Derek Scott | Photograph by Adam Williams
Overview: Derek Scott talks with Adam Williams about skateboarding culture, history and music. They talk about the failure and perseverance that’s a necessary part of skating. And about how a kid growing up in Salida, Colo., with not a lot of skating terrain became a competition skater traveling and winning his way to a pro career.
They also talk about Derek’s dad, Michael, who died last November and was a huge part of Derek’s life and skating career. In recent years, Derek was integral to the building of a new skatepark in Salida and bringing a World Cup event to town, with the Heart of the Rockies Rampage.
SHOW NOTES, LINKS, CREDITS & TRANSCRIPT
The We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast is a collaboration with Chaffee County Public Health and the Chaffee Housing Authority, and is supported by the Colorado Public Health & Environment: Office of Health Disparities.
Along with being distributed on podcast listening platforms (e.g. Spotify, Apple), Looking Upstream is broadcast weekly at 2 p.m. on Tuesdays, on KHEN 106.9 community radio FM in Salida, Colo.
Derek Scott
Instagram: instagram.com/derekscott01
We Are Chaffee’s Looking Upstream
Website: wearechaffeepod.com
Instagram: instagram.com/wearechaffeepod
CREDITS
Looking Upstream Host, Producer, Photographer & Website Manager: Adam Williams
Looking Upstream Engineer & Producer: Jon Pray
We Are Chaffee Community Advocacy Coordinator: Lisa Martin
Director of Chaffee County Public Health and Environment: Andrea Carlstrom
TRANSCRIPT
Note: Transcripts are produced using a transcription service. Although it is largely accurate, minor errors inevitably exist.
[Intro music, guitar instrumental]
Adam Williams (00:15): Welcome to We Are Chaffees Looking Upstream, a conversational podcast of community, humanness, and well-being rooted in Chaffee County, Colorado. I’m Adam Williams. Today I’m talking with Derek Scott, a professional skateboarder, born and raised in Salida, Colorado.
This is an easy and fun one where we talk about skateboarding culture and history and music. We also talk about the failure and perseverance that’s a necessary part of skating. We talk about how a kid growing up in Salida, with not a lot of skating terrain, became a competition skater traveling and winning his way to a pro career, and how Derek was part of the big team effort to get the new skate park built in Salida a few years ago. Also, why it was important to him to bring a World Cup skateboarding event to the scene with the Heart of the Rockies Rampage.
(01:01): We also give his dad Michael some light and love. Michael died from cancer last November. Derek learned some important lessons from his dad, and it’s so great to hear about the relationship. Just so much love. As a dad to two sons myself, this really hits home. I just hope that I have such a positive and lasting impact on my boys as Michael did on Derek. It’s so cool.
All right, now here’s a heads-up. We jump into this conversation with the wheels already turning in a way that I don’t usually do. We’re talking about our people pleasing tendencies. Derek was saying good stuff, and so I hit record early and then we just kept rolling.
It’s a little bit of a behind the scenes peak for you, because there’s always the conversation that is recorded and shared with you, plus the conversations that come before we hit record and after we’ve stopped recording. And I’m going to admit that I feel honored to be there for all of it. Selfishly.
(01:53): Just by the way it works to do this stuff, I get to spend a little extra time with each guest and that stuff doesn’t always get shared. In fact, most of the time it doesn’t. But this time I also get to let you in on more of what happened up front. You get to hear some of the great pre-conversation that can happen with these guests. Maybe you didn’t need all that explanation, but I wanted to share it so I did.
The Looking Upstream podcast is supported by Chaffee County Public Health and the Chaffee Housing Authority. As always, show notes with photos, links, and a transcript of the conversation are published at wearchaffeepod.com. All right, now. Here we are. Here we go. Derek Scott.
[music transition, instrumental guitar]
Derek Scott (02:43): I think it gets me into sticky situations where I promise too much to too many people. I don’t know, people coming into skate and stuff like that. I’ll be like, “Yeah, yeah, we’ll be on this session, this session,” and then I’ll totally look back on my calendar, I’ll be like, “Oh my God, I’m not even in town on these days.” Or promising too much like being a part of meetings or committees or stuff like that. Sometimes I get a little overwhelmed, not necessarily something that I don’t mind doing, but I also, at the same time, I’m like, it’s not my favorite thing to do.
Adam Williams (03:17): So we’re talking about people pleasing and for me that’s something that I’m like, I’ve come to decide is not the best thing, right? Because in the end it’s always trying to make somebody else happy. And actually, you know what I’ve encountered a few times lately is that this idea of trying, being worried about people pleasing is somehow a selfish act because what we’re really trying to do is control how they view us.
Derek Scott (03:42): Exactly.
Adam Williams (03:42): So we’re trying to manipulate how other people view us in a positive light, and for me that stirs up something. It’s like if I’m going to go out of my way just to try to make everybody think that I am perfect, but really it makes me feel like crap. Where’s the positive in it?
Derek Scott (04:01): Yeah. You want to stay humble too and you want think that you’re staying humble, I guess, in that situation. But yeah, you’re right. It definitely is a selfish act in that sense, trying to make everybody happy. Yeah, in actuality you can’t make everybody happy.
Adam Williams (04:17): Well is it about… I guess if people learn to take advantage of it. Right? That becomes problematic.
Derek Scott (04:23): If they start viewing you like that where they can take advantage of you, I think that’s when it becomes an issue. I think I’m starting to find a finer line of being able to control things in my life and being able to say no in certain situations. It’s definitely something that I’ve realized over the years, and it’s something that I notice now more when it’s happening, so I’m able to take control more of that situation while it’s going on, and honestly feeling… Because you get that sense of regret when you’re letting someone down or you say no. I’ve also started to let that one go because at the same time… At some point people just have to understand.
Adam Williams (05:06): I get a sense of regret when I’ve let myself down. I think that’s where I am at this point, was why did I bend over backwards for these people who I tried to make happy, I tried to accommodate, I tried to say yes? And then I don’t know that they cared other than they got what they wanted. And I feel like crap for maybe letting them walk over me.
Derek Scott (05:24): I feel you.
