THE BOSS
For Tony Hawk, the Skateboard Is a Canvas
Published: February 6, 2010
I STARTED skateboarding because I never fit in with team sports. I was so energetic as a kid, and skating became my outlet. It was like finding a blank canvas.
Greg Gorman
TONY HAWK
President, Tony Hawk Inc., Vista, Calif.
AGE 41
NUMBER OF BONES HE HAS BROKEN 3
FAVORITE VACATION SPOT Tavarua Island, Fiji
FAVORITE MOVIE STAR Benicio Del Toro
You can skateboard however you want, any style. You don’t have to listen to a coach or rely on a team. I played basketball and baseball but never felt that I was improving. But every time I skated, I got better at it.
When I started, the industry was relatively small, and there weren’t many competitions. There was no governing organization. To reach a professional rank, I simply checked the box on the form for professional instead of amateur. To enter competitions today, you need the support of sponsors and you have to qualify.
In the early 1990s, interest in skateboarding dropped off, and royalties and sales of goods I had licensed decreased. It was a difficult time financially. I learned that I loved skateboarding even if I didn’t get paid for it. I knew this all along, but that period really put me to the test. It also taught me to be self-motivated and to appreciate what I had.
In 1992, I started Birdhouse Projects to sell skateboards. In 1998, I started Hawk Clothing and later sold it to Quiksilver. I also started Tony Hawk Inc. that year, and it now has five divisions: merchandising, endorsements, events, film and digital media. In 2002, I arranged the first of the Boom Boom HuckJam tours that feature BMX bikers, skateboarders, motocross athletes and rock bands.
I’ve had people question whether I’m a real person. Parents have said they think I’m a video game character. We just released a new video game, Tony Hawk: Ride, which has a skateboard as a controller. Selling hardware is not easy because people are under the impression they’re going to have to upgrade it at some point. Our challenge has been to convince them that it’s not the case with this game.
I didn’t attend college, but I’ve never regretted it because skating presented such a great opportunity. I traveled extensively. I experienced so many things that I otherwise wouldn’t have, and I was exposed to so much culture.
I’m not saying that everyone should skip college, but I learned so much that I feel I’m self-educated. When my high school classmates were trying to figure out what they were going to study, I already had a career and a house.
I still come up against the attitude that skating professionally is a bad influence on kids or not a viable career option. I do my best to prove the naysayers wrong. There’s also a lot of pressure associated with the title of professional skateboarder. No matter where I go, people expect amazing feats. If I go to a public skate park, kids will sit down and expect me to entertain them.
I don’t think in terms of being an icon; I think about being a role model to my own kids. If what I do transcends that, fine. But I’m not trying to present an image that’s not me.
I took my 1 1/2 -year-old daughter on the media tour for the video game last fall. It was fun to have her along.
I see some of myself in my sons. My 8-year-old has learned that the brick finish on our house can be used as a rock-climbing wall. Recently I heard yelling outside. I found him clinging to the side of the house 10 feet off the ground. He couldn’t get down and wanted me to catch him.
Several years ago I started a foundation to build free skate parks in low-income areas. Kids use them from sunup to sundown. Our endorsement can help cut through the red tape in communities. So far we’ve had a hand in creating 450 parks.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Danny Way: Stepping Aside as His Creation Soars
Stepping Aside as His Creation Soars
By MATT HIGGINS
Published: July 29, 2009
LOS ANGELES — In a professional skateboarding career that has spanned nearly 20 years, Danny Way has performed many first feats, like launching over the Great Wall of China in 2005 by using a mega ramp, an outsize creation he brought to the X Games a year earlier to create the sport’s newest and most thrilling spectacle.
Enlarge This Image
Jae C. Hong/Associated Press
Skateboarder Danny Way performed at the Hard Rock hotel-casino in Las Vegas in April.
Donald Miralle/Getty Images
Way, who has endured 13 operations, has plans for an even larger version of his mega ramp.
Although he will be part of the broadcasting crew at the Staples Center when the X Games begin Thursday, providing commentary on his creation, the skateboard Big Air competition, Way wants to make one thing clear about his career: he is not done.
“I’m not taking the position at X Games because I’m trying to retire or slow,” said Way, 35, who in November set a Guinness world speed record on a skateboard when he was towed by a car at 74.5 miles per hour on a lonely stretch of blacktop in the California desert.
“My whole motivation with creating this event was getting it to a point where it could stand on its own, without me having to be out there putting the show on every time,” he said about Big Air, an event he has won three times.
With Way on the sideline, some have wondered whether Big Air can maintain its appeal.
“Danny Way went out of his way to make this thing happen,” said Jake Phelps, editor of Thrasher magazine, which covers the sport. “Now it’s his cross to bear. He’s got to up the ante every time he goes out there.”
On Friday, Way will again put on his pads and a show when he rides to the top of the 62-foot-high, 293-foot-long mega ramp to compete in the Big Air Rail Jam, a new feature at X Games where skaters try to slide along an arched metal rail while soaring over a 50-foot gap.
But perhaps Way’s most ambitious feat will begin a week after the Games when he heads to Hawaii, where he is building a house, and what he hopes will be the next step in skateboarding, on 19 acres of rolling pasture on Kauai. He has plans on paper for a mega ramp 2.0, a longer, larger version, with more features, similar to a snowboarding slopestyle course.
“I want to get back to what I do best, and that’s getting creative and trying to find out what’s next,” Way said.
He has secured funding from sponsors for his designs and will begin building in the next several months, he said. When finished, he hopes to bring the new ramp to the X Games as an extension of Big Air.
Way created the mega ramp in similar fashion. Using sponsorship money from DC Shoes, a company he co-founded, he built the first version in 2002 in the California desert. The construction and jumps were carried off with secrecy and finally unveiled as part of a DC video released in 2003. The skateboarding community was stunned.
