Tobey McIntosh, a freshman at Stanford University, just finished final exams for the winter quarter. Before McIntosh returns to class for the spring, he has some business to attend to. Specifically, his business with his favorite NBA team.
On March 25, the LA Clippers will have their only Friday-night home game of the season, hosting the Philadelphia 76ers. It will also be Sixers head coach Doc Rivers’ first time in the arena with a crowd in attendance since he stepped down as head coach of the Clippers in September 2020.
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What makes the game special for McIntosh is that the Clippers will launch a limited-edition merchandise collaboration with Crenshaw Skate Club, of which the 18-year-old is the owner, founder and designer.
“I’m a big person on full-circle moments,” McIntosh told The Athletic. “This is like a complete full-circle moment. As full circle as it gets.”
McIntosh started Crenshaw Skate Club in 2017 while growing up in the Crenshaw district of South Central Los Angeles. Before getting into Stanford, McIntosh went to Sato Academy of Mathematics and Science in Long Beach and had expressed an interest in engineering while leaning towards majoring in science, technology and society. An avid skater, McIntosh saw a void in how his community was constituted in skate culture, and wanted to be a part of the change.
“Me and my friends, we would always skate in our neighborhood and call ourselves the Crenshaw Skate Club,” McIntosh told The Athletic. “And so, I just started making shirts for me and my friends, because I felt like it’s important. Like, when I would watch skate videos and look at skate magazines, I never saw people that looked like me and my friends. So I created Crenshaw Skate Club to represent us in the skate industry, something that we could have to show people that we skate, too. Because I feel like inner city kids and kids of color are very underrepresented in the skate industry.”
McIntosh oversaw the growth of the Crenshaw Skate Club brand, from establishing a retail partnership with Supreme Los Angeles to celebrities like Justin Bieber rocking the gear. But while he is appreciative of the visibility that accelerates the brand, McIntosh emphasizes that the core values of Crenshaw Skate Club are to represent inner-city skaters and to inspire youth who grew up in similar situations that he grew up in.
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“When I grew up, I felt like you’re presented with two options to make it out: You could either be playing sports, or you can rap,” McIntosh said. “But I want to show kids that you can be a business owner. You can be an engineer. You can be whatever you want to be in life. There’s not only two pathways to make it out. And I think that through growing Crenshaw Skate Club, I can help do that and show people that it’s possible.”
The Clippers noted that Crenshaw Skate Club’s values “of inclusion and representation are a natural fit with the Clippers’ commitment to leveling the playing field and empowering the next generation to be great.” And in turn, the Clippers let McIntosh put his unique imprint on the team’s visual identity, something McIntosh was eager to execute.
“When I got the Clippers collab, before I even started to design it, I knew that I wanted to represent and have my brand be represented,” McIntosh told The Athletic. “That’s something my brand is known for: the characters and the graffiti-esque drawing, the bubble-lettering. I noticed with other NBA collaborations, it’s very boring in a way. It’s just like a plain logo with text, and then the logo. And that’s something I really appreciate — the Clippers really let me be free in designing this … they let me use my vision to do new designs for this collaboration.”
McIntosh drew inspiration from his neighborhood for some of his graphics, such as a Clippers player dunking on a court that resembles Kenneth Hahn Park, which is located right by McIntosh’s house. McIntosh wanted to show a meshing between the two sports of basketball and skateboarding.
“I want to take the Clippers and show it in a Crenshaw Skate Club perspective,” McIntosh continued. “I wanted to design things that you would typically never see with a brand collaborating with the NBA team. Kind of just stuff that’s crazy, that’s out there, and that people wouldn’t really expect.”
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The player that McIntosh had in mind to model for the promos was Clippers guard/forward Terance Mann, who is known both for his elevated sense of style and his status as a role model to the youth in the community. Mann, who says he wasn’t a skater but knows his way around mountain bikes and BMX, was impressed by McIntosh’s business acumen.
“I mean, he came up with the idea when he was 13 or 14,” Mann told The Athletic. “Just to be thinking like that, on that type of level at such a young age, shows why he’s at Stanford and kind of why he’s doing successfully.”
Behind the scenes of the LA Clippers x Crenshaw Skate Club collab! Click the link to sign up for the presale to secure early access to the shop!✍️
🔗: https://t.co/OrSDdz7f4g pic.twitter.com/Q603AStqB3
— LA Clippers (@LAClippers) March 24, 2022
“Working with Terance was great,” McIntosh said. “Everything just came together perfectly, because he was able to do it. He came on set; he was super cool. I talked to him about the brand, and he really enjoyed it. And even after the shoot, I’ve been in communication with him. He’s just a really cool, humble guy. And it was great to have him on set. It wasn’t something where he just showed up, took pictures and left. He talked to me and all my friends, and it was just a really good time having him there. He’s a really, really cool person.”
“That whole thing was cool,” Mann added about the shoot. “He had all his friends out there; they’re all supporting him. They got a good culture going for the neighborhoods. So it was pretty cool to be a part of that and just to show that I support it.”
In a city where the Los Angeles Lakers are a flagship franchise for the entire league, the Clippers fan base tends to get overlooked. McIntosh said his fandom for the Clippers was instilled from his father, Colin, who was born in New York. What McIntosh enjoyed about cheering for the Clippers was what he saw as an “underdog mentality” back when the Lakers were good.
“I remember specifically when Lob City came about, when we had Blake (Griffin) jumping over the Kia in the dunk contest,” McIntosh said. “Chris Paul’s trade got denied to the Lakers, and then we ended up getting him. I remember going to the games at that point. It was so exciting. It was just, like, you would go to the games, it was like a show. And that’s something that I really liked as well as a kid.”
(Photo courtesy of Tobey McIntosh)McIntosh credits Clippers games as an important part of his relationship with his father. Friday’s game will add another special experience that the two will share together.
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“Clippers is a very important part of me,” McIntosh said. “My relationship with my dad, that was something that helped strengthen that. That was our thing, me and my dad would go to a Clippers game. So that’s something that’s really important to me. Being able to collaborate with the Clippers was truly a surreal experience. If I told my 10-year-old self that in eight years I would be collaborating with the Clippers, I wouldn’t believe it.”
The Crenshaw Skate Club collaboration with the Clippers is just the latest in what has been a burgeoning portfolio for McIntosh. He has already done partnerships with Nike and Jordan Brand, and he has hosted skate drives and clothing drives for the Crenshaw YMCA. McIntosh turns 19 at the end of next month, and he just wants to keep going and inspiring others.
“My future, I just want to keep fulfilling my own dreams and my personal aspirations,” McIntosh said. “That’ll show kids that they can do that, as well. They can pursue their own personal dreams or their own aspirations. I think by me doing that, I can show them that that’s possible, as well.”
“I really like the vision. I like what he’s doing for his community,” Mann added. “It’s not all about himself. It’s more for, like, him and his friends and the younger generation coming behind them, giving kids out there an opportunity to think differently, also. If it wasn’t for him, kids probably wouldn’t be thinking differently. And he’s going to be one of those moguls in the area that really helps the future, for sure.”
(Top photo of Tobey McIntosh and Terance Mann: LA Clippers / Crenshaw Skate Club)
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