| Deshawn Harris | |
|---|---|
 | |
|
Name: |
Deshawn A. Harris |
|
Gender: |
Male |
|
Date of Birth |
September 09 1985 |
|
Resident state: |
New Jersey |
|
Started Fingerboarding: |
|
|
Occupation(s): |
Fingerboarder, Concept deck developer, Film editor, Company owner, trick developer |
|
Stance: |
Goofy |
|
Style(s): |
Freestyle, Technical, transitional |
|
Current Sponsors: |
|
|
Nickname(s): |
Book-worm, Tape-worm, Mr. Ol-Skool, Wizard-Man |
Deshawn A. Harris (born Sept. 9th 1985) is an American fingerboarder and company owner known for his Freestyle fingerboarding and Technical fingerboarding. He is also credited for making freestyle riding and vert riding popular in the early stages of the American online scene. He also began the movement of "Fingerboard for fun" from the video magazine Fock number 7 video due to being judged based on the style of fingerboarding he showcased in his videos.
Early Life
Deshawn began fingerboarding in the spring of 1995 using mini keychained skateboards. Because the mini skateboard had no form of grip, the method of doing an ollie or other such popping tricks was not yet established. His trick list consisted of pressured flip tricks, freestyling and grinds. Three years after Deshawn got a hold of his first keychained skateboard a toy company debuted with its line of "finger-sport" items. Such items included BMX, Snowboarding, Inline skating and skateboarding. Deshawn's first TechDeck, the company name of the product, was not of his own but a friend who already had close to a dozen of his own. With his hands on a fingerboard, the name of the mini skateboard, Deshawn was able to add to his list of tricks of both traditional skateboarding tricks and his own personal inventions.
Career
Deshawn created a small fingerboarding team consisting of skateboard and inline skating friends who all enjoyed fingerboards. The name of the team was "TechCrew", playing obviously off the product of Tech Deck and being a simple crew. Together they put on demos within their school for everyone to see the fun in fingerboarding as well as film their first team video(ultimately their last as well). The video showcased the team's different styles with Deshawn's part utilizing both a direct technical approach with a mix of a few of his invented tricks on both a tech deck and on his keychained fingerboard. Noteable tricks displayed Deshawn performing noseblunt nollie frontside kickflip and a 540flip with the keychained fingerboard. Its also worth noting that Deshawn's First and Forever video part is his first to not feature any freestyling.
The scene of fingerboarding was larger than Tech Deck, thanks to the forums of their website. What would become the root of American fingerboarding in later years; RZF, standing for "RedZone Fingerboarding", hosted what would be considered the heart of the American fingerboarding scene. All of this fueled Deshawn to not only push his own fingerboarding to higher levels but to invest in a better camera to keep to par with the videos put out at that time. This investment lead to some of Deshawn's more rememberable fingerboard clips which all showcased a direction of technical fingerboarding that was untouched. To prove his worth as it were, Deshawn filmed a kickflip late shoveit in clear quality, as well as a collection of mini videos which ranged from both vert riding to street.
From 2004 to the present, Deshawn has been featured in a few fingerboard videos including the Round series featuring fellow fingerboarder Martin Illsley as well as short videos of Freestyle Dayz and featured in Fock Video Magazine in a “Who is” video section explaining just who Deshawn was.
January 1st, 2012, Deshawn released a video fashioned after the Daewon Song skate video "New Year's Dae". The video is titled "New Year's De".
As a company owner.
Deshawn has managed a few fingerboarding companies over his fingerboard career. In his early years, his largest company was Allstars Fingerboards which were sold locally and based a shape on street riding. Under Allstars, he created Dingbat freestyle boards which were boards made for freestyling. Later, he created 24/7 Magazine which kept track of all news fingerboarding in America as well as running ads from the up and coming to well established companies. Two examples being Flatface fingerboards as the up and coming and Vegas Fingerboards as the top company of that era. Of 2008, Deshawn started Bubble fingerboards which folded within a year to make way for Kinda Fingerboards which are produced and sold by No Comply Dist..
Contributions to the scene
Since his arrival to the online American fingerboarding scene, Deshawn has contributed in trick creation and product creation. In the beginning stages of his career, Deshawn reintroduced technical riding, vert riding and freestyle riding to the scene. Go further did he help build the possible tricks with performing tricks that were otherwise considered impossible to transfer from real skateboarding. He created what would be the first fingerboarding magazine that used actual magazine templates and produced issues bi-monthly. He created the first freestyle strick fingerboard under Allstars fingerboards, titling them Dingbat boards. After the recoil of his technical riding against the transitional riding that was popular, Deshawn coined the phrase "Fingerboard for yourself" which suggests that as a fingerboarder you should be in it for fun and for yourself.
Controversy.
Around 2004 Deshawn came under fire by many of the leading fingerboarders who claimed that his tricks werent purposely done. This lead to Deshawn producing two videos. One showed a set of tricks using a techdeck while the second showed the same tricks done on a keychained fingerboard without grip. After this, the claims slowed to a hault after a few years.
Videography.
Deshawn was featured in a few videos. Here's the list.
- First and Forever (1998)
- Round 1; Deshawn harris vs Martin Illsley (2004)
- Freestyle Dayz (2005)
- Round 2; Deshawn Harris vs Martin Illsley (2005)
- Enigma - Public Trucks (2005)
- Fock Issue 7 (2006)
- Freestyle Dayz: Casper (2007)
- Bubble: Because (2008)
- New Years De (2012)