“It was like three times the size of anything I had ever seen in skateboarding,” said Jake Brown, one of the first to take a run on the ramp. “It was crazy. It still is crazy. It’s crazy that he envisioned it and it worked, the first time.”
Way persuaded ESPN to bring the mega ramp to the X Games in 2004. He also had to persuade his fellow halfpipe skaters to make the leap to the much larger and more dangerous structure.
“Danny has inspired a lot of people,” said Bob Burnquist, who has a mega ramp in his backyard in Vista, Calif., and who has won Big Air at the last two X Games. “And I love seeing whatever Danny does when he puts his mind to it.”
Not everyone was so enthusiastic.
“When he first started doing it, people were like, ‘Yeah, whatever, dude, it’s you,’ ” Phelps said. “Now it’s become the most shocking thing in the X Games and all the other pros had to get with it. And a lot of them are like, ‘I’m not doing it.’ ”
They had good reasons. At the 2007 X Games, Brown plunged 45 feet from above the ramp, striking the bottom with such force that both his sneakers shot off and he was knocked unconscious. Although he walked off the ramp with assistance, Brown spent three days in a hospital recovering from a broken wrist, a bleeding liver, a bruised lung and cracked vertebrae.
During last year’s Big Air final, Way clipped the lip of the 27-foot-high quarterpipe with his legs, flipped over and slammed on his back at the bottom of the ramp, hushing the Staples Center crowd. After members of the medical staff rushed to his side, Way rose, limped off the ramp and did not miss a run. Although he had to settle for a silver medal, ESPN named Way its Athlete of the Games.
“He’s like John Wayne,” Phelps said. “He’s true grit. I’m scared just looking at his eyes. He looks right through you, Terminator style.”
Way’s intensity comes from a difficult childhood. His father died when he was an infant and his mother struggled with substance abuse, he said. He saw skateboarding as a savior, tattooing “sk8” on his left ring finger.
“It’s my wife, it’s my best friend,” Way said. “It’s everything to me.”
And it has seen him through good times and bad. Way is the only person twice honored as Skater of the Year by Thrasher magazine. He is wealthy beyond the dreams of most skateboarders, having benefited when DC was bought by Quiksilver for $87 million in 2004, according to published reports. Of course, he has also endured 13 operations to repair broken body parts — the last of which, a knee reconstruction, came two years ago.
Despite the ups and downs, Way remains driven to push skateboarding to new heights, with bigger and better ramp designs. And skateboarding seems content to follow.
“He’s always been a couple steps ahead of everybody,” Brown said. “I’m waiting to see what’s next.”
By MATT HIGGINS
Published: July 29, 2009
LOS ANGELES — In a professional skateboarding career that has spanned nearly 20 years, Danny Way has performed many first feats, like launching over the Great Wall of China in 2005 by using a mega ramp, an outsize creation he brought to the X Games a year earlier to create the sport’s newest and most thrilling spectacle.
Enlarge This Image
Jae C. Hong/Associated Press
Skateboarder Danny Way performed at the Hard Rock hotel-casino in Las Vegas in April.
Donald Miralle/Getty Images
Way, who has endured 13 operations, has plans for an even larger version of his mega ramp.
Although he will be part of the broadcasting crew at the Staples Center when the X Games begin Thursday, providing commentary on his creation, the skateboard Big Air competition, Way wants to make one thing clear about his career: he is not done.
“I’m not taking the position at X Games because I’m trying to retire or slow,” said Way, 35, who in November set a Guinness world speed record on a skateboard when he was towed by a car at 74.5 miles per hour on a lonely stretch of blacktop in the California desert.
“My whole motivation with creating this event was getting it to a point where it could stand on its own, without me having to be out there putting the show on every time,” he said about Big Air, an event he has won three times.
With Way on the sideline, some have wondered whether Big Air can maintain its appeal.
“Danny Way went out of his way to make this thing happen,” said Jake Phelps, editor of Thrasher magazine, which covers the sport. “Now it’s his cross to bear. He’s got to up the ante every time he goes out there.”
On Friday, Way will again put on his pads and a show when he rides to the top of the 62-foot-high, 293-foot-long mega ramp to compete in the Big Air Rail Jam, a new feature at X Games where skaters try to slide along an arched metal rail while soaring over a 50-foot gap.
But perhaps Way’s most ambitious feat will begin a week after the Games when he heads to Hawaii, where he is building a house, and what he hopes will be the next step in skateboarding, on 19 acres of rolling pasture on Kauai. He has plans on paper for a mega ramp 2.0, a longer, larger version, with more features, similar to a snowboarding slopestyle course.
“I want to get back to what I do best, and that’s getting creative and trying to find out what’s next,” Way said.
He has secured funding from sponsors for his designs and will begin building in the next several months, he said. When finished, he hopes to bring the new ramp to the X Games as an extension of Big Air.
Way created the mega ramp in similar fashion. Using sponsorship money from DC Shoes, a company he co-founded, he built the first version in 2002 in the California desert. The construction and jumps were carried off with secrecy and finally unveiled as part of a DC video released in 2003. The skateboarding community was stunned.
“It was like three times the size of anything I had ever seen in skateboarding,” said Jake Brown, one of the first to take a run on the ramp. “It was crazy. It still is crazy. It’s crazy that he envisioned it and it worked, the first time.”
Way persuaded ESPN to bring the mega ramp to the X Games in 2004. He also had to persuade his fellow halfpipe skaters to make the leap to the much larger and more dangerous structure.
“Danny has inspired a lot of people,” said Bob Burnquist, who has a mega ramp in his backyard in Vista, Calif., and who has won Big Air at the last two X Games. “And I love seeing whatever Danny does when he puts his mind to it.”
