S.A... From the start.

Let's take a trip back in time. I was in grade eight, sitting at the back left corner of Mr. Fricker's french class, when a new kid came to town. Short and already sporting a thick mat of chest hair, he introduced himself as Ian. Despite the Ian we know today, then, he was quiet and clumsy. He sat down in the desk in front of me and tried to go about his business as usual. Lo and behold, the first thing we did that day, for some reason, was to write nice things about the other kids in the class. He kept craning his neck to ask me who the strangers were that we had to flatter for no reason. All I remember is that he said Hannah had nice hair. One day, it started snowing. Hard. Instead of paying attention to the dribble coming out of Fricker's mouth, Ian stood and stared out the window like it was raining white gold. Eventually we started riding together. Riding with Ian was like nothing else. He’d butter whole runs and he’d pop threes off tiny bumps. This kid had it dialed. High school comes. We're heading to Sunshine, crammed in the back of the red coup tangled in poles and bindings. I glanced over at Ian's board and noticed he carved out his stomp pad. This was the unofficial birth of S.A... I asked him about it and he said it was a skateboard over a gap. I thought it looked like a face. Over the course of our high school career, Ian and I drew the logo on absolutely everything. One day in Social Studies, the oh so sexy Ms. Gackle put in a video about infanticide and polygamy. One of the segments was about this super fat mexican guy with a handlebar mustache and four wives named Hector. Seeing as both of us idolized the polygamist, we named the logo after him. Hector. Soon came talks about how we wanted Hector on our hats, shirts, whatever we could stamp it on. Hector became the symbol for our group of friends. Everyone knew what it was. Our brand needed a name. We stewed it around in our underage alcoholic brains and came up with Snot, seeing as Ian leaks boogers profusely whenever we went riding. Snot was all good and dandy until everyone wanted in, so we became the Snot Army: SA. One night we got all silly and started tagging Hector and SA all over Canmore. One of those tags is still up. Post graduation Ian and I went our separate ways, but always kept in contact, talking about designs and turning our high school hobby into a legitimate operation. Ian kept saying he was going to do it. BAM. July first, 2008, under the title S.A... Ian got it in motion and things started to happen. T-shirts were being sold and everyone got on board. S.A... is currently being sold in Canmore, Kelowna and Vancouver. Our brainchild is out there and trying to gain ground. S.A... started with our passion for riding and designing and now it's become viable and tangible. So whatever you're passionate about, do it. That's what this thing is all about.