Adam Williams (05:25): Yeah.
Derek Scott (05:26): All right, so that’s a deep convo to get into right away.
Adam Williams (05:31): It is. It is. But you ought to live inside my head.
Derek Scott (05:33): Yeah.
Adam Williams (05:34): Man, you ought to be inside all the conversations in my head all the time. It’s always, always running like this.
Look you are… I’m really glad that we get a chance to sit down and talk right now because you are headed out. Before long you’re going to spend the winter in California. Is that an annual thing you do? Is that because it’s winter and you’re like, “I got to keep skating?” What keeps you out there?
Derek Scott (05:55): It’s actually a newer thing. When I first graduated high school, I lived out in California for a couple years in total. I’d be coming back every now and again for holidays and all that kind of stuff. And then I’ve been back in Colorado and Salida for the past six years, I would say, for six summers and winters and all that. And yeah, no, I just have a lot of friends out there now. I’m having too much fun skating.
I love Colorado so much. Summertime in Colorado is the most gorgeous place on earth. And I love snowboarding and doing all that. But yeah, now it’s at a point where I got to buckle down a little bit and really focus up and head out there. I just want to skate. I feel like I don’t skate for so long in the wintertime, I get this seasonal depression and everybody says seasonal depression, but skateboarding is seriously who I am. And so when I can’t do that and I can’t express myself in that way, it really bears a big weight on me, I feel like.
Adam Williams (06:58): There is… Well, it feels like to me, as a non-skater, an easy corollary between skateboarding and snowboarding. Because I see guys out on the… I snowboard, but I can’t do all the things… I picked it up… I started when I was 40. I can’t do well anything, any tricks. I’m lucky if I can [inaudible 00:07:20] I can do very little.
Derek Scott (07:21): There’s a huge mental factor. I think the mentality of all of it is the main thing. A lot of these times you’re thinking of what happens if I fall?
Adam Williams (07:34): Well, that’s something I think about more now than it would have been 25 years ago.
Derek Scott (07:36): Right, exactly. But that’s not how you progress in that kind of stuff. You have to think of what “This what it’s going to be like when I make it.” Think about, I always joke around, I would say “The glory, do it for the glory.” And yeah, I think, I don’t know. There’s definitely a big correlation with snowboarding and skateboarding though. I started snowboarding before skateboarding and skateboarding just took hold for me. That was my favorite thing to do.
Adam Williams (08:02): Okay. Where do you go in California?
Derek Scott (08:04): I go to Northern San Diego County. So when I lived out there the first time I lived in Oceanside, California, and then I’ll be in the Encinitas, Vista, Carlsbad area.
Adam Williams (08:16): I’ve been to Carlsbad.
Derek Scott (08:17): Yeah, it’s gorgeous.
Adam Williams (08:18): Yeah.
Derek Scott (08:19): Love it over there.
Adam Williams (08:19): Yeah. Amazing.
Derek Scott (08:20): It reminds me of… Reminds me of a lot of… I don’t know, because I’m a small town kid. I love the simplicity of small towns and stuff. I can do cities only for a week when I’m traveling and stuff.
Adam Williams (08:34): Well, you grew up in Salida, right?
Derek Scott (08:35): Yeah, born and raised. Born and raised in Salida. And yet that’s why I like that small town thing. I feel like a lot of people when they are born and raised in a small town like this, it’s always about wanting to get out and doing all that, which is, yeah, you should, for sure. But also if you come from a gorgeous place like this, I think the appreciation of it goes a long way. We live in a destination paradise for people.
Adam Williams (09:02): Absolutely. You don’t want to take it for granted because… Well, we obviously have tons of tourists and things here. I am not from here and I think a lot of times people are like, “Well, now that we’ve made it, close the gates, I don’t want all these other people crowding our town.” But how we take it in our house is, “Man, we wanted to be here. Of course, other people want to see the place.” And the way I see it is that we are extremely fortunate to be here.
(09:30): Whereas a lot of other people that come visit on vacation, it might be once in a lifetime, it might be once a year, whatever their deal is, but they’re wishing they could live here, probably on some level. So I think to be young… I grew up in a rural town too, but it wasn’t here. It was in Northern Missouri. Flat, rural, nothing special compared to where we are with this mountain paradise and the river and all the things.
So I get the idea of wanting to leave that small town, but I appreciate that you’re like, “Yeah, and I don’t want to forget this small town. I don’t want to lose appreciation or take it for granted.”
Derek Scott (10:04): It’s changed a lot since I was a kid too. We have so much in town now from when I was a kid. When I was a kid, it was just the downtown skate park and then we would go jump in the river, do the cliffs. That was honestly enough when we were kids. I couldn’t imagine growing up in a more special place.
Now, we have our brand new skate park. We have the river wave, which is a new hobby I started getting into is the river surfing and stuff like that, which brings people from everywhere. There’s a lot of new things that are in town that just make it even better for kids growing up. I couldn’t imagine if I had the stuff growing up now that I would have had back then.
Adam Williams (10:47): I bought a board for river surfing, one of the inflatable ones, one of the basic, let’s start here things that I picked up from one of the River Outfitters, one of their rentals at the end of the season last year. I’m like, “Okay, finally this is going to force me. I have no excuse. I have a board I need to get out there.” And then this summer we had the high water and stuff, so I found an excuse.
Derek Scott (11:11): It was hectic too.
Adam Williams (11:11): Even when it came down, I never made it into the river. I just don’t have experience with that and I’d so much… There’s part of me that’s so badly wants to be that guy who’s having fun, and then there’s the middle-aged dad part of me that’s like, “Eh.” It’s so easy to stay at home and say, “Oh, well no, the family wants to do this instead.”
Derek Scott (11:32): Then they got to start getting into the river surfing too.
Adam Williams (11:34): My wife took a lesson once. She tried, and honestly…
Derek Scott (11:37): Through Badfish or…
Adam Williams (11:39): No, I don’t remember who it was. I think she really had a hard time feeling safe in the current. I think it really messed with her.
Derek Scott (11:49): It’s fast. It comes at you fast.
