Jeff Blaine Grosso (April 28, 1968 – March 31, 2020) was an American professional

skateboarder Skateboarding is an action sport originating in the United States that involves riding and performing tricks using a skateboard, as well as a recreational activity, an art form, an entertainment industry job, and a method of transportation. S ...

, skate documentarian, and

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host from

Arcadia, California Arcadia is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, located about northeast of downtown Los Angeles in the San Gabriel Valley and at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. It contains a series of adjacent parks consisting of t ...

Skateboarding

Grosso started skateboarding at the age of 5. He broke onto the skateboarding scene at a young age, turning pro at the age of 12. In 1982, at the age of 14, the shoe and apparel company

Vans Vans is an American manufacturer of skateboarding shoes and related apparel, established in Anaheim, California, and owned by VF Corporation. The company also sponsors surf, snowboarding, BMX, and motocross teams. From 1996 to 2019, the comp ...

began sponsoring Grosso. A personal and professional relationship that continued into 2020 with Vans' sponsoring Grosso's popular

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

show "Love Letters to Skateboarding". Grosso grew up skateboarding with prominent figures such as

Neil Blender Neil Blender (born 1963) is an American former professional skateboarder, skate company owner, and artist. His pro career began during his senior year of high school in 1981. He is regular-footed. By age 1986, Blender invented at least two tricks ...

and

Lance Mountain Robert Lance Mountain (born June 13, 1964) is a professional skateboarder and artist who was one of the prominent skateboarders throughout the 1980s, primarily due to his involvement with the Bones Brigade. As of August 2017, Mountain continu ...

. Grosso was one of the most recognizable skateboarders in the United States in the 1980s, known for his vert skating. He appeared in multiple classic skate videos including the

Powell Peralta Powell Peralta is an American skateboard company founded by George Powell and Stacy Peralta in 1978. The company rose to prominence in the 1980s as skateboarding began maturing as a sport. The company featured the Bones Brigade, a team featurin ...

video ''Future Primitive'' and the Santa Cruz Skateboards video ''Streets on Fire.'' Additionally, Jeff graced the cover of the October 1994 issue of

Transworld Skateboarding ''Transworld Skateboarding'' (''TWS'') was an international magazine on skateboarding that was based in Carlsbad, California, United States. The publication also ran an accompanying website and video production company. In February 2019, the pub ...

. Grosso had his career derailed due to

substance abuse Substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, is the use of a drug in amounts or by methods which are harmful to the individual or others. It is a form of substance-related disorder. Differing definitions of drug abuse are used in public health, ...

and found it over by the early-mid 1990s. Grosso got sober in 2005 and resumed skateboarding professionally.

Skateboard historian

Grosso was an unofficial historian of

skateboarding Skateboarding is an action sport originating in the United States that involves riding and performing tricks using a skateboard, as well as a recreational activity, an art form, an entertainment industry job, and a method of transportation ...

, always there to share a story and insight into skateboarding with the younger generation of skaters. This love of skateboard history morphed in Grosso's popular

show “Love Letters to Skateboarding.” Jeff described the history of skateboarding as "so f--king muddy and grey. There is no black and white."

Anti-hero skateboards

Grosso joined Anti Hero Skateboards in early 2011, explaining the process in an August 2013 interview: "I'll ask, I'll shoot at the mountaintop, and maybe I'll land at base camp. Once I got the courage to call them up, or whatever, and then they were like, 'Well, we have to vote.', or whatever, 'cause they run it like a gang ... So once I found out that they all, like, voted yes ... it was a proud moment." Grosso made one appearance in the

X Games The X Games are an annual extreme sports event organized, produced and broadcast by ESPN. Coverage is also shown on ESPN's sister network, ABC. The inaugural X Games were held during the summer of 1995 in Providence and Newport, Rhode Island, ...

, finishing fourth in the Skateboard Park Legends event at

X Games 16 X Games XVI was an action sporting event which took place from July 29 – August 1, 2010 in Los Angeles, California at the Staples Center, L.A. Live and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The games featured the sports of Motocross, skateboar ...

in 2010.

On skate shops

Grosso referred to skate shops as " Jedi temples for skateboarding".

Personal life

Throughout the 1990s, Grosso struggled with

heroin addiction Opioid use disorder (OUD) is a substance use disorder characterized by cravings for opioids, continued use despite physical and/or psychological deterioration, increased tolerance with use, and withdrawal symptoms after discontinuing opioids. Op ...

. Grosso has a son Oliver, who was born in 2012. Grosso died at the age of 51, on March 31, 2020, at Hoag Hospital in

Newport Beach, California Newport Beach is a coastal city in South Orange County, California. Newport Beach is known for swimming and sandy beaches. Newport Harbor once supported maritime industries however today, it is used mostly for recreation. Balboa Island draws v ...

. In December 2020, Grosso's autopsy report stated his cause of death as "severe

cardiomegaly Cardiomegaly (sometimes megacardia or megalocardia) is a medical condition in which the heart is enlarged. As such, it is more commonly referred to simply as "having an enlarged heart". It is usually the result of underlying conditions that make t ...

with dilatation", with toxicology data indicating Grosso had

fentanyl Fentanyl, also spelled fentanil, is a very potent synthetic opioid used as a pain medication. Together with other drugs, fentanyl is used for anesthesia. It is also used illicitly as a recreational drug, sometimes mixed with heroin, cocain ...

in his system at the time of death.

External links

Love Letters to SkateboardingJeff Grosso: ‘I just ride skateboards, that’s what I do’
- Interview in

Huck (magazine) ''Huck'' is a bi-monthly magazine, website and video platform. It has been recognised for its style of exploring subcultures as "entry points for articles about music, politics and places all over the world". It is published by the London-based ...

Jeff Grosso - The Nine Club With Chris Roberts - Episode 85

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grosso, Jeff 1968 births 2020 deaths American skateboarders Skateboarding mass media 21st-century American historians American male non-fiction writers 21st-century American male writers