was now the veteran of the team. It was insane. I remember driving the New Deal van from Costa Mesa to Vancouver on my birthday in 1994 and looking in the rear view mirror to Jordan Richter and Billy Pepper punching each other in the backseat. It was only going to get worse. On our Europe contest trip in 1994, Jordan had a well-documented episode where he had a flashback after taking a massive amount of LSD and completely disappeared from our hotel in Germany, only to reappear days later, naked and crazy. It was a lot to deal with, and I wasn’t very good at dealing with it. I was 21 now, still trying to make it as a pro skater, and I felt like I was in Germany to compete in the contest myself; not to babysit these guys.

Around this time Schmitt and Douglas made it clear to me that a full time job was on offer at Giant if I was interested, but it would mean switching up the pro skateboarder life for the 9 to 5 life. I always appreciated that offer immensely, but I felt like I wasn’t done and that I would always regret giving up my pro career too soon if I had taken them up on the offer. Vert skateboarding had undoubtedly been on a huge downturn in the few years prior, but the end of 1994 was when things were starting to look up for us.

In late 1994, there was a vert contest in Southern California called “Monster Mash” that was televised on ESPN and would eventually help lead the sports network starting the “Extreme Games” the next year in Rhode Island. The first years of X Games were a cringe tapestry of neon ramps and extreme clichés, but for us vert skaters, it was at least something. The landscape had changed for us. We were starting to disappear from the skate magazines and core brands, but now, suddenly, skateboarding was a hot commodity in the mainstream and with vert skateboarding now being on TV, the X Games would play a huge role in every kid in the late 1990’s wanting to pick up a skateboard. These were different opportunities than before; but at least the phone was ringing now. New Deal was still supporting me, and I was still stoked to ride for New Deal, but for the first time in my career I had other opportunities as well, and now I was being flown everywhere to do demos at music festivals, rock tours, and contests around the world. I was glad that I hadn’t taken Schmitt and Douglas up on that full time job, because I was lucky to do some really cool stuff over the next few years.

It’s hard to really put my finger on what caused it all to end. New Deal not really having a constant art direction after Andy Howell left, and Johnny Schillereff turning his attention to Element was a huge part of it. Giant was continuing to grow, and as Element and 411 also grew, there was less time, energy and resources for New Deal. When Douglas called me and told me we needed to have a meeting at the office and added, “make sure you bring your company credit card”, I knew it was over. New Deal fired the entire team and was going to try to make it work as a skate brand without a team. I was devastated but not surprised. I saw it coming. New Deal had been part of me for over 6 years and I hadn’t even considered a future that didn’t include riding for New Deal. In a funny twist of irony, after New Deal, I started riding for Black Label Skateboardswhich at the time was being run out of owner John Lucero’s garage, only for Lucero to do a distribution deal with Giant. So Paul Schmitt was still making my boards, Douglas and his sales team were still selling them, and all was right in the world again. I didn’t talk to Schmitt or Douglas for a while after they fired us from New Deal, but time heals all wounds and eventually we would reconnect and continue to be close; even when we were no longer working together. I truly, always appreciated them taking a chance on “the kid from North Carolina” and will be forever grateful to them for giving me the opportunity to live my dream and see the world.

I can look back on the time that I rode for New Deal and see the boards we made, the ads and the videos, but that period of time was an incredible learning experience for me as a person. When I started riding for New Deal, I was a relatively sheltered 16 year old suburban skate rat kid from North Carolina. That’s all I was; good at skateboarding. The years riding for New Deal exposed me to so many new things and taught me so much. I learned all about the business side of things and running a company from Paul Schmitt and Steve Douglas and marveled at their relentless work ethic. They allowed me to walk the floors of the skateboard and clothing factories to learn every detail of the process from design to shipping out the final product. I learned all about different countries and cultures from the New Deal distributors that drove us everywhere on tours around the world. I learned how to ride the trains in the UK and how to drive on the left side of the road in Australia. I learned how to not get pick-pocketed in Rome and how to escape an attempted mugging in London. I became obsessed with The Smiths and Morrissey after being exposed to them on the road with Dave Duren and Ron Knigge. I learned how to get roasted in the tour van with Rene Mathyson. I learned all about the creative process involved with shooting photos from Chris Ortiz for New Deal ads. On that first trip to Europe, Ed Templeton, Mike Vallely and Andrew Morrison taught me what it means to truly be a professional skateboarder and how hard you have to work at it. Justin Girard exposed me to so many different kinds of music I had never heard. I learned a ton about making videos and what goes into it by watching Josh Friedberg edit New Deal videos and the first 411 videos. After growing up thinking that every skateboarder just listened to Black Flag and Suicidal Tendencies, Andy Howell and Johnny Schillereff showed me that some nights you just need to put on some Frank Sinatra and chill. That one still works to this day.

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