Adam Williams (11:51): And that was not the big wave.
Derek Scott (11:53): Yeah. Oh, that was the, that was the upper wave.
Adam Williams (11:55): Yeah. That’s like what the office wave is–
Derek Scott (11:56): Yeah. The office wave is-
Adam Williams (11:58): … further north.
Derek Scott (11:59): … the higher one.
Adam Williams (12:00): To even go down and stand at the side of that Scout Wave is, it’s unbelievable.
Derek Scott (12:05): It’s so cool. I love it.
Adam Williams (12:07): I like watching it. It looks scary, just to me, even standing on the side,
Derek Scott (12:11): Seriously. Big shout out to Mike and Zach from Badfish, because they are the ones that got me into it. They’re skateboarders too, so we would always run into each other at the skate park and stuff. I really wanted to get into it and they’re the ones that encouraged me to start getting into it.
They’re like, “You’d be so good. You’d love it.” Dude, and I sucked when I first started it. Oh my gosh, I could not figure it out. There’s a lot of stuff on it that I still haven’t figured out, but once you start to get in the wave, oh, it’s such a fun feeling. And you were right, when it was high water this year, whoo, that was crazy for me. That would get the heart pumping for sure. It was awesome. I loved it.
Adam Williams (12:53): Have you been up, I guess up from the San Diego area? Have you been up to Venice Beach and skated there?
Derek Scott (12:58): Yeah, for sure.
Adam Williams (12:59): Several years ago, this is pre-pandemic, on a family road trip we were out there, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen better skating in my life. I’ve watched pros at some event in Breckenridge and stuff. Probably. I don’t know, maybe you were even there.
Derek Scott (13:14): Maybe.
Adam Williams (13:14): But it’s on that level. I’m looking at pros. I’m like, “Well, yeah, they’re doing cool stuff.” They’re pros, right? I give benefit of the doubt they’re awesome. And then we go to Venice Beach and the skate park that’s there, and there were people from young kids to 70-plus year old women up there just rocking it. Everything was so fast, so smooth, so cool, and as soon as one person was out, somebody else was dropping in. That was, from a spectator perspective, such an amazing experience to me. I was so impressed.
Derek Scott (13:44): And there’s always spectators around that park too. There’s constantly people up against that railing watching, so it’s like-
Adam Williams (13:50): That was us.
Derek Scott (13:52): To go skate there, you have to be ready to go. Just be ready for people to watch you. That’s the main thing. There’s a lot of good skaters that come out of Venice.
Adam Williams (14:02): It’s kind of a big stage in that way. This is recreational, but you got to be ready for the big time in a way.
Derek Scott (14:09): Yeah, that’s where it all came from, was from Venice, in that area.
Adam Williams (14:13): Right. Yeah. Can you imagine if Z-Boys and that crew, like Stacey Peralta and Tony Alva and all those guys, if they’d have had something like that. Instead, they’re the ones who really made those things become a vision, aren’t they?
Derek Scott (14:25): I don’t think they would know what to do with it at that moment. I think it progressed in just the right way. Then they came out, it was Clay Wheels, and then they came out with urethane and they were just starting to figure out how to come up walls and they progressed superfast. So yeah, maybe if they had perfect transition, perfect walls, some crazy stuff might have went down. But it’s even more brute that they were doing it in pools.
Adam Williams (14:47): Right. I mean the skate parks exist because of what they did.
Derek Scott (14:48): Yeah. Exactly.
Adam Williams (14:51): And going into pools and sneaking into people’s backyards. And the fact that it was… It’s funny how things can come together. There was what, a drought or some sort of shortage. People were not allowed to fill their pools, and then these guys would sneak in and do this stuff. That was also-
Derek Scott (15:09): There’s guys still doing that. Steve Alba, he has a pool cleaning service and he goes around the LA area, Anaheim, that area, and he lets people know he’ll empty their pools and clean them if he gets to skate them and stuff like that. So he’s got a crazy crazy way of getting into pools still.
Adam Williams (15:28): That’s funny. This is almost embarrassing. It’s so ridiculous. But when I was a kid, so I’m growing up in the 80s and I had no influence for skating. For some reason though, I wanted a skateboard. And I’m going to guess-
Derek Scott (15:28): That’s awesome.
Adam Williams (15:40): I’m going to guess I saw a movie, and I’m thinking it’s probably Christian Slater in Gleaming The Cube. Did you ever watch that?
Derek Scott (15:45): Yeah, I did. Yeah.
Adam Williams (15:45): I haven’t seen it probably since I was a kid. That probably is when I’m like, “Okay, I want that. I want a skateboard.” But there was nobody… I knew no skaters. Of course we had no skate park. And here’s the part that’s kind of embarrassing. It was so short-lived before I gave up, because every rock I hit I would go flying, and I hit every damn rock out there because I didn’t even know-
Derek Scott (16:06): You thought they were coming out for you.
Adam Williams (16:07): I didn’t know how to loosen the trucks. I didn’t know that that was what I needed to do to allow me to move the deck and make movement possible. So I gave up.
Derek Scott (16:15): You just couldn’t turn, so you’re just running into stuff.
Adam Williams (16:19): Yeah. I’m trying to hop over. I mean fail, it was nothing but failure and misery.
Derek Scott (16:25): Well, that’s what skating is though. In actuality it’s all failure, and you just live for those little moments where you do make the trick. Every skate session I ever have it’s 85% of me just jumping off my board, knee sliding or just running out of stuff.
There’s only so much success that comes from skating, and that’s what makes it so rare and the perseverance of skateboarding and why that makes it so cool, is because of the fight. I don’t know, there’s a part where you don’t want… You can’t physically stop until you physically can’t go anymore. That’s where that comes into play.
Adam Williams (17:09): I really appreciate that aspect of it. In my case, I was just trying to do a straight line on flat ground, man. I’m not trying to get up and ride rails and all of that. But I didn’t have YouTube or anything to go to, and I had no friends or nobody, no community around to skate. It was just a different time, and I happened to be in a place where that just wasn’t the part of the thing.
Derek Scott (17:29): Do you remember what your first skateboard was?
