In January 2020, I was eating dinner with my cousin (who doesn't skate) in Surry Hills in Sydney.
And he still smiled.
Pros must have lots of stories about weird non pros who come up to them in public.
I imagine Chima went home and said, 'man this dude in the bottle-o....'
Ha, yeah and that area of Sydney is full of crazies too, lots of homeless, druggies, weird things going on that once you know, you just get used to it all and take it in your stride, but Chima has always been a champ!
I once saw Nathan Jackson at Nerang skatepark, shirtless, absolutely obliterating a board. Like smashing it into pieces then smashing the pieces into pieces. Not entirely sure why, he was just chilling before that. This is right around when the Skate Rock China video came out.
I think almost everyone I have seen or known including Nathan from Brisbane or Gold Coast has had one of these moments sooner or later. Not proud of it, maybe even feel a bit guilty for being there and just kind of ignore it and keep going with whatever it was you were doing, but that is how it goes.
I recall Matt Mumford at Coorparoo skatepark for a demo getting the shits on a front pop shuv to nose grind that he had been trying for maybe too long and Mappy had been filming. I could see he was getting more and more pissed, and ended up focusing his board and throwing it into the side of the middle bank, picking it back up and throwing it again more than once. It stayed there for a while during the demo and I could see people eyeing it off while he went to have a beer or something away from the park, but then came back for it just before kids scooped it up. He ended up giving it to them anyway, but I bartered with them and gave them some new Indy trucks for the old almost axled trucks that came off his board, so he could have his bushings back that were in his old ones. Old bushings back then were like gold! I still have his old Indy trucks on one of my boards too.
Another good Matt Mumford story, when he and the Globe team came in to City Beach Queen Street (where I worked on the ramp / skate area) and I helped setup the signing tables and did the MC for the thing, as I usually did, everything as per normal, lots of people coming in, shaking hands, getting things signed, etc. Then this hot almost biker looking mum type came in, dodged the line, walked right up to Matt and looked him in the eyes for a good ten seconds, then said pretty loud so we all heard "I want you". He sat back, smiled that knowing smile and said something like "No worries" to her never losing eye contact, but when she would not leave and other people were waiting in the line being held up, we had to politely but firmly remove her from the area. She didn't want to go anywhere and so my guess is he had a pretty interesting afternoon when he left the signing.
Aussie legends!!!!!
Topic: Weird Stories About Pros (Read 76191 times)