Where are they now? Jon Ortiz

New York City has been a hub for street skating since the birth of the sport and early videos like The Hoax showed the strong scene that existed there from the very beginning. Jon Ortiz knows about the city’s proud blading history more than most people. Alongside the first generation of street skaters that included Rawlinson Rivera, Ryan Jacklone, Joe Dedentro and the Dave Ortega, Ortiz helped establish the city’s legacy and paved the way for future icons of the spots like Mike “Murda” Johnson and Billy O’Neill.

During the rapid rise in rollerblading’s popularity in the early nineties, Ortiz competed regularly at the NISS and ASA  events that received a lot of television coverage at the time and he could be seen in the majority of skate videos that were being released with rapid succession. He was also one of the first skaters to receive a pro wheel from the Medium, the notorious wheel company owned by Shane Coburn before he went on to found Mindgame.

Despite the fact that Ortiz has been rollerblading for over two decades, he is still skating hard and can be seen in many of Denial’s recent edits. He is one of the few professionals from that era that remain involved in the industry and he has managed to carve a career for himself out of the sport by organising rollerblading lessons in his home city and judging major blading events including The Bittercold Showdown and WRS Finals. There are only a handful of personalities that have witnessed the birth of street skating and stuck around to see it develop into its current state, so we decided to gain a little wisdom from one of the original New York icons.

Wheel Scene: For the kids that don’t remember, remind us of your previous sponsors and video appearances.
Jon Ortiz: Oh boy, I’ve honestly had more sponsors than I can remember. My old favourites were definitely Medium, 976, Oxygen, Bones, Triple Eight and so many others. Videos? Wow! Any video between 1995 and 2000 I’m sure I was in, including nearly every VG, T-Bone Films (Hoax 2 was my first video!), Blizzard Productions (No Limits, Nickel ‘n’ Dime, Uncommon Ground, Lost Cities), every yearly Camp Woodward video and team video. Also, all the crazy TV coverage we used to get on MTV and ESPN.

How did you get into rollerblading all those years ago?
I was first attracted by my friends in my neighbourhood in NYC. Every summer we all played a new sport like football or baseball – in 1991 it was rollerblading. There were no real tricks yet, but we spent our time grabbing onto cars and jumping off stairs. We also built our first quarter pipe. Nobody knew what they were doing. Then Dare to Air came out in 1993 and we went nuts. Slowly, over the years, my friends quit and got into other things. Many of them fell into drugs or jail or died. I’m glad I kept skating ‘cause that could have been me. The others see me and always ask what I’m up to. Some of them were ahead of their time and I wish they stuck with it.

Why did you decide to stop skating professionally?
I never made a conscious decision to stop being a pro; I just got tired of the competing aspect. It was frustrating sometimes to have to perform at a certain level because a major sponsor was paying you to do so, kind of took the fun out of it after a while. The competition scene changed into more of an underground street style series with IMYTA, after ESPN dropped us from the X-Games and NBC cancelled the Gravity Games. By then I had nothing left to prove in terms of establishing who I was as a pro and focused more on travelling to as many places as I could. So, in reality, I never stopped living the pro skater lifestyle. I enhanced it by going everywhere I could ever want to go and not having to worry about filming or competing for anybody. I was doing it all for myself with the help of sponsors who support me to this day without asking me to fulfil any of the obligations of a competing pro. I’ll always get good clips and photos as long as someone is there to capture it, and I’ll always spread rollerblading wherever I go. So, in that aspect, I still get the respect of an old pro skater, although it’s amazing to watch the younger generations of skaters that can kick my ass!

Do you still keep up-to-date with all of the industry happenings?
I do still keep up to date. I’m always in the know about the industry and I’m deeply rooted behind the scenes in NYC. I still go to the big events sometimes but I’m not competing anymore. Instead I’m head judging most of the majors like The Bittercold Showdown and the WRS Finals. I’m just happy I can show up and enjoy myself skating instead of worrying about performance.

What do you think about the current state of the industry?
When it comes to where we are, I always have and do believe that the state of rolling is perfectly fine. We needed to shed the major corporations in order to grow the way we wanted to. That’s an old story now, and the future holds no bounds for us. We can stay underground like we have for the past ten years and be fine or, having paid our dues, we can garner mainstream support again and grow into an established culture the way skateboarding and biking has. Either way, I’m still going to be skating simply because I have found my niche in life and I am able to still support myself through skating. That’s a selfish thought, but it would be great to establish ourselves in the mainstream again. Now that we have our own identity, a good money boost would be awesome to support our brightest stars and oldest legends, so they can continue to participate and lead us in the direction we need to be going.

Do people recognise you when you go out skating?
Anyone that recognizes me nowadays has to have been skating for a long time. Hahah! I’m just kidding. I love the fact that now I can go skate with a bunch of young kids and they won’t know who I am until an older person goes, “Don’t you know who that is?” Up until that point it’s really fun being anonymous and having a good time pushing each other like when I was a kid. After that it’s usually “show me a trick” or “how old are you?” It’s much mellower than the craziness of being a big pro back then. We were treated like rock stars back then and there were many perks. I have so many insane stories, but that’s for another time. Now I can enjoy skating for what it is without the ego and status, which makes me happy.

What are you doing for a living these days?
Nowadays I still skate for a living. I run my own private lessons business in NYC. I also teach hundreds of kids skating in after school programs all over the city. I just recently started a social network for skaters with my partners, it’s called United World Rolling. I encourage every skater on earth to check it out and connect with each other. I also still have a few sponsors, like Denial and Create Originals, and I support my great friend Brian Shima with SSM Skates. I can’t forget Camp Woodward: I’ve been going there for 17 years and they are family. Skating is my life and, with the help of my friends and sponsors, I can support myself to this day.

You still seem pretty close with the Denial guys.
I’ve known Adam Killgore since he was a little dish dog at Camp Woodward. We have been close friends ever since and travelled all over the world together. He fully supports me with Denial wheels and clothing. Him and Chris Majette do great things for Philadelphia. Shout out to them for sure. Be on the lookout for my old man pro wheel from Denial – it’ll be great!

Any last words?
Lastly, I wanna say that skating is my life and I would be nothing without it. I hope to give back as much as it has given me. Thanks to all of my family and friends for their support over the years, and be on the lookout ‘cause you never know where in the world I’m gonna pop up, and you better be ready to skate!

Photo: Jeremy Stephenson