Not everyone was so enthusiastic.
“When he first started doing it, people were like, ‘Yeah, whatever, dude, it’s you,’ ” Phelps said. “Now it’s become the most shocking thing in the X Games and all the other pros had to get with it. And a lot of them are like, ‘I’m not doing it.’ ”
They had good reasons. At the 2007 X Games, Brown plunged 45 feet from above the ramp, striking the bottom with such force that both his sneakers shot off and he was knocked unconscious. Although he walked off the ramp with assistance, Brown spent three days in a hospital recovering from a broken wrist, a bleeding liver, a bruised lung and cracked vertebrae.
During last year’s Big Air final, Way clipped the lip of the 27-foot-high quarterpipe with his legs, flipped over and slammed on his back at the bottom of the ramp, hushing the Staples Center crowd. After members of the medical staff rushed to his side, Way rose, limped off the ramp and did not miss a run. Although he had to settle for a silver medal, ESPN named Way its Athlete of the Games.
“He’s like John Wayne,” Phelps said. “He’s true grit. I’m scared just looking at his eyes. He looks right through you, Terminator style.”
Way’s intensity comes from a difficult childhood. His father died when he was an infant and his mother struggled with substance abuse, he said. He saw skateboarding as a savior, tattooing “sk8” on his left ring finger.
“It’s my wife, it’s my best friend,” Way said. “It’s everything to me.”
And it has seen him through good times and bad. Way is the only person twice honored as Skater of the Year by Thrasher magazine. He is wealthy beyond the dreams of most skateboarders, having benefited when DC was bought by Quiksilver for $87 million in 2004, according to published reports. Of course, he has also endured 13 operations to repair broken body parts — the last of which, a knee reconstruction, came two years ago.
Despite the ups and downs, Way remains driven to push skateboarding to new heights, with bigger and better ramp designs. And skateboarding seems content to follow.
“He’s always been a couple steps ahead of everybody,” Brown said. “I’m waiting to see what’s next.”
Graying Skateboarders Hope to Revive Slalom
Jilli Bethany
With their ranks rapidly graying, slalom skaters like Josh Churchill hope too lure a new generation of riders to the sport.
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By MATT HIGGINS
Published: July 17, 2009
In 1975, Gary Fluitt was 10 years old and cruising alone on his skateboard down the main drag in Los Osos, along California’s central coast, when a man he did not know pulled up in a 1967 green Ford Thunderbird with a white interior.
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Jilli Bethany
“What appeals to me about racing is that it’s objective,” said Gary Fluitt, left. “It’s not a judged sport. You race against a clock.”
He said, “ ‘Hey, man, want to go to a skateboard race?’ ” Fluitt recalled.
Fluitt acknowledged that more than 30 years ago, childhood and skateboarding were perhaps more innocent. So he climbed into the car and was taken across town, where he watched competitors boom down a street with a steep grade, weaving among cones in an attempt to post the fastest time. For Fluitt, the race had the right ingredients: speed, excitement and a little danger.
“I was hooked,” he said about his first glimpse of slalom skateboarding.
Now 45, Fluitt finished second in the masters class of the tight slalom at the Seismic United States Nationals of slalom skateboarding last weekend in Lafayette, Colo.
In a sport that celebrates youth, slalom skateboarders are more likely to be middle-aged; there are about 500 active practitioners in the United States. With virtually no news media coverage for slalom’s roughly 75 races each year, it is one of the most obscure disciplines in skateboarding.
More than 70 skaters from the United States, Australia, France, Germany and Canada are competing for little more than bragging rights at the world championships of slalom skateboarding, which started Friday in Hood River, Ore.
It was not always this way. In the 1970s, slalom was one of the most popular forms of skateboarding, and its fastest racers regularly appeared on the covers of skateboarding magazines.
“What appeals to me about racing is that it’s objective,” said Fluitt, who works for Sun Microsystems in Colorado. “It’s not a judged sport. You race against a clock.”
Many believe the sport itself is racing against time. With their ranks rapidly graying, slalom skaters have tried hard to lure a new generation. Their most promising project involves a slalom program set up this summer at the Woodward camp in central Pennsylvania, where thousands of young skateboarders hone their moves each summer. With two instructors and six courses, the program can accommodate 10 to 15 campers daily. Virtually all of them have never seen slalom before.
“The response has been very good, not only with the kids, but you have to have a good response with the staff and pros,” said Gary Ream, a co-owner of the Woodward camps. “It has been very good.”
With ramps, street obstacles and innovative training devices like trampolines, foam pits and ramps with soft landings, the Woodward camps have been launching pads for many of the stars of skateboarding, BMX freestyle, freestyle motocross and snowboarding.
Can courses at Woodward do the same for slalom? Dan Gesmer hopes so. He is the owner of Seismic Skate Systems, an equipment manufacturer that provided specialized wheels and trucks for the slalom boards at Woodward and that is the title sponsor of the world championships.
“The Woodward program is important,” Gesmer said. “If a younger generation of skaters doesn’t know slalom and downhill are even possible, they’re not going to be interested in it.”
Spreading the word often falls to the racers themselves. Jason Mitchell, 42, a two-time overall world slalom champion from Colorado, has introduced children as young as 7 to slalom at a local Y.M.C.A., where he is a skateboarding instructor. And Judi Oyama, 49, a mother of two from Santa Cruz, Calif., who won a world championship in hybrid slalom in 2003, has taught slalom skateboarding courses through her local parks and recreation department.
“An evangelist, that’s what the older guys have become,” said Jack Smith, 52, the driver of the Thunderbird who introduced Fluitt to slalom 34 years ago. “There’s been generations of skaters that have no idea what slalom is.”
