Skater Profile: Eric Koston

Eric Koston, Born April 29, 1975 in Bangkok Thailand. His mother whom was from Thailand married his father who was in the U.S. Airforce. At 9 months of age he moved to California. A few years later his parents divorced.
Eric Koston's skateboarding started when he was 11 years old. He was given a Mark Gonzalez vision board with mismatched trucks by his brother. He quickly became skilled at skateboarding and even dropped out of high school in the 10th grade to persue a chance at becoming a professional. He later went on to join H-street, the company he went pro for as well as a brief stint in 101. In 1993 He signed up with Girl skateboards, a new company formed by Mike Carrol and Rick Howard. He has since become one of the most influential and popular skateboarders of all time, winning the x-games among many other world wide contests, becoming thrasher's skater of the year, and becoming a playable character in the Tony Hawk video game series.
Eric is also famous for being one of the biggest pioneers of switch skating, being the fore front of the trend after pulling off a switch tre flip down the EMB 7 set. He is also famous for his crook grind variations, so much in fact that many people still nick name it the k-grind to this day (even though he didn't invent it). Perhaps his most famous trick to date was pulling off a 360 flip noseblunt down a handrail in his part in the video "Yeah right!". He currently is part owners with 4 star clothing, and girl skateboards.

Current sponsors:
Girl, Lakai, 4 Star, Diamond Supply, Independent trucks, Ogio bags, Spitfire wheels, and active mail order.
Past sponsors:
Royal trucks, es footwear, H-street, 101

Famous skate spot: Rincon big four

Located in Escondido, California. This spot is a giant conrete four bleacher with a stair set and 2 railings. The gap itself measures 7 feet in height and 12 feet in length- close to a 12 set in comparison. The railing is also a formidable challenge seeing that is requires a good amount of height to get on, is short and steep, and the drop from it is nearly 6 feet to the ground after the slide or grind is performed. This spot has been seen in many skate videos and is considered one of the bigger step ups for skaters.

Tricks done here:
Jamie Thomas: Ollie over railing, Lipslide the rail, Backside 180 over railing, Switch frontside 180
Steve Berra: Backside 5050 the rail, Backside lipslide the rail
Kanten Russell: Fakie ollie, Backside 180, Switch frontside 180
John Rattray: Nollie
Ryan Smith: Kickflip, Frontside flip
Chris Cole: 360 flip, Frontside noseblunt the rail
Jon Allie: Kickflip over railing, Frontside flip over railing
Brandon Turner: Switch backside boardslide to fakie the rail
Andrew Russel: Nollie backside flip
Josh Harmony: Frontside nosegrind the rail
Tommy Sandoval: switch ollie over railing
Andrew Reynolds: Shifty Flip
Slash: Frontside boardslide the rail
Caine Gayle: Frontside boardslide the rail
Ryan Zammant: Backside feeble grind the rail
Ryan Bobier: ollie
Lindsay Robertson: Stalefish over railing
Corey Duffel: Switch Ollie
Kevin Romar: Switch Frontside 180 Heelflip