Sector 9

In the sun-drenched summer of ’93, a band of backyard tinkerers started slapping together skateboards, not realizing they were about to kickstart the longboard uprising known as Sector 9. It all began with one board, then two, and suddenly, they were less of a backyard band and more of a longboard legion.

The tale of how they got their name is as quirky as a kickflip. A buddy from Hawaii, famous for dubbing just about everyone “nineballs” in the most endearing way possible, rang them up one day. Finding only the answering machine to confide in, he left a message wondering, “What’s going on over there at Sector 9?” referring to what he imagined was a gathering of nineballs. Little did he know, he was naming the next big thing in longboarding.

This serendipitous moment coincided with the theft of their prized hill cruiser—a snowboard they had Frankenstein-ed into a skateboard—right from under their noses in Northbird, La Jolla. As they were putting the final touches on its replacements, they realized what they needed wasn’t just a logo, but a name that could capture their essence. The answering machine’s message rang out like a prophecy, and just like that, Sector 9 wasn’t just a place filled with nineballs; it was the beacon of longboarding innovation.