After peaking in the mid-1970s, slalom was shunted aside by skateboarding magazines and equipment manufacturers in favor of nascent vertical riding, where skaters carved empty swimming pools and pulled aerial maneuvers. By the early 1980s, slalom competition had mostly disappeared in the United States.
In 2001, Smith used the Internet to track down former slalom enthusiasts and organized the International Slalom Skateboarding Association world slalom championships in Morro Bay, Calif. More than 70 competitors showed up, from 11 countries. Many of them had not raced in 20 years.
“Some of the former greats came out of the woodwork,” Smith said. “It was like a reunion of the tribe.”
With new, improved equipment, they were faster, too. With four classifications featuring different course setups, racers can travel at speeds up to 40 miles an hour and pass five cones per second.
But the equipment, which is specialized and can cost $500 or more for a complete setup, has been a barrier to entry. And so has finding suitable roads on which to practice without encountering cars.
Still, in the nine years since Smith reorganized the world championships, a crew of younger racers has emerged. Twenty competitors at the world championships are under 18. The new generation tends to come from enclaves in California, the Pacific Northwest and Colorado.
Martin Reaves, 18, of Boulder, Colo., began racing in 2007. He finished second to Mitchell in the hybrid slalom pro class at the national championships last week and won the pro class in giant slalom Friday at the world championships. This summer he will compete in the Czech Republic, where slalom is more competitive and popular.
Four years ago, Reaves had never heard of slalom.
“I would have never found the sport without one of my friends showing me,” Reaves said. “I was kind of lucky that I found it.”
Jilli Bethany
With their ranks rapidly graying, slalom skaters like Josh Churchill hope too lure a new generation of riders to the sport.
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By MATT HIGGINS
Published: July 17, 2009
In 1975, Gary Fluitt was 10 years old and cruising alone on his skateboard down the main drag in Los Osos, along California’s central coast, when a man he did not know pulled up in a 1967 green Ford Thunderbird with a white interior.
Enlarge This Image
Jilli Bethany
“What appeals to me about racing is that it’s objective,” said Gary Fluitt, left. “It’s not a judged sport. You race against a clock.”
He said, “ ‘Hey, man, want to go to a skateboard race?’ ” Fluitt recalled.
Fluitt acknowledged that more than 30 years ago, childhood and skateboarding were perhaps more innocent. So he climbed into the car and was taken across town, where he watched competitors boom down a street with a steep grade, weaving among cones in an attempt to post the fastest time. For Fluitt, the race had the right ingredients: speed, excitement and a little danger.
“I was hooked,” he said about his first glimpse of slalom skateboarding.
Now 45, Fluitt finished second in the masters class of the tight slalom at the Seismic United States Nationals of slalom skateboarding last weekend in Lafayette, Colo.
In a sport that celebrates youth, slalom skateboarders are more likely to be middle-aged; there are about 500 active practitioners in the United States. With virtually no news media coverage for slalom’s roughly 75 races each year, it is one of the most obscure disciplines in skateboarding.
More than 70 skaters from the United States, Australia, France, Germany and Canada are competing for little more than bragging rights at the world championships of slalom skateboarding, which started Friday in Hood River, Ore.
It was not always this way. In the 1970s, slalom was one of the most popular forms of skateboarding, and its fastest racers regularly appeared on the covers of skateboarding magazines.
“What appeals to me about racing is that it’s objective,” said Fluitt, who works for Sun Microsystems in Colorado. “It’s not a judged sport. You race against a clock.”
Many believe the sport itself is racing against time. With their ranks rapidly graying, slalom skaters have tried hard to lure a new generation. Their most promising project involves a slalom program set up this summer at the Woodward camp in central Pennsylvania, where thousands of young skateboarders hone their moves each summer. With two instructors and six courses, the program can accommodate 10 to 15 campers daily. Virtually all of them have never seen slalom before.
“The response has been very good, not only with the kids, but you have to have a good response with the staff and pros,” said Gary Ream, a co-owner of the Woodward camps. “It has been very good.”
With ramps, street obstacles and innovative training devices like trampolines, foam pits and ramps with soft landings, the Woodward camps have been launching pads for many of the stars of skateboarding, BMX freestyle, freestyle motocross and snowboarding.
Can courses at Woodward do the same for slalom? Dan Gesmer hopes so. He is the owner of Seismic Skate Systems, an equipment manufacturer that provided specialized wheels and trucks for the slalom boards at Woodward and that is the title sponsor of the world championships.
“The Woodward program is important,” Gesmer said. “If a younger generation of skaters doesn’t know slalom and downhill are even possible, they’re not going to be interested in it.”
Spreading the word often falls to the racers themselves. Jason Mitchell, 42, a two-time overall world slalom champion from Colorado, has introduced children as young as 7 to slalom at a local Y.M.C.A., where he is a skateboarding instructor. And Judi Oyama, 49, a mother of two from Santa Cruz, Calif., who won a world championship in hybrid slalom in 2003, has taught slalom skateboarding courses through her local parks and recreation department.
“An evangelist, that’s what the older guys have become,” said Jack Smith, 52, the driver of the Thunderbird who introduced Fluitt to slalom 34 years ago. “There’s been generations of skaters that have no idea what slalom is.”
After peaking in the mid-1970s, slalom was shunted aside by skateboarding magazines and equipment manufacturers in favor of nascent vertical riding, where skaters carved empty swimming pools and pulled aerial maneuvers. By the early 1980s, slalom competition had mostly disappeared in the United States.
In 2001, Smith used the Internet to track down former slalom enthusiasts and organized the International Slalom Skateboarding Association world slalom championships in Morro Bay, Calif. More than 70 competitors showed up, from 11 countries. Many of them had not raced in 20 years.
