Skateboarding

Invented in the 1950s by southern California surfers who sought a way to surf without waves, skateboarding has itself experienced several waves of popularity. Almost universally outlawed in the 1960s because it was perceived as dangerous, skateboarding enjoyed a revival in the 1970s and another in the 1980s, helped along by Marty McFly, the skateboarding hero of the Back to the Future movies. In the 1990s, skateboarding once again flourished, not only as a popular "extreme" sport, but also as a five hundred million dollar a year business. Perhaps because it was spawned by the bohemian surfer culture, skateboarding has always had a rebel image, and it is this that may be responsible for the continuing renewal of its popularity among youth.

In the 1950s bored surfers attached composite roller skate wheels to pivoting axles and put them on the front and back of a wooden plank. The pivoting action helped steer the board, which was maneuvered much like a surfboard on the water, steering by changing the position of the feet and shifting one's weight. In 1973, the old fashioned metal wheels were replaced by newer roller skate wheels made of polyurethane. The new wheels gave the board stability, a smoother ride, and greater traction. Modern boards are made with scientific precision, often at small specialty companies run by skaters, with lighter, more durable decks (the board itself), neoprene wheels, and lightweight tempered trucks (the pivoting axle assembly). Selling at a hundred dollars each or more, skateboards are efficient vehicles both for transportation and for the flamboyant tricks that skaters refer to as "grabbing air."

Unlike surfers, skateboarders need nothing but the streets and concrete structures of the city to hone their skills, and they have nothing but concrete to break their falls. Thus skateboarding has attracted a tough, independent, and rebellious type of urban youth, who have created their own subculture. Skateboarders, who call themselves "thrashers" or "shredders," are largely self-taught. They have their own lingo, their own clothing styles, their own competitions, and their own publications. Thrasher, a radical "zine," and Transworld Skateboarding, a slightly more clean cut publication, are two of the most successful skateboarding magazines. Each has a circulation of well over 150,000. Skateboarding also spawned its own music genre, with a similarly wild image. Groups with names like Septic Death and Gang Green record their "speed metal" music on small labels devoted to "skate rock." One skate rock disc jockey, Skatemaster Tate, describes the music vividly: "It's punk rock and skating rolled up in a ball of confusion and screaming down the alley in a gutter."

Since skateboarding is often done by groups of teenagers on city streets, parking garages, empty swimming pools and the like, skaters are often subject to hostility from local citizenry and law enforcement officials. Cities have two basic approaches to controlling the thrashers: banning skateboarding or developing special parks devoted to the sport. Banning skating is usually unsuccessful simply because breaking the rules is as much a part of the flashy street sport as wheelies and spins. Skateboard parks offer a compromise that is often at least partially successful. Parks like the Savanna Slamma and Milwaukee's Turf Skateboard Park attract hundreds of skaters to show off their tricks on ramps and half-pipes constructed especially for safe skating. Some skaters however, feel that skating is by right a street sport and that relegating it to special parks robs it of its rebel cachet. This antipathy between thrashers and the law resulted in the most widely known skateboarding slogan, seen on bumper stickers nationwide, "Skateboarding is not a crime."

With an estimated twenty million skaters at the end of the 1990s, skateboarding is well entrenched as a flamboyant mode of transportation and expression for urban youth. Competitions such as ESPN's Extreme Games offer thrashers a chance to win gold, silver, and bronze medals in downhill racing, slalom racing, and freestyle. Though often considered dangerous, skateboarding has far fewer reported injuries than soccer, baseball, or basketball, and many skaters, in addition to the mandatory baggy T-shirt and baggier shorts, now sport kneepads, wrist guards, and helmets. Perhaps those statistics are best kept secret from older generations, however, to avoid ruining a perfectly good rebellious outlet for their offspring.

—Tina Gianoulis

Further Reading:

Cocks, Jay. "The Irresistible Lure of Grabbing Air." Time. June 6,1988, 90.

Evans, Jeremy. Skateboarding. New York, Crestwood House,1993.

Fried-Cassorla, Albert. The Ultimate Skateboard Book. Philadelphhia, Running Press, 1988.

Greenfeld, Karl Taro. "Killer Profits in Velcro Valley." Time. January 25, 1999, 50.

Thatcher, Kevin J. Thrasher: The Radical Skateboard Book. New York, Random House, 1992.