Fritz Kollman: Another Way Home

Fritz had decided to spend some time in Utah after high school to snowboard and attend the U as an art student. “We used to skate everywhere around campus back in the early ’90s. That’s how I met most of my friends. We skated the fountain ledges and federal building on First South and State,” he says. This was the social center of the skate scene at the time, and where Fritz met two good friends and influential skaters, Mark White and Nate Nelson. “To be honest, it wasn’t like they did anything out of the ordinary that set them apart. They were good skaters—still are—but they took me under their wing. We just became friends through skating, and that was the difference for me. I appreciated the fact that even though I was not originally from Utah, they were just cool to me.”

 

Fritz says that his personal skate style hasn’t changed much since he was a kid, and that generally, all that’s really changed in the scene are the clothes: “Good skaters have been doing the same tricks since back in the day, they’re just doing them better and with a different look.” He opens his laptop and YouTubes “Color Skateboards.” We watch about 10 minutes of the old, early-’90s pro team rip through small gaps and trannies, and do some kick flips. I’ve seen old vids before and always noticed a distinguishable difference between the talent and skill of what was good back then versus what is good now. Prior to the death of the sport, I had thought that street tricks like kick flips, board slides and gaps were just being cultivated, so riders stomping them did it on a small level without much style. This was the first video that changed my opinion. Fritz points out that current pro Guy Mariano resembles the best OG style. Mariano, dating back to the Powell-Peralta days, recently ended the Pretty Sweet video from Chocolate/Girl companies that put him in the running for the anticipated Skater of the Year Award.

 

These days, though Fritz doesn’t have the time to skate every day, he still makes an effort  to keep up the hobby. “I skate at least once a week at Guthrie, Rose Park or the mini ramp at Ashley Woodward’s place. A bunch of us get together for a few hours each week—we call it ‘Old Man’s Night.’ No one judges you if you’re having an off night,” he says. Fritz gets up from our interviewing couch and walks around his house, gathering the essentials for an impromptu skate session I just asked him to indulge in. We walk outside to his neighborhood’s shitty pavement with cracks and loose rocks all around. I wince at the poor conditions, but it doesn’t throw him. He throws down his board and begins with his switch tricks, no-complies—his favorite. Fritz skates with an ease you’d expect from a guy who’s been doing it for over 20 years, but at the same time, it’s unique. I can tell skating is more than something that just passes the time for him. 

 

“Skating is a release. Skating changes the way I view the world. There are two things I do that determine my outlook: plants and skating. You start to see things that other people don’t. When you’re a skater, you walk or drive around, hoping to find potential in things that society has made cold and impersonal. You can connect with the mundane. Even my country-ass driveway has the potential for a thousand tricks. Sometimes, I’ll notice the same spot over and over, and even deem it un-skateable, but each time I go by that same spot, I’ll still look at it, hoping to find the potential it has. The same goes with plants. You wonder about it, you question it, and it means something. This approach to life defines who I am,” says Fritz. 

 

He keeps skating, doing a few flips, a few switches, and rolling back and forth until his heavy breaths get closer together. “I started smoking again,” he says as he bends to rest his hands on his knees. Fritz could have been panting from the minute he hopped on his skate, and I wouldn’t have noticed. His energy, his style and conscious deliberation trump any negative at play.