Created this post in preparation for an interview with one of my all time heroes Chris Edwards. See link here.

I love action sports!!!

This next sentence feels weird to type… but there was an era in mid 90s where I was a well known pro Rollerblader. I won the Amateur Championship (Am Jam) and maybe the most prestigious annual contest “SCRAP” in Illinois (back to back) which allowed me to turn pro. I was on the cover of Inline Magazine and had featured sections in a ton of videos and was told by my new sponsors they were going to make me “the next big thing” — Then I got epilepsy and started having seizures and it was all over — before it really began.

Super grateful for that whirlwind adventure over those 2 years seeing the world and touring with my friends… it set me up for a career in action sports, starting a successful Rollerblading Brand (United Urethane) followed by the next 25 years behind the camera making action sports movies and TV.

NONE of it would have happened without Rollerblading legends Chris Edwards and Steve Thomas.

One of the reasons I started Omni-Fusion Media Production was because I used to make action sports films. This activity fused everything I loved into one lifestyle sport. You try to capture your best tricks on camera and then edit together pictures or video to entertain your friends and fans (and for your sponsors to sell products and videos).

Very early in the 1990s one of my favorite early Rollerblading videos was Dare To Air. It was released and immediately launched Chris Edwards into superstar status. His tricks and sheer power were so far ahead of the curve that he inspired a generation of skaters to start rollerblading more like skateboarding, his clothing grinds, airs and style meshed perfectly with the attitude of the era. And Chris Edward’s amplitude and back of tricks on the vert ramp was untouchable.

Chris Edwards Interviewing Mike Raddebaugh at ASA Championship and other crazy stuff. 1998

Chris Edwards - Industry Summit NSGA Tradeshow Chicago 1997

Stunt Doubling for Charlie in Mighty ducks with my Hero Chris Edwards!

One day in early 90’s we got word that Hollywood would be casting rollerbladers in Mighty Ducks 2 and my new personal hero Chris Edwards was the Stunt Coordinator!

We showed up to the ice arena in my home town (where I live to this day) in Hopkins, Minnesota. We were supposed to jump off a launch ramp but we started to grind the hockey boards and I think a small handrail outside…. and within a few hours of watching us skate, Chris Edwards scooped us up and brought us to a Subway restaurant and got on the phone with Rollerblade (his sponsor) telling them they had to sponsor us. This next 2 years was like a dream come true. Being in a big Hollywood movie and getting sponsored was transformative. It was on Mighty Ducks I met Jon Robinson, John Stoll and Darin Sanocki among others and we all started rollerblading together.

Bladin’ in 1993 around the time of shooting for Mighty Ducks 2.

Screen Shot 2021-05-30 at 1.35.47 PM.png

One day we were at the Aqua Jam (a series of ramps set up every year in Minneapolis) and me and Nate Strandberg and John Schmit were getting ready to skate the mini ramp… we thought our crew was the best around but we saw this dude totally shredding, clearly MUCH better than us and we stopped in our tracks.

This was Steve Thomas.

Steve Thomas - kinked rail - Omaha circa 1994

Steve had an effortless style, pumping the transition super fast and airing super smooth and doing tricks we had never seen. He and his friend Dan Jensen (who went on to make Harvesting The Crust and many other films) were filming each other and we all became friends and could feel the energy of this new scene emerging. Steve started Scribe Industries within a year, signing Me, Jon Robinson, John Schmit.

To this day I think Steve Thomas might have been the most stylish rollerblader I have ever seen. He would not do a trick unless he could make it look really controlled and stylish and he would not include massively hard or scary tricks he had landed in our videos if he felt like it was not clean or too sketchy…. this factor along with his massive talent and the super fast speed in which he skated… helped him become one of the most successful rollerbladers of the era and legit legend — with X-Games podiums, legendary video sections and he was a staple in every magazine because he looked so good in every photo and kids copied his trademark move of duck taping the bottom of his oversized pants. All this in spite of a rare heart condition that caused him to be short of breath.

Steve, Dan and John Schmit were the ones who really organized those early mid-west sessions into something more focussed, each session had a purpose and was filmed and photographed. One day me and Jon Robinson were called over to the Scribe owners’ apartment (Shannon Grendahl and Jason Roy) to see “Making Cookies” the sponsor me vid from Dave Kollasch, Mark Neppl and Nick Alliano in Omaha who in my opinion, were the best in the world in that era… Mark and Nick were signed to Scribe shortly after and Dave Kollasch to Senate.

Steve and Dan (Jensen) really saw the potential in all our skating, that we were all doing tricks that no one in the world were doing… but it was Steve that came up with 2 tricks that really made my mouth drop. I was editing with Dan Jensen late one night and saw the footage as we transferred mini DV tapes to old school VHS I saw … Steve do the 1st “Farside Soul” and first “Acid Soul”… and I remember being so impressed and wanting to try both tricks immediately. As the story goes, Steve landed the trick and a random street person watching supposedly said that the trick was “trippy like Acid…“ or something to that effect and the name Acid Soul was born. Steve is also often credited with inventing the Unity and Backslide and he was very likely the 1st person to invent/sell plastic grind rails that fit on Rollerblades which was Scribe’s bread and butter product.

Reprint of Harvesting The Crust and the Original by artist Adam Turman https://www.adamturman.com/

Steve Thomas, Jason Roy and Jon Robinson 1994

John Schmit, Shane Nelson ACID SOUL and Dan Jensen taking pics at NISS circa 1996

It was so fun to be making a real skate movie that we KNEW was going to blow minds…. as these new tricks captured in real time as they were invented… but I don’t think anyone could foresee the impact that Harvesting The Crust would have. It dropped like an atomic bomb on the scene almost at the exact same time as Hoax 2 and for the next year we were all on cloud 9. Landing sponsors, traveling the world, doing demos, signing autographs and doing what we loved.

As I look back, on the influence Chris Edwards and Steve Thomas had on Rollerblading and quite literally the rest of my life…. making action sports videos and commercials and music videos, etc… I love that Chris Edwards is talking about the legacy of rollerblading and telling the stories of how the tricks that are still done regularly were invented and named.

Steve Thomas skateboarding at “The Fed” 1994

I have not talked to Steve in years but I heard he got into Christian youth ministry and he was doing carpentry work and ended up working for a big bank at one point. John Schmit and Steve bmx biked a few times and went to some concerts when he lived in St. Paul but I have no idea and neither did anyone else I spoke to recently. Steve’s legend lives on and we were all lucky to have him and Chris Edwards guiding the early scene which risked being pulled in a pretty lame direction by mainstream companies, especially in those early formative years.

For more info, this is a pretty great article from a few years ago in One Blademag: Jon Robinson’s article on Steve Thomas

Here is a link to the recent interview I did with Chris Edwards for his series for Birth Legacy. enjoy.

Thanks to Jon Robinson and John Schmit who helped me remember some of this.