“Zero or die” in 2011, gone in 2014: why did Chris Cole leave Zero after 13 years?

January 2011. Chris Cole becomes a partner at Zero, Jamie Thomas’s brand, and he sums it up in three words: “Zero or die.” June 2014, he drops a post on Instagram saying he’s leaving. No reason given. Thirteen years on the team, three as an equity holder, and that summer we see him on a black board with no logo. What happened in between?

Langhorne, next to Philly: the kid from Love Park

Chris Cole was born in 1982 in Statesville, North Carolina. But he grew up in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. And in Philly, at that time, there was only one spot that mattered: Love Park, its granite slabs and fountain. The spot where Josh Kalis first set foot in 1994.

Before becoming the Chris Cole we know, he rode for G-Spot, then Enjoi. He told Thrasher in 2009: on the East Coast, far from everyone, he was mostly “a dude who rode the gear without really being in the crew.” They were a bunch of friends. He was on his own on the other side of the country.

Then came the world of Jamie Thomas. Zero for boards, Fallen for shoes, from the brand’s birth. And the Love Park fountain became his playground: backside flip, switch frontside flip, backside 360 ollie, all three at the bottom of the steps. You see them in his In Bloom segment on Transworld and in Ride the Sky, the Fallen video from 2008.

Two-time Skater of the Year, paid a quarter

The accolades roll in fast. Thrasher crowns him Skater of the Year in 2005, then again in 2009: he joins the tiny club of those who’ve earned it twice. With him, Zero wins King of the Road three times in a row. He takes the first three Maloof Money Cup titles, prompting the Maloof brothers to promise a million dollars to whoever wins four. He also grabs gold at the X Games two years in a row.

On paper, he's the best‑installed pro of his generation. But the paycheck doesn’t keep up. He’ll drop out much later, at Jenkem, no doubt.

Even years later, sponsored by Zero and Fallen and racking up a ton of contests, I was still pulling in only a quarter of what the guys I was up against were making. Chris Cole, Jenkem, October 2014

The quarter. For a double Skater of the Year. Keep that number in mind, it matters later.

January 2011: DC on the ground, “Zero or die”

On January 12, 2011, ESPN broke the news: Cole left Fallen for DC Shoes. He’d been with Fallen from day one, and the brand is owned by one of his best buds. “It was clearly a hard decision,” he says. Jamie and he talked about it “from the moment the topic came up to the moment it was settled.” And he warns right away: it doesn’t change anything for Zero. “I’m more involved with Zero than I ever have been.”

Thirteen days later, on January 25, Zero announced that Cole became an associate of the brand. The press release, echoed by Transworld Business, sounds like a pledge: “This is exactly where I want to be. Zero or die.” In turn, Jamie Thomas explains that Cole’s loyalty has been at the heart of Zero’s success for ten years, and that they’ll “work together for the life of the brand.”

For the life of the brand. In skate, you’ll read that line three years later.

June 2014: a black board, no logo

On June 27, 2014, Cole posted on Instagram: “Heavy heart, it’s time for Zero and me to part ways.” No word on why. He just says his decision “has absolutely nothing to do” with the partnership Zero just signed with Dwindle, the distributor. Zero’s account replies, thanking him for his “loyalty” and “dedication.” No public drama, nothing.

This summer, we see him shredding a brand‑new black board. In July, on Tony Hawk’s RIDE channel, they ask him who his next board sponsor will be. He says he has no idea. Then he drops 666 boards under his name, no brand on them, distributed by Reign, the shop he co‑owns in Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania. On top, a date in Roman numerals. The day he left Zero. “That’s all it means.”

A double Skater of the Year, partner in his own brand, leaves without a word and rides raw wood. Naturally, everyone’s asking the same question.

So why did he ditch Zero?

The answer comes straight from him to Ian Michna at Jenkem on October 28, 2014. It’s split into two parts.

First: the shares. Cole was a “silent” shareholder. His stake only mattered if Zero got sold. The sale never happened, and according to him it won’t. Result: “absolutely no payout,” and he’s no longer a shareholder. The 2011 “Zero or die” mantra never earned him a buck.

Second: the brand itself. “Zero just changed compared to the brand I started riding for. It doesn’t mean it was lame. It just wasn’t the same company.” When he left, Black Box, Jamie Thomas’s structure, was also moving to Dwindle distribution.

That’s the real answer. Chris Cole didn’t leave Zero for a bigger check elsewhere or because of a beef. He left because nothing was holding him back. His shares paid nothing, his salary had long been a quarter of his peers’, and the company he’d joined in the early 2000s was no longer the same. When neither the cash nor the brand’s spirit keeps you, “Zero or die” becomes a relic of another era.

And the friendship? It stayed solid: “Jamie Thomas and I have been buds for ages. He was at my wedding, it’s not a sponsorship that’s gonna change that.”

And then?

He’s not rushing it. “I’m not jumping on any brand, there’s a lot on the line,” he says to Jenkem. In May 2015 he joined Plan B. In 2019 he re‑joined Fallen, relaunched after its shutdown, with Tommy Sandoval and Billy Marks. And in September 2020 he went back to Zero. Six years after the black board.

The loop closes at Jamie Thomas, where it all began. But not as a partner, more as a vow.

Shareholder without touching anything, paid a quarter of the others: would you have stayed loyal or left long before? Drop it in the comments ↓

Correction dated October 3 2026: an early version of this piece, titled “Chris Cole and Chocolate: 18 years of a deal that changed the street,” claimed that Chris Cole had been riding for Chocolate for eighteen years and had a creative director role in the brand’s videos. That was wrong: Chris Cole never joined the Chocolate crew. His sponsor history is Zero (circa 2001‑2014, then again from 2020), Fallen, DC Shoes, and Plan B. The article was rewritten entirely from verified sources.