Artwork of Monty Skating by Terry Chui
If you are a freestyle skater, you undoubtedly know that Monty Little is one of the key organizers of the World Freestyle Round-Up Skateboarding Championships and the Online Showdown. But what you might not know is that he just turned 75 and is one of the driving forces of skateboarding in Canada. So we thought it would be an excellent time to pay tribute to Monty and his 45 + years of service to the skateboard community, and what better way to do that than to hear firsthand from Monty himself about how skateboarding fit into his life.
I can still remember my first skateboard; I made it from some old steel roller skate wheels back in 1963 when I was 16 years old. Those steel wheels were famous for getting high-speed wobbles, and often I wiped out while riding down the streets of Bountiful, Utah; I think the blood and skid marks are still there. Then in 1965, I saw a short film called “SKATERDATER” that changed my life. The movie featured a team of young California skateboarders who had Clay Wheels on their skateboards and did these incredible tricks . . . from that point on, I was hooked and still am. Later that year, we moved to Canada, where two of my classmates and I went in together and bought a set of Chicago Trucks with Clay Wheels; as I recall, it cost us $12.50 plus shipping. We screwed those trucks to a piece of plywood and met every day after school, taking turns riding that homemade skateboard.
Christmas morning of 1975 found a Skateboard under most Canadian Christmas trees, with Urethane Wheels, a considerable improvement over those steel and clay wheels. The skateboard had come of age and was now indeed THE MAGIC ROLLING BOARD. Of course, with the new skateboards came lots of hype and photo’s in newspapers, but all too often, the articles were about how dangerous skateboarding was.
Then in the spring of 1976, I received a phone call from the North Shore YMCA asking me to help set up and run Skateboard Training and Safety Clinics. My friend Paul Zalesky and I ran the first of many clinics at the Safeway parking lot in West Van. That led to clinics at other YMCA’s in Burnaby, New West Minster, Vancouver, and in Victoria on Vancouver Island. That summer also saw skateboard shops and Demo Teams popping up; then, the G&S Skateboard Team came to town putting on demos at Dairy Queens. Seeing them skate opened our eyes to what was possible on a skateboard. As summers end approached, it became apparent that the caliber of skating had significantly increased as had skateboarding’s popularity . . . we needed to hold a contest.
September 11, 1976, started out to be just another quiet morning in Stanley Park. Suddenly, the silence was broken by the shrill sound of a whistle starting the Cross Country Skateboard Race as the 1st Annual BC. Skateboard Championships got underway. CTV was even on hand filming a special for their award-winning TV series W5. This was so much more than just Canada’s first major skateboard contest; it was the start of so many great friendships and an obsession for skateboarding that we all still share today.
What took place in the next two weeks following that contest changed my life for the better, and I think for skateboarding as well. The day after the contest, I was fired by my supervisor at Grouse Mountain, which could have had something to do with skateboarding on the paved banked asphalt under the Sky Ride. As I was walking back to my car with my head in my hands, I remembered that the president of Grouse Mountian was interested in putting a skateboard park at the bottom of the Sky Ride. I popped into his office and told him about a skatepark seminar in California the following weekend. If he helped with my expenses, I would report back to him on what I learned. He cut me a cheque for $500 and said, “See you when you get back.” I went home and told my wife, “I got Good News and Great News. The good news is that I don’t work the late shift at Grouse Mountain any longer, and the great news is we’re going to California.” We left that very day and were in Carlsbad, California, for the 2nd Annual Hang Ten Pro Skateboard Championships later that week. Can you imagine how exciting it was to see all those skaters that I had only read about and seen photos of in SkateBoarder Magazine? I also attended the one-day seminar on How to Build a Skate Park, which would come in handy years later. Fortunately for me, while we were in California, the W5 special on skateboarding and our contest had aired on CTV. When I returned home, six letters were at Grouse Mountian waiting for me, all offering me jobs. Who were these people, and why were they sending me letters. It turned out that they all had watched the W5 special, and when they called CTV and asked how they could get in touch with Monty Little, they were told he works for Grouse Mountian.
My wife and I read through the letters and came across one offering me a job that paid twice what I had been earning. Seems the President of Kelly Douglas & Company, Mr. Ray Addington, had been at the Stanley Park Contest watching his sons compete and was very impressed with what he saw. He wanted other kids throughout BC to learn how to skateboard safely, and would I consider coming to work for him to achieve that goal. Of course, I said YES to Ray.