Adam Williams (17:31): The only skateboard I ever… Now my sons have some, but no, I have no idea. It was white, with some sort of something painted on the bottom.
Derek Scott (17:37): See, you know a little bit about it. That’s good.
Adam Williams (17:40): I can picture it, mostly. But it’s unfortunate. I think I feel like in hindsight, I wish that I would have had more of an experience with it, because over the years, and maybe especially in my 40s, now, I have conversations with people, whether it’s on this podcast or in general, guys my age who grew up skating and it was such a key piece of their lives, even if it was totally recreational, which of course is for most people. And I feel like there was a… I don’t know, it’s a miss connection between me and those guys because it’s now part of so much of our culture and population. Whereas if you’d have gone 30, 40, 50 years ago, you were really an outlier.
Derek Scott (18:21): Oh yeah, absolutely. It’s changed immensely. That’s the cool part of being a part of skating for as long as I have is I’ve got to see it change a little bit throughout the years. Now everybody wants to be a skateboarder, and that’s pretty rad.
We had a small little crew growing up in Salida and stuff like that, but then everybody got their own things and team sports was always the main thing in this area. So it’s cool to see everybody wanting to be a part of it now, especially with the new skate park that we have. It’s insane to see how many people that I didn’t know skated, or people that I haven’t seen pick up a skateboard in a really, really long time, all coming back into it and really enjoying it. That’s been a really fun experience for me.
Adam Williams (19:10): When we talk about the history with skateboarding, we mentioned the Z-Boys and those guys sneaking into yards and doing these things. There was a real counterculture piece to this, a rebellious, anarchic, almost, vibe. Where is it now? You’re saying that it’s way more popular. Does it almost feel like it’s sterilized in a way because it’s so mainstream accepted or do you feel like there still is that vibe of we’re something different?
Derek Scott (19:34): No, because there’s contest skateboarders and then there’s skateboarders that are filming video parts and the ones that are just out on the streets. So it’s not possible to kill skateboard culture. I just don’t think that that’s ever going to be a thing. I think it’s cool that it’s getting its recognition now that it’s in the Olympics and it has all that, but skateboarding is also still super raw and that’s why it can still be appreciated. I don’t think that could be depleted. Like I said, there’s two different kinds of skateboarding now, so that’s cool.
Adam Williams (20:08): I think about the music, again, that rebellious piece of things and how… So I’ve thought about just from over time as again, non-skater, but a casual observer, watching documentaries or whatever, and it’s on punk rock. You’ve got skateboarding, hip hop, graffiti writing, all these sort of rebellious expressions of self that came up in the 70s pretty much, as their roots. And I think about how there’s just…
Because I’ve interviewed over the years, whether that was for magazines or podcasts or whatever, various artists in particular and musicians in particular, and they’re like skateboarding and punk, those were the two mainstays of my life growing up. And even as guys my age, that still is at the heart of who they are. Do you vibe with that? Is punk rock or any of that sort of thing your thing?
Derek Scott (21:00): Yeah. I’m not really… It’s super grunge, like punk rocker. I love it while I’m skating and I’m definitely a part of that culture, but I feel like skating is a totally different kind of culture now. There’s sessions where you’re playing rap, there’s sessions where they’re playing crazy techno, stuff like that, and that’s mainly at contests, because they’re-
Adam Williams (21:25): Hyping the crowd.
Derek Scott (21:26): Yeah, trying to feed the public and stuff like that. If I’m at a backyard pool or something, yeah, punk is always what we’re playing and stuff like that, so it’s fun to adopt different characters in that aspect. I don’t want to be just like this guy, that guy, that guy. I want to be all of them, if that makes sense.
Adam Williams (21:45): It does. I’m just remembering, I read an interview you gave with Juice Magazine, and this was several years ago, probably most of a decade ago.
Derek Scott (21:54): Yeah, that was a while ago.
Adam Williams (21:55): And they asked you, what music have you been listening to?
Derek Scott (21:58): I don’t even know what I said.
Adam Williams (22:00): I was going to ask, do you remember what you said? I’m going to tell you.
Derek Scott (22:03): Is it crazy?
Adam Williams (22:05): It is based on how-
Derek Scott (22:06): I listen to all kinds of music while I skate.
Adam Williams (22:08): It is on how I framed it as punk rock, hard, we’re rebellious, we’ve got attitude. Kenny Loggins’ Danger Zone.
Derek Scott (22:15): Oh my God.
Adam Williams (22:18): And look-
Derek Scott (22:20): Oh my God.
Adam Williams (22:20): … I get it. That was from my childhood. We’ve got Tom Cruise, Top Gun, the Danger Zone.
Derek Scott (22:28): I don’t even know.
Adam Williams (22:28): Again-
Derek Scott (22:29): I don’t even think I was being serious.
Adam Williams (22:30): Well. Yeah, I wonder, was that a joke? Are you going soft on that or whatever? But-
Derek Scott (22:35): I do listen to that song a lot though.
Adam Williams (22:36): But… Well, so you weren’t joking, man.
Derek Scott (22:38): No.
Adam Williams (22:38): But that’s cool. I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing with you.
Derek Scott (22:42): No, I wouldn’t even hide it. I love it. I love Top Gun.
Adam Williams (22:45): I love the overlap of music as self-expression alongside something like skating. And you use the word, the way you express yourself. You go into a seasonal depression if you are away from skating for a long time. How do you view the expression piece of yourself through skating?
Derek Scott (23:03): Oh, that’s a good question, because I was going say that I don’t know, just like there’s different kinds of music, there’s different styles of skateboarding that go with that kind of music. So say you’re filming for a video part and something like that, somebody skating, you can’t put three or four or five skaters and they’re all skating to the same song the same way. Everybody has a different leg movement. Everybody looks different.
So just like music and the beats, the skaters are also in a different beat of their own. So they skate differently. It’s really hard to explain from the eyes of a skateboarder. How I would express myself through skating? I don’t know. Like in a music sense?
