Reginald "Reggie" Barnes Jr. (born ) is a retired American professional freestyle skateboarder and the founder/CEO of Eastern Skateboard Supply, the largest skateboard wholesale company in North America. Known as a "virtuoso" teen amateur, Barnes skated professionally from 1980 to 1991, with the Pepsi-Cola Pro Skateboard Team, Walker Skateboards, and Dogtown Skateboards. By 1986, Barnes was one of the top five American freestyle skaters in the United States and was a featured demonstrator at Expo 86, the world's fair held in Vancouver, Canada. He placed third in freestyle at the World Cup in 1987.
Barnes retired from competitive skateboarding when his interest switched to street skateboarding and running his two businesses. In 1986, he opened the retail skateboard shop, Endless Grind, in Raleigh, North Carolina. He used his skating connections to bring professional skaters to the East Coast where their demonstrations attracted the interest of the next generation of skaters. One event, the 1986 Endless Grind / Bones Brigade Skateboard Showdown, featured Barnes competing against Steve Caballero; their showdown was captured in East Coast Motions, a 2018 documentary.
Barnes' primary business, Eastern Skateboard Supply, is a wholesale company in Wilmington, North Carolina, with annual sales of $24.64 million in 2021. The company produces and distributes Tony Hawk's Birdhouse Skateboards and other brands such as Plan B Skateboards. Barnes hires former skaters and built a corporate skatepark at the company's warehouse, which features the East Coast's biggest skate bowl.
While he was a professional skater, three Reggie Barnes skateboards were issued, two with Walker and one with Dogtown. Although greatly overshadowed by his contemporary Rodney Mullen, generally considered the greatest freestyle skater of all time, Barnes was influential in the spread of skateboarding, especially along the East Coast of the United States.
Early life Barnes is from Cary, North Carolina, and attended Cary High School, graduating in 1979.
Barnes became interested in skateboarding after seeing an article in Sports Illustrated about Gregg Weaver who skated in empty swimming pools in California. In 1976, when he was fourteen years old, Barnes purchased his first skateboard, a Super Surfer with clay wheels, from a neighbor for $2. That was quickly replaced with a used skateboard with metal wheels—one that he says worked better on asphalt. He became a member of the Wizard Skate Team, an amateur team supported by the Wizard Skate Park in Raleigh, North Carolina, but moved on as he progressed.
Barnes' specialty became freestyle; this form of skating that paired music with handstands, wheelies, and kickflips suited Barnes, who enjoyed being a show-off. He spent "hours on end" alone with a boombox, practicing his routines; one of his favorite places to practice was the open-air basketball courts at nearby North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Amateur career Two years after he began skating, Barnes had become one of North Carolina's top skaters, taking sixth place in freestyle in his first National Skateboard Association Contest, the U.S. Open Skateboard Competition in Jacksonville, Florida, in March 1978. Barnes "caught the attention of the seasoned professionals" when he skated at the Oceanside Amateur Freestyle Contest in June 1978, despite only coming in fifth place.
Barnes joined the team for Powerflex, a skateboard wheel company based in California, getting equipment and travel expenses in return for participating in demonstrations and competitions. Powerflex offered a salary, but Barnes turned it down, preferring to remain an amateur because he wanted to make the 1980 Summer Olympic exhibition team.
In September 1978, Barnes participated in the Pepsi/Nova Team Challenge as part of Team Powerflex. via National Skateboard Review 1976-1979 Past Issues., accessed June 8, 2024. He had "a dynamic freestyle routine", earning 285 points and placing 1st in the age 16–19 freestyle contest. Rodney Mullen, generally considered the best freestyle skaters of all time, placed 1st in the 13–15 category with 263 points.
Once Barnes learned to ride on his hands, his reputation grew; he was considered a virtuoso on the East Coast by 1979. In the spring of 1979, Pepsi called his parents and asked if their son could tour the country, giving demonstrations as part of the Pepsi-Cola Pro Skateboard Team. Although the call from Pepsi was a surprise, it was the era of the cola wars and Pepsi executives thought skateboarding was a good fit to their Pepsi Generation ad campaign. A senior year in high school, Barnes decided to graduate first.
Professional career Barnes became a professional skater in June 1979. He skated with the Pepsi Pro Skateboard Team on their second tour, performing as many as five demonstrations a day and 100 demonstrations across the summer. Pepsi was among the first to pay skaters well. However, Barnes says he did not feel like a "real pro" because he had yet to win money in competition."
When the summer tour ended, Barnes took his Pepsi earnings and moved to Huntington Beach California, where he hoped to compete against other professional skaters and win prize money. However, Barnes had picked a challenging time to become a professional skater. Editor of the National Skateboard Review, Di Dootson, explains, "By early 1979, the insurance industry had effectively closed many skateparks across the country." This negatively impacted retail shops, competitions, and companies like Barnes' sponsor Powerflext, which had shut down.
Barnes had to wait six months for a freestyle contest. Without Powerflex's backing, he had to personally pay the $50 entry fee (equivalent to $ in 2022 money) for his first professional competition, the Oasis Freestyle Contest in San Diego in 1980. He came in fifth place, earning $50. Other skaters at the event included standing world champion Chris Chadwick who placed third, and Rodney Mullen, who placed first in his first-professional event. Admittedly homesick, Barnes felt he had accomplished his goals and returned to North Carolina.