“Some of the former greats came out of the woodwork,” Smith said. “It was like a reunion of the tribe.”
With new, improved equipment, they were faster, too. With four classifications featuring different course setups, racers can travel at speeds up to 40 miles an hour and pass five cones per second.
But the equipment, which is specialized and can cost $500 or more for a complete setup, has been a barrier to entry. And so has finding suitable roads on which to practice without encountering cars.
Still, in the nine years since Smith reorganized the world championships, a crew of younger racers has emerged. Twenty competitors at the world championships are under 18. The new generation tends to come from enclaves in California, the Pacific Northwest and Colorado.
Martin Reaves, 18, of Boulder, Colo., began racing in 2007. He finished second to Mitchell in the hybrid slalom pro class at the national championships last week and won the pro class in giant slalom Friday at the world championships. This summer he will compete in the Czech Republic, where slalom is more competitive and popular.
Four years ago, Reaves had never heard of slalom.
“I would have never found the sport without one of my friends showing me,” Reaves said. “I was kind of lucky that I found it.”
Generations of Skaters Gather to Pay Tribute to a Legend of the City
Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times
Skaters met at the Autumn Bowl on Saturday to remember Andy Kessler, a skating icon who died last week.
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By COLIN MOYNIHAN
Published: August 16, 2009
The noise of skateboard wheels thrumming on wooden ramps echoed near the Brooklyn waterfront in Greenpoint on Saturday night, where a semisecret skating spot called the Autumn Bowl is located inside an old brick warehouse.
Related
Happy Days: The End of Falling (August 13, 2009)
Andy Kessler, Skateboard Hero, Dies at 48 (August 13, 2009)
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Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times
A makeshift memorial for Mr. Kessler.
Enlarge This Image
Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times
Mr. Kessler designed the Riverside Skate Park.
Photographs of the New York City skateboarding pioneer Andy Kessler decorated the walls inside the warehouse, and bouquets of roses sat on a table next to handwritten messages addressed to Mr. Kessler, who died last week at age 48 after an allergic reaction to an insect sting.
In another sort of tribute, dozens of skaters took turns whizzing around a 2,500-square-foot, 7-foot-deep birch skateboarding bowl, as a boom box blared songs by the Beastie Boys and the Who.
Among the 200 or so people who showed up to remember Mr. Kessler was Tony Alva, a champion skater from Santa Monica, Calif., who many believe epitomizes West Coast skating and who said that Mr. Kessler embodied “the spirit of New York.”
“He carried that flag higher and bolder than anyone,” Mr. Alva said as he stood in a wide alleyway next to the warehouse. “He skates with me today.”
More than 30 years of skating the homemade ramps and rutted streets of New York City left plenty of marks on Mr. Kessler, including scrapes and scars from bone-shattering collisions. And in many ways, Mr. Kessler left an equally strong impression on the city.
They called him the Godfather, and as a teenager on the Upper West Side in the 1970s he skated at places with names like the Death Bowl, an abandoned pool in the Bronx, and Suicide Hill, a steep slope near the banks of the Hudson River. He also became a member of a group of graffiti writers and skaters who called themselves the Soul Artists of Zoo York and who helped define East Coast skating.
“Andy was like the president, the king,” said an artist called Zephyr, who was part of the group.
As a teenager Mr. Kessler skated on the fringes of the city, using planks pilfered from construction sites to create makeshift ramps. Later, after wrangling with the New York City parks department, he designed and helped build one of the city’s first sanctioned skate parks, at 108th Street and Riverside Drive. It opened in the mid-1990s at a spot where he had first skated 20 years before. Other skate parks followed.
The renegade roots of that time seemed distant on Saturday morning as a handful of young skaters there signed forms that exempted the city from liability, then — wearing helmets, elbow pads and kneepads — rolled briskly along. One young skater, wearing a red helmet, paused at the mention of Mr. Kessler’s name.
“Who doesn’t know him?” asked the skater, Anthony Rojas, 11, from Washington Heights, adding that he thought the park “needs some more ramps.”
There was more talk of Mr. Kessler that evening at the Autumn Bowl, where young skaters who wanted to acknowledge his legacy gathered with longtime friends who had rolled with him as teenagers through nighttime streets. Skating luminaries from California mingled next to Mr. Kessler’s mother and sister, who had recently arrived from Florida.
“He had a wonderful heart,” said Mr. Kessler’s mother, Ruth. “If anybody ever needed anything, Andy would help them.”
But underlying that generosity, friends said, was a blunt willingness to sometimes ruffle feathers.
“We loved him for his straight-up candor,” said J. J. Veronis, 46. “That boldness was like an avenue he would open up right in front of you to follow.”
For some time Mr. Kessler traveled a path of passionate abandon, friends agreed. But after giving up drinking and drugs more than 20 years ago, he declared his dedication to others seeking sobriety, answering the phone late at night to offer counsel, or taking struggling comrades on trips away from the narcotic temptations of the city.
Sometimes, during those journeys, he would cite skating as a simile for a healthy life. And some friends extended that thought on Saturday while analyzing Mr. Kessler’s skating style. Steve Olson, a well-known skater from Los Angeles, called him “a soul skater.” Mr. Veronis, who grew up with Mr. Kessler in the 1970s, called him “the artful dodger.”
Mr. Kessler never stopped skating, but it was more or less inevitable that would he slow down somewhat as he aged. Five years ago, while skating in SoHo, Mr. Kessler wiped out. In the resulting crash, he dislocated a femur, damaged his pelvis and broke a kneecap.
More recently, he had been surfing in Montauk, N.Y., partly in an effort to spare his body further battering, friends said. Mr. Kessler was on a surfing trip there last Monday, when he received a sting from a wasp that resulted in cardiac arrest.