Adam Williams (23:46): Well, no, just how you feel it, I think. Because you had used, I think, that word of how you express your expression, whatever, and that you miss that when it’s winter time. How do you feel it? Do you feel yourself connecting with that or flowing with that experience? Skateboarding is a medium Of expression, like being a painter or a musician or whatever.
Derek Scott (24:06): Oh man, there’s waves. There’s a lot of waves of skateboarding. There’s times where… There’s been so many times going throughout my career where I’m feeling super down on my skateboarding and stuff like that, and that’s always hard to go through. And I think a lot of athletes go through that themselves where you’re always comparing yourself to other people doing all that. As the years have gone by, I’ve accepted what skateboarding is to me and my role in skateboarding and stuff like that. And honestly, I love it.
(24:38): I grew up a contest skateboarder as a kid and would go to every single contest, won a bunch of contests and all that, and I’m still a contest skateboarder, but I’m not really going to these contests to like, “Oh, I got to win, I got to win,” that kind of stuff. It’s more of just like I’m there for the culture. I’m there for the vibe. I’m there to make the crowd happy. Do all that kind of stuff, and skate with my friends because that’s basically, it’s what it’s all about right now. So I find myself flowing through it easier and expressing it in my own personal way of skating. I’m done trying to compare myself to other people. I want to skate the way that I want to skate.
Adam Williams (25:16): How do you become a professional in this? Because it’s not like those ball sports that are the main sports on TV, basketball, football and all that. And this path is different as we’ve talked about. There’s a history here. This took evolution to get here. So I don’t know what the state of it is now and how you make a living at this and how you crack your way in. Because as far as I know, there’s not somewhere you can file a job application.
Derek Scott (25:39): That would be nice if you could do that. No, how I did it, like I said, contests was my avenue. Growing up in Salida, it’s not like we had a bunch of street spots and the skate scene wasn’t huge here, so there wasn’t a way of just getting noticed just from skating. You had to travel around and you had to do all that kind of stuff. So that was a big part of…
What I was doing was traveling to contests with my dad and my brothers and my mom, and doing that whole thing. So how I got into it was Rocky Mountain Rampage, which was a World Cup contest in Colorado Springs. And basically that was a qualifier to be invited onto the pro tour. And so that’s how I got into it, and I guess that’s how I was classified as a professional skateboarder then is when you’re competing and making money and doing all that. And then there’s other avenues of skateboarders that don’t do contest and they’re getting brand deals for skateboards, shoes, energy drinks, that kind of stuff. So there’s so many different avenues
Adam Williams (26:40): Is that through those people who they go out and make videos, doing things that are just amazing and entertaining.
Derek Scott (26:46): That’s the core, that’s core skateboarding right there, is those guys that they’re just hitting the streets and doing what skateboarding is really all about.
Adam Williams (26:54): Getting people like Red Bull to maybe be a broadcast streaming place, but also support, besides all the other brands.
Derek Scott (27:03): And honestly, skating, the best way to get known in skating is events because it’s hard for the general public to even know who a skateboarder is. That’s super rare, unless you’re on the higher end of things. If you’re like Tony or [inaudible 00:27:22] or Ryan Shepard.
Adam Williams (27:22): If you ask people, the average person on the street, “Who’s one skateboarder you know?” Tony Hawk, I have to think probably almost a hundred percent of the time.
Derek Scott (27:29): I heard of one joke and it was, I think it was Family Guy that I saw it on, it was like, “Please welcome to the stage, the only famous skateboarder to ever live, Tony Hawk.” I was like, “Oh my God, that’s kind of true.” But no, there’s different ways to get into it. I qualified to be invited to pro contest when I was 15. So that’s how my avenue got into it. And then that’s when sponsors started to roll in and it got a few pro models, stuff like that. Yeah.
Adam Williams (27:59): I assume since you were competing, that was, on some level, a dream, a goal, something you wanted to have happen?
Derek Scott (28:05): Oh my gosh, yeah. Being able to compete at the events that I grew up watching was some of the most insane things, and skating against my idols growing up was… I was dumbfounded the first time I’d met a couple of the dudes like Bucky Lasek, he’s my all time favorite skateboarder, and to be competing with him at advanced pool parties, stuff like that, it was incredible.
I still remember the first day I met him and it was just the funniest situation. I literally had a sandwich in my hand and I just dropped it and I was like, “Oh my gosh, it’s him.” Same thing with doing the first demo with Tony Hawk and stuff like that, being around him. There’s a lot of amazing skateboarders out there that I grew up watching that are now friends, which is honestly super surreal. So that’s super cool.
Adam Williams (28:59): Yeah. I’m sure.
Derek Scott (29:00): Yeah.
Adam Williams (29:01): And they’re probably fairly open to that. They know that they are not only stars in mainstream and across so many, but they’re stars to those who are younger coming behind.
Derek Scott (29:09): Well, that’s what it was. They were skateboarders. Skateboarders got skateboarders’ backs at the end of the day. There’s probably a fine line. There’s some guys I met when I was first coming into the scene that probably didn’t mess with me that much. I’m just the new kid coming up. Probably I wasn’t even that good. And they’re like, “Yeah, whatever. This kid isn’t going to last long.”
But then as the years go by, we start to reconnect and do all that and… No, yeah, it’s pretty special. All the friends I made from skateboarding are insane. My best friends in the world have come from just traveling to contests. We see each other multiple times a year. It’s so cool in that aspect.
Adam Williams (29:50): There’s got to be so awesome that those competitions or whatever events you’re doing are reasons, they are bringing you together. And you just are popping up in different cities, even different countries, and you’re just… “Oh yeah, there’s this familiarity and there’s my buddy and I haven’t seen him for a few months or a year,” or whatever it is, just such a cool aspect.
Derek Scott (30:09): Oh yeah, it’s just reunions. It’s all summer long or all year long, it’s a reunion. Every month or two you get to reunite with the boys, reunite with all your friends, and it’s just time to go skate. It’s awesome.
Adam Williams (30:23): It’s so fun.
Derek Scott (30:24): Yeah, I love it.
Adam Williams (30:24): So fun.
Derek Scott (30:25): I love it.
