Interview by Austin Borkoski
Andy Armstrong is the shop manager for Tactics board shop. Tactics is the last core skateboard shop in Eugene, leaving Andy and the other employees with a strong passion for the industry they are involved in. He has witnessed the evolution of the skateboarding community in Eugene for the last five years.
Can you tell me a bit about Tactics and the other board shop industry in Eugene?
Board Sports closed down a little bit ago. They just weren’t getting the business. You need an online business because all the competition is online. We (Tactics) can sell things for less just because we have that online business. We couldn’t survive as just a store, the skate community isn’t big enough to help a core shop like that flourish.
How would you say the weather affects skateboarding?
The weather affects skateboarding a ton since you cannot skate outside if it is raining. For us, if there is a will, there is a way. We all know places around town that are covered.
Is it pretty easy to find those places?
It is just knowing the area and driving around- you have a different perspective on someone’s driveway or business. You don’t see a strip mall and think of what shops are there, you think about how there is a covering and what aspects of it you can skate some night after six when they are all closed.
Would you say a lot of the businesses in Eugene work with you to allow skateboarding?
Not really, at all. We have the city ordinance downtown where we cannot ride skateboards. The biggest downfall of skateboarding in Eugene is that there is no city plaza where people can just go hang out. That means that they are kept separate so the sport never gets integrated into the public. That’s why businesses don’t support skating.
Can you tell me about the new skate park underneath the Washington-Jefferson Bridge?
At first the city said that all the money for the new park had to come from the skaters, but once they saw that was unrealistic they saw a good opportunity to create a beneficial area. Building a place where kids can go to be productive is turning that area around.
What do you think the type of impact with the new park will have
I think it will be really beneficial. It’s the closest place to downtown that you can skate; that has been a huge issue because right now the only places are on the outskirts of Eugene, so you need a car. Also, I think it will really benefit the age diversity because it has more things for parents to do or give parents a positive feeling about dropping there kids off there.