Worldwide sportswear manufacturer draws inspiration for skateboard shoes from town names in Lake County

PORTLAND, ORE. — Adidas has a knack for naming its skateboard shoes after towns in Lake County. 

Two years after releasing the “Polson” skateboard shoe, the world’s second largest sportswear manufacturer will be releasing the “Ronan” shoe in Jan. of 2011.

Why is Adidas drawing inspiration from the Mission Valley? You can thank former Polson resident George Cutright and the skateboard culture you see in town for that.

Having moved to the area in middle school, Cutright was instrumental in getting the SkateJam started in town and ran a skate shop behind his mother’s pet shop before going to college. In the mid-nineties, skateboard companies were starting to tour not just large cities with events, but also trying to enter into small towns to promote the sport.

Cutright had filled out an entry form to get one of those companies to come to town and he ended up winning.

“That kind of kicked off the whole event,” Cutright said.

And SkateJam was born in one form or another. It was at the old 7th Ave. and 7th St. skatepark which was essentially a cement lot near a rail yard.

“It was pretty much a full wooden skate park,” Cutright said.

Cutright and his buddies said that they also tried to skate near or at Linderman Elementary, but that didn’t quite work for them all the time.

They lucked out on the old cement lot, which Cutright said appeared to be a burned down factory with the cement foundation still in existence.

“SkateJam gave us a reason to make the ramps,” he said. “It gave us a little extra motivation because we had to get the ramps done by a certain date.”

The sport of skateboarding interested Cutright so much that he ran a skateboard shop out of the back of his mother’s pet shop.

After he went to college at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colo., he worked for a skateboard shop while majoring in business. His business concentration led him into the sales industry.

“That led my way over to Adidas,” Cutright said. “It’s really a laid-back business. It’s a European company so it’s not as uptight as some of the American companies.”

Cutright works on a staff of five people in the skateboarding division of Adidas. Based out of Portland, Ore., he’s the Skateboard Team Manager for the company, dealing with the travel, gear and contracts of the 10 skaters Adidas sponsors.

“It’s working with skateboarders that I look up to,” he said. “It’s really mind-blowing to go on a trip with them.”

His desk is right across from Marc Holcomb, the product manager of the skateboard shoes that Adidas produces. And that is how Lake County gets so much love from the company.

“He asks all of us for names [of the shoes],” Cutright said. “He has a long legacy of naming shoes after London, Stockholm and other large cities.”

The product manager had been doing it since the 1960s, so his names for shoes were getting a bit limited.

“He tapped all his ideas,” Cutright said.

So two years ago, Cutright suggested Polson as a name for a shoe, and sure enough, it hit the production line. Adidas produces between 20-25 different types of shoes a year.

“It was a cool way to pay homage to where I came from,” he said.

Cutright said that when people from Polson found out that the shoe was coming out, they were very excited.

“Everybody asked ‘where can I get one?’” he said.

The design calendar for the shoes is about a year long, due to the amount of work that goes into each project.

“There’s a fair amount of market research,” Cutright said. “You have to kind of use a crystal ball.”

They also have to test the shoes to ensure they’ll hold up to the skaters’ harsh requirements.

“The high quality materials will hold up well to skateboarding,” Cutright said. “What we’re looking for is thickness and durability.”

The shoes’ soles also have to be well-balanced. They have to be thick since the abrasive skateboard surface on the board can wreak havoc on materials, but not so thick that the skater can’t feel the board.

It also can’t be too thin so that it hurts every time the skater makes hard contact with the board or the ground.

“Plain, old comfort goes a long ways too,” Cutright said.

The “Ronan” will hit production early next year and joins Polson as what Cutright thinks the only small town in Montana to get a Adidas shoe named after them.

“We do a lot of business out of Germany so there could be a lot of small European towns that shoes are named after,” he said.

Cutright continues to help out and stay involved with SkateJam, which is held annually in Polson.

“You can see the excitement grow with the kids,” he said.