Adam Williams (30:25): You mentioned your family. If we can talk about your dad. I know that you lost him last year.
Derek Scott (30:26): I did.
Adam Williams (30:31): And I’m sorry about that.
Derek Scott (30:32): November.
Adam Williams (30:32): I know that you were very close. And he was big in your skating.
Derek Scott (30:36): Yeah.
Adam Williams (30:37): Tell me about him. Tell me about that connection.
Derek Scott (30:39): My dad was the man. Michael Scott, he was a big part of the community too. He’s been in this community forever, did a lot of construction work in the community. Him supporting my skateboarding was, I don’t know, it was a lot. It was everything. After he died, I had a hard time skating for a little bit, just because he was so much a part of it. Every event, get a call from him, talk to me about how it’s going, all that kind of stuff. And like I said, I grew up with, it was me, my brothers, and my dad, for the most part.
(31:20): And my mom just driving all over Colorado together, piling up in the van. Every single weekend we were going to contests together. And my dad would be there to catch me in the bowl while I was trying tricks. He would put himself at the bottom to catch me if I was going down, that kind of stuff. And that’s just the kind of guy he was. And he believed in me. He knew I had something going on pretty early on, and he was pretty involved with it, which was huge. I don’t know where I’d be without him.
Adam Williams (31:52): Was he a skater too?
Derek Scott (31:53): A little bit When he was younger. He actually… My dad learned how to skate when he was 40, when I was skating.
Adam Williams (32:00): Perfect age.
Derek Scott (32:01): Oh my gosh. It was so funny. And this is just a testament of to who he was too. I was trying a trick and he was trying to give me some advice on what I should be doing, stuff like that. And I just looked and I was like, “You don’t know how, you have no idea what you’re talking about.” And he was like, “All right, fine.” And then he took that and he actually learned how to skate. He could drop in on everything. In the old bowl, he was doing big backside Smith’s grinds.it was awesome. He was getting hurt a lot, but he loved it, and he was like, “I can do it too.”
Adam Williams (32:35): I got a lot of respect for that.
Derek Scott (32:37): Yeah. It was super cool.
Adam Williams (32:39): My boys have taken more to scooters, more than the skateboards, but I’ve been at the skate park with them sometimes. And even just on a scooter, I don’t even know if I’ve done it on skateboard to drop in or do something. I’m like, “Okay.” Just that tiny bit of experience of what they’re trying to accomplish. There’s respect.
Derek Scott (32:58): And he was dedicated too. He would go to the skate park at seven in the morning right after, right before he would take us to school, he was going out there in his construction boots before work, skating in the morning to work on tricks and stuff. And oh my gosh, it was so cool. And he was a huge part of the skate community in just Salida in general.
All the kids, my dad would bring snacks and food for and stuff like that. I don’t know, we took a lot of the kids that were growing up with me to contests all around Colorado, Shea Donovan, and yeah, it was awesome. He did a lot for us. And it definitely helped out a lot after when I was in my adult years of my career too. He wasn’t there physically for a lot of the contests after he got sick and all that, but definitely was there to connect with me before or after all that.
Adam Williams (33:53): When he got sick, was this cancer?
Derek Scott (33:56): Yeah. So I was a senior in high school, my parents ended up splitting up, and then my mom or my dad lived up in Denver, and my mom ended up going up north too. So I actually, I spent my senior year living on my own in Salida, which is crazy. That’s a whole nother story.
But he got sick when I was a senior in high school and it was leukemia, and so he went through a whole stem cell transplant. His chemo radiation was in remission for basically the whole time after that, which is pretty incredible considering everything he went through. But then the sickness that comes after chemo and radiation, it’s never done, if that makes sense.
Adam Williams (34:48): Yeah. It was… If you were a senior in high school then, it was several years, at least.
Derek Scott (34:53): Yeah. So he had it for five years and then was in remission for… He had it for four years, was in remission for five, and then another cancer came back, but it wasn’t leukemia, it was cancer from other radiation that he got, which is another thing. And then… Yeah.
Adam Williams (35:13): You’ve described him as inspirational, not only to you, but to others, as your hero. Sounds like he was a guy that was full of love.
Derek Scott (35:23): Yeah.
Adam Williams (35:24): I’m thinking there’s probably a lot of that kind of stuff he passed on to you, other non-skating-oriented memories or lessons that you really carry forward from him.
Derek Scott (35:35): Yeah. I think the talks that me and him would have alone… We’ve taken a couple of skate trips together, just me and him and the talks alone at the hotel or waiting at the airport or something like that, those are stuff that’s really stuck with me. My dad was not born with really anything. He grew up in Chicago. He would talk about sleeping in the snow banks of Chicago.
Just the way he grew up was not ideal, but he always said to me, never give up, never surrender, that kind of stuff. It’s not an option. And maybe that’s why skateboarding matters so much to me too is the perseverance, because… And that’s one of the biggest pieces of character that I think are the most important are perseverance. And that’s because of what he showed through everything. Even in the later… He was never dealt good hand. Even with the being sick at the end of his life and he just kept going and going and going. And mainly all of that was for the love of his kids. He loved us. We were everything to him.
Adam Williams (36:44): I think it’s incredible when people go through such tough experiences, period. But from your upbringing, all the way up, and there still is a softness to him. He was still full of love.
Derek Scott (36:56): Oh yeah.
Adam Williams (36:57): And he showed that to you.
Derek Scott (36:58): He was definitely a hard-ass earlier, but he was such a teddy bear, for sure. The compassion he would show just to the general public, just people in general. I can’t even put into a number on how many people he was helping, either people he would have come stay at his house or just to get out of the cold weather, stuff like that. It’s indescribable.
Adam Williams (37:26): You mentioned the perseverance. Are there other, say, attributes that you feel like live on in you? Things that you know like, “Man, I’m a guy who’s full of love or whatever because of my dad,” or “I’m, whatever.”
Derek Scott (37:40): Yeah.
Adam Williams (37:41): What do you see in yourself?
Derek Scott (37:43): I got… I think there’s a lot. I think the perseverance. I think the amount of love that I have to give in certain situations is a lot. I’m a super ride or die kind of a person, especially-
Adam Williams (38:01): Loyalty.
