My name is John Trimble, my brother Terry Trimble was in charge of all the freestyle contests through the California Amateur Skateboard League (CASL) during the late 1980s through the early 1990s. Both of us competed in all of the CASL contest genres and entered a few NSA national contests during that time as well.
The reason I decided to sign up to SLAP magazine and post this topic, is to share further insight about how the California Amateur Skateboard League (CASL) "Flatland" contests title came to be and why, after reading one of Jason Rothmeyer's responses in another thread topic he started in 2013. I just barely came across that topic a month or two ago while searching online for "CASL Flatland contest" videos, to see what other old school skate videos were out there.
I heard Jason's name announced a couple times at the few "Flatland" contests he entered in CASL in 1990/91 and got to see him skate in one of those contests that he provided in one of his video clips that he uploaded to youtube.
I really enjoyed watching Jason's consistent and smooth flow of variety of shove-it tricks. Back then, I hardly watched anyone skate live in person, unless I was a fan of their style and variety of difficult tricks, (skaters I was already familiar with at the time). I was usually busy working on my own skate routine before my contest runs came up; those freestyle/flatland contests were important to me, since I excelled most in Freestyle, then Street. I skated and enjoyed all forms of skateboarding, even spent many hours skating at Mike McGills skate park.
First I want to make one thing clear, I'm not picking on Jason for any reason, I hardly know "The Rothmeister" who many respect. I don't believe in bullying, harassing or speaking toward others in disparaging ways and I don't condone it. I have nothing against Jason, except I wonder why he and several others deliberately ignored my response to him in his post, after no one touched that topic for 7 years. Everyone except for one person didn't acknowledge my response, while some continued to ask Jason some random questions on the topic he started, that was to start an "Ask Jason Rothmeyer" topic that was encouraged by another member of Slap forum board. The one person who sort of responded back to my response said, "This is a 7 year sleeper!"
I've never been ignored by anyone in any online social media forum before and wondering why here at the SLAP magazine forum, when I just barely joined only to share some insider information? Is there some kind of unspoken rule or something I'm not aware of, other than some people don't care about freestyle? I've been around long enough to know how Freestylers have been treated in the past, and even today from some. What I have to say to that, everyone who enjoys skating, no matter what kind of skateboarding, no matter how good they are/were, should be given equal respect and consideration through discussion.
No one has to agree or care about other forms of skateboarding, but showing common courtesy shows maturity and respect. The whole "biker club mentality" is punk 1980's and jock-like attitude. I think it's a bunch of b.s. attitude coming from those who are only looking for acceptance and approval from others who fear rejection due to personal insecurities. I'd rather receive genuine support with understanding from anyone any day, before reaching for acceptance into a "special interest group" or club. You get where I'm going with this.
Anyhow, just to be clear, I wasn't there to hijack anyone's topic or bring any extreme amount of attention to myself. I wasn't there to embarrass or humiliate anyone; I wanted to share further insight as a courtesy and to clear up some mis-perception about how freestyle contests were renamed Flatland, and how the remaining Freestylers felt about street skaters entering those contests. So if anyone thinks I posted my response in the topic Jason started for any other reason, that wasn't the intention.
Now that I covered a few things from my perspective of other's perspectives about Freestyle and how Freestylers have been treated over the years, I'll dive right into discussing more about how freestyle contests became more so "Flatland" contests. Historically and statistically, freestyle contests were held at that same location from 1986 through 1991, after Del Mar skate ranch closed down in 1986 where most of the freestyle contests used to be held. So I was one of the original pioneers of that contest location in Anaheim, California from the very beginning, many others and I spent many hours skating there over the years with a lot of great memories.
So Jason apparently thought Freestyle contests were named "Flatland" because more street skaters started attending the Freestyle contests, and he thought that Freestylers were bummed on the street skaters for that. For the record, I don't think Jason Rothmeyer is a douche. That topic he started, was meant as a self deprecating joke coming straight from him, not my words or belief. I believe everyone is deserving of understanding, no matter where they're coming from. However, it was a pretty (douchey act) for several respondents, including him to ignore my response, while treating me like a ghost, flat out disrespectful.
Jason's response in his own topic 7 years ago can be seen here with a screenshot.
https://www.slapmagazine.com/index.php?topic=74051.msg2023495#msg2023495 Here's the link to my response I posted in his topic on August 25th 2020.
https://www.slapmagazine.com/index.php?topic=74051.msg3378173#msg3378173 Here's a copy of what I said in response after introducing myself.
HI Jason, my name is John Trimble. I decided to sign up and respond with further insight about the CASL "Flatland" contests, after reading your guess about why Freestyle contests were named "Flatland" and if Freestylers were bummed on the street skaters or not.
First a little intro. My brother Terry Trimble was in charge of all the freestyle contests through CASL during the late 1980s through the early 1990s. Both of us competed in all the CASL contests and entered a few NSA national contests during that time as well.
Here's the true back story of why the CASL freestyle contests were advertised as "Flatland" for one year in 1991 until NSA made it official in 1992 for one year. I checked back on the 1991 CASL newsletters, those contests were still being called Freestyle contests, even though they promoted them as Flatland to gain more interest among Street skaters. By then, a majority of Freestylers had already quit competing after the 1st 1990 PSL/CASL Pro/Am conest, because many lost their sponsors during the recession.
Pro freestyle contests through the Pro Skate League (PSL) was started by CASL in 1990 to continue pro freestyle contests, once NSA dropped all pro freestyle contests after 1989. PSL Freestyle contests only lasted one year because there was too many complaints about not enough prize money involved. CASL had to do something to keep those contests going as long as they could. So my brother Terry Trimble, Sonja Catalano and other CASL board members decided to start advertising the Freestyle contests as "Flatland" contests, in hopes to draw more interest for street skaters in order to keep those contests and locations going, and it worked for a while.
Only I and a few other freestylers continued to compete in the Freestyle "Flatland" contests against street skaters all through 1991 until those ended. It was around that time that I and a couple other freestylers started incorporating a few street tricks in our routines as well and on slightly wider freestyle boards.
Freestyle boards were also starting to get bigger as street boards started getting smaller and closer to the shape of freestyle boards. This all happened when World Industries nearly monopolized the skate industry, while Rodney and Rocco developed mainly smaller, more slender boards. It was interesting to see how freestyle and street meshed together somewhat back then. For the most part, the few Freestylers remaining in those contests including I were just happy to still have contests going, and we welcomed the street skaters, it offered new talent and variety.
To learn more about how everything went down for freestyle during the late 1980s and into many efforts to try and save it in the early 1990s, you can watch the 3rd segment of my skateboarding documentary series on youtube titled, "DETERMINATION 3 Hot Talent in a Burning Economy"
Link below:
Topic: How Freestyle Died in 1990 then slowly re-surged in early 2000's to present day (Read 380 times)