Barnes signed with sponsor Walker Skateboards in 1980. Bruce Walker was a noted East Coast professional skater, and his Florida-based company was the first of its kind to be owned and operated by a skater. Walker paid for Barnes to fly to California for competitions, allowing Barnes to live in Wilmington North Carolina, where he could focus on both skating and surfing in his home state.Although he performed many demonstrations for Walker Skateboards, Barnes only competed three times during his first three years as a professional because of the limited number of contests. His second professional event was in 1981 at Magic Mountain, where the main attraction was the pro-freestyle event. Barnes came in third place. He told Thrasher magazine, "Good energy and crowds, back east they don't have much going on like this, so it's good fun for a change of . Lots of fun." The third time he competed as a professional was at the 1984 Sundeck Pro-Am Skateboard Challenge in Kona Skatepark in Jacksonville, Florida. Barnes came in first place even though they played the wrong music for his first routine. Later that year, he placed second at the NSA Finals at the Del Mar Skate Ranch in California. However, according to Thrasher magazine, he almost ended up in the third place—a miscalculation of the scores by the judges was caught by Barnes' girlfriend and corrected.
In 1986, a group of skateboarding magazines selected Barnes as one of the top five American freestyle skaters. That same year, Barnes was a featured demonstrator at Expo 86, the world's fair held in Vancouver, Canada.
Barnes placed third in freestyle at the World Cup, Münster Monster Mastership, in Germany in 1987, despite the distractions of starting and running Eastern Skateboard Supply and Endless Grind retail store. In a 2010 online conversation, professional skating superstars Joachim "YoYo" Schulz and Stefan Akesson recalled this competition: Schulz, who came in seventh, wrote, "Check out the results page—a who is who in skateboarding. Some names are still around to this day! Even Reggie Barnes made it over. Stoked!" To which Akesson replied, "4th place for me... I really like the skating of Reggie, and he is a super nice person!"
In 1989, Barnes' rank had slipped to seventh best freestyle skater in the United States. Yet, at the NSA's Savanah Slamma in May 1989, Thrasher noted, "Reggie Barnes, for a man who hadn't skated since the Arizona finals [in December 1988], ripped." His freestyle rank declined after he became a businessman and because of his increased interest in street skateboarding, a modified version of freestyle that was better suited for urban settings. Barnes indicated that it was difficult to complete effectively in freestyle when he was actively demonstrating street style—the two styles required different skateboards. Barnes competed professionally until 1991.
After retiring from as a professional skater, Barnes continued to demonstrate and supported new skaters through Endless Grind and Eastern Skateboard Supply. On November 1, 2000, Barnes was one of three judges for the Freestyle World Championships Contest and Reunion, the first Pro/Am freestyle event in almost ten years, held at the Embarcadero in San Francisco, California. One outcome of this event, which also served as a reunion of former skaters, was the creation of the World Freestyle Skateboard Association.
Competitions This incomplete list includes known NSA and international competitions in which Barnes competed. DateCompetitionLocationPlaceCategorySourceMarch 24–26, 19781st U.S. Open Skateboard ChampionshipKona Skate Park, Jacksonville, Florida6thAmateur FreestyleJune 10–11, 19781st Annual Southern Pepsi Team ChallengeSensation Basin, Gainesville, Florida3rdAmateur Freestyle JuniorJune 17–18, 1978Oceanside National Pro-Am Freestyle ContestOceanside, California5thAmateur Freestyle Men 16+ Sponsored via Late Tricks, accessed June 8, 2024.September 2–3, 1978Pepsi/Nova Team ChallengeUnited States1stAmateur Freestyle Age 16–191980Oasis Freestyle ContestOasis Skate Park, San Diego, California5th Pro–FreestyleAugust 30, 1981Magic Mountain Freestyle ContestValencia, California3rdPro–FreestyleMay 1984Sundek Pro–Am Skateboard ChallengeKona Skate Park, Jacksonville, Florida1stPro–FreestyleAugust 5, 1984NSA Summer Series Contest Embarcadero Freestyle ContestSan Diego, California3rdPro–Freestyle1984NSA (National Skateboard Association) FinalsDel Mar Skate Ranch, Del Mar, California2ndPro–FreestyleJuly 19–20, 1986Oceanside Freestyle ContestOceanside, California5thPro–Freestyle1987International Freestyle ContestOlympic Velodrome, Carson, California10thPro–Freestyle1987Münster Monster Mastership (World Cup)Münster, Germany3rdPro–FreestyleMay 30–31, 1987Canadian International ChampionshipToronto, Canada6thPro–Freestyle1988Youth Skate Freestyle ContestEmbarcadero, San Francisco, California13th Pro–FreestyleDecember 10–11, 1988NSA Freestyle Pro FinalsPhoenix, Arizona7th Pro–FreestyleMay 19, 1989Savannah Slamma 3 (NSA Pro Tour)Savannah, GeorgiaPro–Freestyle
Sponsors and skateboards Barnes' first sponsor was Powerflex Wheels. Although their product was good, Powerflex was negatively impacted by the decline in skateboarding, closing by 1980 when Barnes became a professional skater. Later, Bones Wheels and Gotcha Sportswear became his sponsors. Converse was another sponsor, and Barnes usually skated in Carolina blue, high-top Chuck Taylor All-Stars.