Derek Scott (38:02): Yeah. Loyalty is huge for me. And then just family, being super family oriented. I think that’s a huge part of me that I never want to let go of, because family’s super important to me. I’ve dealt with so much loss over my years, more than I would… I would never wish that on anybody, to feel that kind of stuff. My dad was right there with me through all of that, going through all of those losses together. So I think…
Adam Williams (38:29): Sounds like he was a generous man.
Derek Scott (38:31): For sure. Probably more generous than he should have been in a lot of aspects. He definitely was like he’s a people pleaser too, maybe that definitely got that from him too.
Adam Williams (38:42): Is he a trusting guy? Are you a trusting guy?
Derek Scott (38:45): Yeah, absolutely. At any time you could call him and he would be there to help you. I can’t remember a single time where I called and he didn’t answer and wasn’t there to drop everything and help me or my brothers or my sisters or any of that, or just family friends or any of that. He would always just, in the snap of a finger, he would drop everything to come help you if you needed it.
Adam Williams (39:08): Did you ever get in trouble? Not just with him. Trouble where you had to call him and be like, “Dad, I got a good one here, but I need you?”
Derek Scott (39:18): Living on my own in high school, I definitely gone into some stuff and he was super… I think he was more understanding and that’s where he helped out in a lot of aspects, but he definitely covered me on a lot of different things, covered me from… Or there was some stuff where he was like, “All right, don’t tell your mother,” that kind of stuff.
Adam Williams (39:38): I think it’s funny, that kind of dynamic, and not that it’s always gender-based, but I’ve had these conversations with friends, guy friends who are also parents of sons, like I am. And our thing is you want to come to us first. I’m not going to be hypocritical and just get on you for things that the odds are I’ve covered the range and my sons aren’t going to do worse. So it’s like, “Come to me and I’ll help you ease this in with your mom.”
Derek Scott (40:06): That’s how he was. He had some mileage. He’d been around the block a few times. He’d had some experiences. So I think he just was able to be like, “Yeah, I’ve been there, been there, done that,” kind of a thing.
Adam Williams (40:18): From the standpoint of being the kid, let’s say maybe you’re feeling unsure, “Oh, am I in trouble?” Maybe you’re ashamed, maybe you’re defiant because you’re ready for him to yell at you, whatever it is. And then you hear your dad say, “I’ve been there, kid.”
Derek Scott (40:33): Yeah. Yeah. Me and my dad butted heads too when we were growing up. We were super alike, super, super alike. So we would get into fights every once in a while. It would get steaming. We wouldn’t agree on everything, but there was always coming back to each other and being there for each other. That was always a huge understanding for us both. And like I said, the love was immense.
Adam Williams (40:56): Could you agree on Kenny Loggins’ Danger Zone?
Derek Scott (41:00): He probably didn’t like it as much as I did. We could both agree though that Styx is the greatest rock band of all time. You can’t say otherwise. No one can disagree with me.
Adam Williams (41:13): It’s subjective. Let’s talk about the skate park. You mentioned there was a new one. It’s a few years old now, right?
Derek Scott (41:20): Yeah.
Adam Williams (41:20): Two or three years old?
Derek Scott (41:22): I think we’re going on four.
Adam Williams (41:24): Okay.
Derek Scott (41:25): Yeah, because we’ve done Rampage three years and it was open for almost a year.
Adam Williams (41:32): You were somehow involved in, I don’t even know, was it design? Was it fundraising? What was going on?
Derek Scott (41:38): It was all of it. So the story behind Salida Skatepark, the new one, it all started when I came back to town, and I just really… I don’t know, I wanted to do something. I was in a place where I just wanted some motivation to get something going here. The dream of a new skate park in our hometown was, there was always a thing that we wanted to do, and now I had some kind of backing. Skating was going good.
So I ended up just posting on, it was one of the group chats in town, and I just asked everybody. I was like “Thoughts on a new skate park in Salida.” And it absolutely just went crazy online on Facebook, and there was over a thousand people that responded to it, that kind of thing. So then we took into initiative that were like, “Okay, maybe this could be a real thing.”
(42:32): And we just started the initiative to get it going. And we started Friends of Salida Skate Park. So in this committee it was consisted of me, Amy Reed, Laura Donovan, Bill Donovan, Diesel Post, Drew Nelson, and then a bunch of other community members that really kicked in. But we created… And Rod Roderick, he was another big part of it, but we kicked off Friends of Salida Skatepark, and it all started with us just doing grassroots fundraising for the skate park.
We didn’t really have an idea of… I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. We went to the city council meeting just to ask them, the first one, this is our idea. And we had so many people show up to the city council meeting that wanted to talk about it. And they gave us do the whole thing, get your signatures, start raising money, doing all this kind of stuff, and filing for grants and applications.
(43:32): And that’s where Amy Reed and Laura Donovan really came into play as they handled all that kind of stuff. But yeah, it was just staying really heavy and almost annoying with it, because with these city projects, they can really get lost if you don’t stay gung-ho on it. And all of us were really committed to making this happen. So for three years we ended up fundraising for the skate park. Me and me and a couple others, me, Ryder Reed, Shea Donovan, we all had a big help in designing the skate park with Grindland skate parks.
And yeah, we spent three years grassroots fundraising, got a couple grants, the Goko grant, which was honestly the biggest one. So we applied for that one, which was a $350,000 grant. And then when we ended up getting that, we approached the city again and said, “Hey, if we get this, would you guys match us?” And we ended up getting that approved too. So once we got the Goko grant, it was smooth sailing from there, and it took us three years to start construction on the skate park, which is kind of crazy.
Adam Williams (44:40): From when you first put out the word?
Derek Scott (44:42): From when we first started to when we finished, it was three years.
Adam Williams (44:45): What does it feel like to accomplish that, and to be… You’re a hometown kid, you grew up skating here, you’re now a professional who’s out there making these connections with all these big names like Tony Hawk and everything, and yet you’re back here for the community that you came from, and you’re a leading voice in that effort. Got to feel good, I would think.
