Marc Johnson (skateboarder)
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Marc Johnson |
| Born |
January 6, 1977 Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States |
| Sport | |
| Country | United States |
| Sport | Skateboarding |
Marc Johnson (born January 6, 1977) is an American professional skateboarder who is best known for founding the Enjoi skateboard brand and receiving the Thrasher "Skater of the Year" award in 2007.
Johnson's teenage years were spent in North Carolina, United States (US). Johnson was a state table tennis champion prior to developing an interest in skateboarding. Johnson provided an in-depth explanation of his family environment in a candid interview that was published in mid-July 2013:
I never had much of a family experience. Most of my relatives have passed away, and I have no contact with the other ones I know of. My father didn’t help us out when I was growing up. We were so poor. And his family had money. Plenty of money. But he was the wandering addict fuck-up, so they distanced themselves from my family. My grandmother once told my mother, when my dad had disappeared and we were starving, “You guys aren’t my problem anymore.” And my sister and I were told that we had grown up to be huge disappointments to them ...
Following the receipt of coverage in the skateboard media, Johnson relocated from North Carolina to California and was sponsored by Maple shortly thereafter. Johnson had very little money prior to departing North Carolina and travelled with a pair of males who funded the journey with petty scams.
Perceiving an opportunity to work with the individuals who had been influential in his style of skateboarding at the time, Johnson joined the A-Team after receiving an offer from skateboarding pioneer Rodney Mullen (Mullen had also raised the possibility of negotiating an arrangement with the Blind brand). After a few disenchanted years on A-Team, he and his teammates quit because of the feeling of skating for an engineered team that was a marketing ploy.
Johnson subsequently founded the Enjoi brand with Mullen, recruiting friends and fellow sponsored skateboarders, like Jerry Hsu and Louie Barletta, onto the team; Chris Cole was also sponsored by the company for a temporary period and, in 2009, stated in relation to his time with the company:
I really like enjoi. The brand is a breath of fresh air. I was on the East and detached from any team member so I was kind of a guy who rode the products, but not on the team. Especially ’cause they are a group of friends. I hung out with Marc Johnson a couple times. He was totally cool. I have always been a huge fan of his, so that was great.
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