Over the next three summers, 1977 – 1979, we took the SuperValu Portable Contest/Slalom Trailer on the road, putting on well over 150 contests. We gained sponsorship in other Provinces through Ray’s contacts and took our Contest Tour halfway across Canada and back again. We not only put on thousands of miles each year on those tours, but we also saw thousands of smiles on the faces of contestants and spectators alike as we rolled into town. Our five-man contest team worked hard 24-7 for two and half months each summer, never complaining when it came time to set up THE RAMP, well, almost never. Rob Leshgold, Bud Watt, Ted Hartley, and Bruce Mathie became my Co-Pilots on those long tours, with hot young skaters like Paul and Simon Addington, Todd Watson, Niko Weis, Al Harrison, Colin Loganhume, and others helping to make up the rest of our contest crew. If running 37 contests in BC alone sounds like a busy schedule, it was. But it had its perks as pro skateboards like Russ Howell, Bob Mohr, Steve Cathey, Ellen O’Neal, and Tom Inouye came on tour with us.
Some of the other highlights of those early years of skateboarding were organizing and running the Canadian Pro-Am Skateboard Association with Bruce Mathie. Lobbying for Canada’s first Skate Park in West Van and helping to design Seylynn Skatepark and four other skateparks, plus putting together the first Canadian Skatepark Guide. Running the Pepsi Skateboard Safety Program at over 100 Elementary Schools in the lower mainland. One of my favourite memories was watching the RIPPING SQUAD (Bruce Mathie, Kevin Harris, Mike Blake, Rob Leshgold, Paul & Simon Addington, Niko Weis, Dave Crabb, Al Harrison, and the Lien brothers Richard and Mike) put on a demo. Five skaters on that small 12 foot wide Half-Pipe all at once, now that is precision and dedication at its highest level. Or the kind of talent and endurance we saw the day Kevin Harris shattered the old World Record for two-boarded 360s at the Canadian Nationals.
In 1985 I got a call from the organizers of EXPO 86′; they wanted to know if I would put together a World Skateboard Championship. The result was the TransWORLD Skateboarding Chamiponships which took a few thousand man-hours to pull off and was definitely not a one-man job. They even made a movie about the contest called “Radical Moves,” featuring the world’s top pros and 22 amateur teams from 17 countries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRBRg92EUGE
I was also asked to help launch CANADA SKATEBOARD, the national skateboard association that would send athletes to the 2020 Olympic Games in Japan. Although Freestyle was not part of the Olympics, our own Andy Anderson, who had been chosen for the Canadian Olympic Team, made sure that the world knew what Freestyle was all about. At the end of his run in the Park Event, he surprised everyone with a little freestyle routine on top of the tabletop obstacle.
Over the last 45 plus years that I have been putting on skateboard contests, I have gained an appreciation for Slalom Racing, Bowl Riding, High Jump, and Barrel Jumping, and of course, the skills needed to ride a vert Half Pipe. As much as I like watching all of these disciplines, my real love and passion have always been Freestyle skating.
Then in 2011, Kevin Harris asked me to drop by the Cloverdale Rodeo & Country Fair to watch a freestyle demo that he, Ki Dunkel, and Ryan Brynelson were putting on. After the demo, Kevin introduced me to the General Manager of the fair and told him that I had organized the TransWORLD Skateboarding Championships at EXPO 86. He had been at EXPO and had seen the contest; would I help create a World Freestyle Championship for the Country Fair? Naturally, I said yes, and here we are ten years later, with eight World Freestyle Round-Ups and two Online Showdowns under our belts. Of course, this could not have been possible without our wonderful sponsors’ financial support and a group of volunteers who I am lucky enough to call friends.
When I first started organizing the World Round-Up, I made a phone call to Russ Howell and Jim Goodrich. I needed an MC and photographer; would they help me out? They both gladly said yes and are still part of the team today. Next, I called my friends Paul Zalesky, Ted Hartley, Lyle Chippeway, Doug Haslet, Ryan Ellan, and Tony Lum, who, over the years, had helped to run contests and clinics. They, too, were all on board. Then, as the success of the World Round-Up grew, I found that more skaters and friends wanted to join our team. Hippie Mike, AJ Kohn, Troy Derrick, Aaron & Kolby Harris, Garrett Elliott, Brit Higginbotham, Jason Gauthier, Brad & Lorreta Wallace, Dr. Jacqueline Ryan, Martha & Paul Anderson, and Terry Chui, who has been my co-producer these past three years. They say that behind every successful man is a woman, and both Kevin, Terry, and I would agree we could not have pulled it off without the help of our wives.
We had some great times over the years, didn’t we, and laugh? Did we have fun or what. I remember laughing so hard one day at Jim Goodrich I couldn’t catch my breath. In 1979 Jim and I ran into Arnold Schwarzenegger and four or five of his rather large body-building buddies. Jim didn’t know who he was or that Arnie had just starred in a movie called “The Villain” and played a guy called Handsome Stranger. When I went up to Arnie and said, “Hi Handsome Stranger,” Jim’s face went white. After Arnie and his entourage left laughing, Jim caught his breath and said, “Hi Handsom Stranger . . . that sounded like a pickup line; we could have been beaten to a pulp.”
All found memories shared with good friends over the last 45 plus years. Memories of having fun working and skating together, sharing our passion for the sport of freestyle skateboarding.
Thanks for the incredible ride, Monty