Derek Scott (45:06): Yeah, absolutely. This community is everything to me. I’ve said it in everything that I’ve done. This community means a lot to me. If it wasn’t for this place… I don’t know, you can’t really say where you would have been. But the community support I’ve gotten through here and just how many good memories I have here means a lot to me. And the fact that I get the community support now after traveling, and still traveling, and when I come back home just getting the love that I do, that’s something that’s super, super special to me. Yeah, this community’s really awesome.
Adam Williams (45:41): And then there’s the Heart of the Rockies Rampage competition, which you also are involved in.
Derek Scott (45:47): So going back into it, so after the skate park got finished, we had the grand opening, all that. It was super awesome. Did a few channel nine pieces that ended up being on it. We actually gave the governor, Jared Polis, we gave him a tour of the skate park, which is super awesome. So I got to meet him and have a lunch with him about the skate park and what we did and all that. Which is super, super cool just to show the governor the new skate park in Salida. So that was awesome.
Adam Williams (46:16): Did he try to skate?
Derek Scott (46:17): No. No.
Adam Williams (46:17): Okay.
Derek Scott (46:20): He held the skateboard though, so there you go. That’s part of it. And then, yeah, after the skate park was done, that was another… The whole reason… Well, there’s multiple reasons on why we wanted the skate park, but one of the big reasons was to bring World Cup skateboarding to Salida, because how I got into skating was Rocky Mountain Rampage World Cup in Colorado Springs. And I wanted to bring that feeling back to Salida because I, like I said, it’s two different worlds that I was living in. There’s Salida and then there’s the skateboarding world, and nobody from Salida, my friends really knew what I was going out to do when I was doing these.
(47:02): And then also on the same side, my skating friends and everybody that I was traveling to go see, they didn’t know where I came from. And I really wanted to collide those two worlds, because this is my favorite place on earth, and skateboarding is my favorite… Skateboard contests are my favorite thing on earth. So I really wanted to bring those two aspects together. And after the first year of the skate park being open, we ended up hosting World Cup skateboarding, and we just wrapped up our third year this year.
Adam Williams (47:31): What do you have for goals or dreams for it going forward? Is there anything more, anything bigger or is just to keep this going?
Derek Scott (47:38): There’s always something bigger. There’s always… With the events that I’ve been a part of in the last couple years there, always looking for new venues and new avenues and new ideas and stuff like that. So that’s stuff that I really like to be a part of. Anything I can bring skateboarding wise to Salida, I’m going to try my hardest. So we’re going to keep building Heart of the Rockies Rampage bigger and bigger and bigger every year. The first year we did it, it was during [inaudible 00:48:06] and that’s because we didn’t even know if it was going to be a success, and Heart of the Rockies Rampage ended up being such a big event that we had to move it away from [inaudible 00:48:15] So it’s only going to get better. Yeah.
Adam Williams (48:17): That’s amazing. Skateboarding has been a part of your life for so long and in such a big way.
Derek Scott (48:22): 17 years.
Adam Williams (48:24): That’s what, I don’t know, two thirds or something of your life.
Derek Scott (48:26): Yeah.
Adam Williams (48:27): So can you imagine a life without skateboarding?
Derek Scott (48:30): Not a chance. No way. I try to think about it. I don’t even know what I would be doing. Probably maybe a ranch boy or a construction worker or something like that. I have no idea.
Adam Williams (48:44): This is one of those sports that you can continue on to, I guess, a very ripe, ripe age out there. Even if it’s not competitively, you’re going to have so many years of muscle memory and all the skills built in and knowledge that you could skate, more or less, the rest of your life.
Derek Scott (49:01): Yeah, absolutely. Growing up there was always a ending point for a professional skateboard career, and usually I thought it was going to be mid 30s, something like that would be it. But now it’s until you want to be done. You can stay in the skateboarding world, in the skateboarding industry, as long as you like. And honestly, if you’re a real skateboarder, it’s hard to get out of it. You’re just always going to be thinking about it and always missing it and doing that. So I’m a skateboarder through and through and yeah, it’s everything.
Adam Williams (49:35): From what you’d said before about, again, if you go a whole winter without skating, you’re feeling it. So there’s also a mental health aspect of this activity for you.
Derek Scott (49:44): For sure. Snowboarding is amazing. Snowboarding is one of my favorite things. But yeah, just being on a board itself, it helps, but there’s just something about skating that just does it more for me than anything else does. The battle, the struggle, the passion, the glee when you make something. I don’t know, there’s just so many aspects of it.
Adam Williams (50:11): This has been great talking with you. A lot of fun.
Derek Scott (50:12): Yeah, man.
Adam Williams (50:13): Thanks Derek.
Derek Scott (50:13): Absolutely. Thank you, man. I appreciate it, Adam.
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Adam Williams (50:24): Thanks for listening to We Are Chaffees Looking Upstream podcast. I hope that our conversation here today sparked curiosity for you. And if so, you can learn more in this episode show notes at Wearchaffeepod.com.
If you have comments or know someone in Chaffee County, Colorado who I should consider talking with on the podcast, you can email me at adam@wearechaffeepod.com.
I also invite you to rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcast or Spotify, or whatever platform you use that has that functionality. I also welcome you telling others about the Looking Upstream podcast. Help us to keep growing community and connection through conversation. Once again, I’m Adam Williams, host, producer, and photographer.
(51:04): Jon Pray is engineer and producer. Thank you to KHEN 106.9 FM, our community radio partner in Salida, Colorado. And to Andrea Carlstrom, director of Chaffee County Public Health and Environment. And to Lisa Martin Community Advocacy Coordinator for the We Are Chaffee Storytelling Initiative.
The Looking Upstream podcast is a collaboration with the Chaffee County Department of Public Health and the Chaffee Housing Authority, and is supported by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Office of Health Equity.
You can learn more about the Looking Upstream podcast at wearchaffeepod.com and on Instagram @wearechaffeepod. You also can learn more about the overall We are Chaffee Storytelling initiative at wearchaffee.org. Till the next episode, as we say at We are Chaffee, share stories, make change.
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