The news staggered friends, and they began gathering at the KCDC Skateshop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where the shop owner, Amy Gunther, planned Saturday’s memorial along with Mr. Kessler’s far-flung friends.
Common experiences emerged. For everyone he had aided within the world of skating, it seemed, there was also somebody who credited Mr. Kessler with helping him or her steer clear of drugs or alcohol.
Harry Jumonji, 41, from the Lower East Side, said on Saturday night that Mr. Kessler took him to Montauk last week to get him away from the heroin he was in the midst of quitting.
“He saved my life,” Mr. Jumonji said. “I wish I could have saved his.”
Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times
Skaters met at the Autumn Bowl on Saturday to remember Andy Kessler, a skating icon who died last week.
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By COLIN MOYNIHAN
Published: August 16, 2009
The noise of skateboard wheels thrumming on wooden ramps echoed near the Brooklyn waterfront in Greenpoint on Saturday night, where a semisecret skating spot called the Autumn Bowl is located inside an old brick warehouse.
Related
Happy Days: The End of Falling (August 13, 2009)
Andy Kessler, Skateboard Hero, Dies at 48 (August 13, 2009)
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Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times
A makeshift memorial for Mr. Kessler.
Enlarge This Image
Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times
Mr. Kessler designed the Riverside Skate Park.
Photographs of the New York City skateboarding pioneer Andy Kessler decorated the walls inside the warehouse, and bouquets of roses sat on a table next to handwritten messages addressed to Mr. Kessler, who died last week at age 48 after an allergic reaction to an insect sting.
In another sort of tribute, dozens of skaters took turns whizzing around a 2,500-square-foot, 7-foot-deep birch skateboarding bowl, as a boom box blared songs by the Beastie Boys and the Who.
Among the 200 or so people who showed up to remember Mr. Kessler was Tony Alva, a champion skater from Santa Monica, Calif., who many believe epitomizes West Coast skating and who said that Mr. Kessler embodied “the spirit of New York.”
“He carried that flag higher and bolder than anyone,” Mr. Alva said as he stood in a wide alleyway next to the warehouse. “He skates with me today.”
More than 30 years of skating the homemade ramps and rutted streets of New York City left plenty of marks on Mr. Kessler, including scrapes and scars from bone-shattering collisions. And in many ways, Mr. Kessler left an equally strong impression on the city.
They called him the Godfather, and as a teenager on the Upper West Side in the 1970s he skated at places with names like the Death Bowl, an abandoned pool in the Bronx, and Suicide Hill, a steep slope near the banks of the Hudson River. He also became a member of a group of graffiti writers and skaters who called themselves the Soul Artists of Zoo York and who helped define East Coast skating.
“Andy was like the president, the king,” said an artist called Zephyr, who was part of the group.
As a teenager Mr. Kessler skated on the fringes of the city, using planks pilfered from construction sites to create makeshift ramps. Later, after wrangling with the New York City parks department, he designed and helped build one of the city’s first sanctioned skate parks, at 108th Street and Riverside Drive. It opened in the mid-1990s at a spot where he had first skated 20 years before. Other skate parks followed.
The renegade roots of that time seemed distant on Saturday morning as a handful of young skaters there signed forms that exempted the city from liability, then — wearing helmets, elbow pads and kneepads — rolled briskly along. One young skater, wearing a red helmet, paused at the mention of Mr. Kessler’s name.
“Who doesn’t know him?” asked the skater, Anthony Rojas, 11, from Washington Heights, adding that he thought the park “needs some more ramps.”
There was more talk of Mr. Kessler that evening at the Autumn Bowl, where young skaters who wanted to acknowledge his legacy gathered with longtime friends who had rolled with him as teenagers through nighttime streets. Skating luminaries from California mingled next to Mr. Kessler’s mother and sister, who had recently arrived from Florida.
“He had a wonderful heart,” said Mr. Kessler’s mother, Ruth. “If anybody ever needed anything, Andy would help them.”
But underlying that generosity, friends said, was a blunt willingness to sometimes ruffle feathers.
“We loved him for his straight-up candor,” said J. J. Veronis, 46. “That boldness was like an avenue he would open up right in front of you to follow.”
For some time Mr. Kessler traveled a path of passionate abandon, friends agreed. But after giving up drinking and drugs more than 20 years ago, he declared his dedication to others seeking sobriety, answering the phone late at night to offer counsel, or taking struggling comrades on trips away from the narcotic temptations of the city.
Sometimes, during those journeys, he would cite skating as a simile for a healthy life. And some friends extended that thought on Saturday while analyzing Mr. Kessler’s skating style. Steve Olson, a well-known skater from Los Angeles, called him “a soul skater.” Mr. Veronis, who grew up with Mr. Kessler in the 1970s, called him “the artful dodger.”
Mr. Kessler never stopped skating, but it was more or less inevitable that would he slow down somewhat as he aged. Five years ago, while skating in SoHo, Mr. Kessler wiped out. In the resulting crash, he dislocated a femur, damaged his pelvis and broke a kneecap.
More recently, he had been surfing in Montauk, N.Y., partly in an effort to spare his body further battering, friends said. Mr. Kessler was on a surfing trip there last Monday, when he received a sting from a wasp that resulted in cardiac arrest.
The news staggered friends, and they began gathering at the KCDC Skateshop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where the shop owner, Amy Gunther, planned Saturday’s memorial along with Mr. Kessler’s far-flung friends.
Common experiences emerged. For everyone he had aided within the world of skating, it seemed, there was also somebody who credited Mr. Kessler with helping him or her steer clear of drugs or alcohol.
Harry Jumonji, 41, from the Lower East Side, said on Saturday night that Mr. Kessler took him to Montauk last week to get him away from the heroin he was in the midst of quitting.
“He saved my life,” Mr. Jumonji said. “I wish I could have saved his.”
Skateboarding in Afghanistan Provides a Diversion From Desolation
Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
Afghan youth have taken to skateboarding since Oliver Percovich of Australia introduced it in Kabul.
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By ADAM B. ELLICK
Published: January 25, 2009
KABUL, Afghanistan — It looked like an ordinary neighborhood playground: six children tumbling off their skateboards to the tune of laughter. But only hours before, just 20 yards away, the body of a suicide car bomber was sprawled beside a glistening pool of blood.
Enlarge This Image
Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
Oliver Percovich’s current skateboard park is a decrepit concrete fountain. His Skateistan school will be eight miles away.
Afghan youth have learned to recover almost instantly from such routine violence. One person determined to inject some normalcy into their lives is Oliver Percovich. A 34-year-old from Melbourne, Australia, he plans to open this country’s first skateboarding school, Skateistan, this spring. He sees sport as a way to woo students into after-school activities like English and computer classes, which are otherwise reserved for the elite.
“Teenagers are trying to dissociate from old mentalities, and I’m their servant,” Percovich said. “If they weren’t interested, I would’ve left a long time ago.”
Now, when he pulls his motorcycle into a residential courtyard here, a dozen youngsters pounce before it comes to a stop, yanking six chipped skateboards with fading paint off the back. The children, most participating in a sport for the first time in their war-hardened lives, do not want to waste any time.
Their skateboard park is a decrepit Soviet-style concrete fountain with deep fissures. The tangle of novice skaters resembles bumper cars more than X Games.
But Percovich has raised the money needed to build an 8,600-square-foot bubble to house the nonprofit Skateistan complex, and the Kabul Parks Authority has tentatively donated land. He is still waiting for official permission to begin the project. And since a spate of kidnappings and the car bombing in late November, he has reduced his daily sessions at the fountain to once or twice a week.
Among those who look forward to his visits is Maro, an elfin 9-year-old girl who was terrified of skateboarding at first.
“It gives me courage, and once I start skating, I completely forget about my fears,” she said.
All the children spoke through an interpreter.
Maro’s glittery Mickey Mouse shirt indicated middle-class status. She stood out from the street children in muddied clothes who shared the skate space. Because the sport is so new and unusual here, Percovich said, it may help mend the nation’s deep social and ethnic divisions.
But for Hadisa, a 10-year-old girl from a conservative family, skateboarding has not been accepted. She said two older brothers beat her with wires for skating with poorer children in September. Several friends said they had seen blood flowing from her leg.
“I’m not upset with my brothers for beating me,” Hadisa whispered on a recent day when she did not skate because her oldest brother was nearby. “They have the right.”
But some girls cannot skate enough because their window for participation is short. When Afghan girls reach puberty, they must be veiled and can no longer associate with men outside the family. Percovich said his indoor skate park could be part of the solution, with boys and girls in separate classes.
“If my family doesn’t let me skate when I grow up, and they tell me I need to be at home, then I have to respect my family,” Maro said. “And I won’t be able to skate.”
Maro’s grandfather, Abdul Hai Muram, a retired political commentator, stroked her ponytail as he considered her future. He said he wanted her to be able to play outside when she turned 15 but worried about society’s reaction.
“Families are still careful and thoughtful about letting their daughters out,” Muram, 65, said. “We’re entitled to be very strict and afraid because negative consequences from the Taliban time are still out there, and men do whatever they want to women.”
He added, “It may take 10 years for things to be normal for women.”
Perhaps no one is more excited for the skateboard park than Mirwais, a 16-year-old boy who can do an ollie, an aerial trick that is the foundation for more advanced moves. Mirwais, who dropped out of school after second grade, first noticed the skate sessions from an adjacent parking lot, where he washed cars for $4 a day to support his family of eight. Percovich said Mirwais was often high from sniffing glue.
Now Mirwais looks more tidy and earns $8 a day working for the Skateistan project, repairing boards, running errands and assisting at the informal skate sessions.
“I want to improve as much as I can, and continue to support my family with skating,” he said. “It’s my future.”
Still, many middle- and upper-class youngsters complain that Mirwais ridicules them using foul language, evidence of the challenge with mixing social classes and ethnic groups here.
But Percovich is determined to overcome the obstacles. He arrived here rather impulsively in early 2007 because his girlfriend at the time had taken a job in Kabul. He gave up his bakery business, stuffed some clothes — and his skateboards — into a bag and left Australia.
Enlarge This Image
Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
“It gives me courage, and once I start skating, I completely forget about my fears,” one girl said.
Unable to find work, Percovich did what he has done since he was 6. He rode his skateboard, undaunted by the military convoys, pushcarts, donkeys, a suffocating film of dust and occasional car bombings.
“Whenever I turned up, kids gathered around and asked, ‘What is that?’ ” he said, referring to his skateboard. “They’d ask to have a go, and I realized quite fast it’s an excellent way to interact with youth.”
Afghanistan has the highest proportion of school-age children in the world, 1 in 5, according to the United Nations. For a vast majority of these seven million youngsters, sports are virtually nonexistent.
Most public schools, stretched to provide basic materials like desks, do not have playgrounds. Boys play pickup soccer or volleyball games on dusty fields. But sports are an afterthought for most girls, who are discouraged from public gatherings.
About 20 embassies and nongovernmental organizations rejected Percovich’s financing proposal for a skateboarding school. After breaking up with his girlfriend, he said, he was down to $1,500 and had maxed out his credit card to pay the rent.
“I was banging my head against the wall, saying, ‘What am I doing with no money?’ ” Percovich said. “But in the afternoon, I was laughing and skating with kids running toward me saying, ‘Oli, Oli, Oli.’ ”
Even his successes have been somewhat frustrating. Last March, an Australian retailer donated 30 skate sets — including boards, shoes and body pads — but Percovich could not afford the $5,000 for shipping. The equipment remains in Melbourne.
Percovich’s break came last October, when the Canadian, Norwegian and German governments pledged a combined $120,000. The Kabul Parks Authority chose a site in a poor area of the city, about eight miles from the fountain.
Andreas Schüetzenberger, whose German company, IOU Ramps, has built 300 skate ramps in places like Israel and Mongolia, plans to install the platforms at no cost once Skateistan is built.
Percovich also recruited Titus Dittman, who delivered one ton of secondhand skate equipment this month. In 1982, Dittman transformed a parking lot in Germany into one of the world’s most well-known cult skate scenes, Monster Mastership, which has since become the World Skateboarding Championships.
The goals for Skateistan are a bit more grounded.
“Afghan kids are the same as kids all over the world,” Percovich said. “They just haven’t been given the same opportunities. They need a positive environment to do positive things for Afghanistan and for themselves.”
Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
Afghan youth have taken to skateboarding since Oliver Percovich of Australia introduced it in Kabul.
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SINGLE PAGE
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By ADAM B. ELLICK
Published: January 25, 2009
KABUL, Afghanistan — It looked like an ordinary neighborhood playground: six children tumbling off their skateboards to the tune of laughter. But only hours before, just 20 yards away, the body of a suicide car bomber was sprawled beside a glistening pool of blood.
Enlarge This Image
Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
Oliver Percovich’s current skateboard park is a decrepit concrete fountain. His Skateistan school will be eight miles away.
Afghan youth have learned to recover almost instantly from such routine violence. One person determined to inject some normalcy into their lives is Oliver Percovich. A 34-year-old from Melbourne, Australia, he plans to open this country’s first skateboarding school, Skateistan, this spring. He sees sport as a way to woo students into after-school activities like English and computer classes, which are otherwise reserved for the elite.
“Teenagers are trying to dissociate from old mentalities, and I’m their servant,” Percovich said. “If they weren’t interested, I would’ve left a long time ago.”
Now, when he pulls his motorcycle into a residential courtyard here, a dozen youngsters pounce before it comes to a stop, yanking six chipped skateboards with fading paint off the back. The children, most participating in a sport for the first time in their war-hardened lives, do not want to waste any time.
Their skateboard park is a decrepit Soviet-style concrete fountain with deep fissures. The tangle of novice skaters resembles bumper cars more than X Games.
But Percovich has raised the money needed to build an 8,600-square-foot bubble to house the nonprofit Skateistan complex, and the Kabul Parks Authority has tentatively donated land. He is still waiting for official permission to begin the project. And since a spate of kidnappings and the car bombing in late November, he has reduced his daily sessions at the fountain to once or twice a week.
Among those who look forward to his visits is Maro, an elfin 9-year-old girl who was terrified of skateboarding at first.
“It gives me courage, and once I start skating, I completely forget about my fears,” she said.
All the children spoke through an interpreter.
Maro’s glittery Mickey Mouse shirt indicated middle-class status. She stood out from the street children in muddied clothes who shared the skate space. Because the sport is so new and unusual here, Percovich said, it may help mend the nation’s deep social and ethnic divisions.
But for Hadisa, a 10-year-old girl from a conservative family, skateboarding has not been accepted. She said two older brothers beat her with wires for skating with poorer children in September. Several friends said they had seen blood flowing from her leg.
“I’m not upset with my brothers for beating me,” Hadisa whispered on a recent day when she did not skate because her oldest brother was nearby. “They have the right.”
But some girls cannot skate enough because their window for participation is short. When Afghan girls reach puberty, they must be veiled and can no longer associate with men outside the family. Percovich said his indoor skate park could be part of the solution, with boys and girls in separate classes.
“If my family doesn’t let me skate when I grow up, and they tell me I need to be at home, then I have to respect my family,” Maro said. “And I won’t be able to skate.”
Maro’s grandfather, Abdul Hai Muram, a retired political commentator, stroked her ponytail as he considered her future. He said he wanted her to be able to play outside when she turned 15 but worried about society’s reaction.
“Families are still careful and thoughtful about letting their daughters out,” Muram, 65, said. “We’re entitled to be very strict and afraid because negative consequences from the Taliban time are still out there, and men do whatever they want to women.”
He added, “It may take 10 years for things to be normal for women.”
Perhaps no one is more excited for the skateboard park than Mirwais, a 16-year-old boy who can do an ollie, an aerial trick that is the foundation for more advanced moves. Mirwais, who dropped out of school after second grade, first noticed the skate sessions from an adjacent parking lot, where he washed cars for $4 a day to support his family of eight. Percovich said Mirwais was often high from sniffing glue.
Now Mirwais looks more tidy and earns $8 a day working for the Skateistan project, repairing boards, running errands and assisting at the informal skate sessions.
“I want to improve as much as I can, and continue to support my family with skating,” he said. “It’s my future.”
Still, many middle- and upper-class youngsters complain that Mirwais ridicules them using foul language, evidence of the challenge with mixing social classes and ethnic groups here.
But Percovich is determined to overcome the obstacles. He arrived here rather impulsively in early 2007 because his girlfriend at the time had taken a job in Kabul. He gave up his bakery business, stuffed some clothes — and his skateboards — into a bag and left Australia.
Enlarge This Image
Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
“It gives me courage, and once I start skating, I completely forget about my fears,” one girl said.
Unable to find work, Percovich did what he has done since he was 6. He rode his skateboard, undaunted by the military convoys, pushcarts, donkeys, a suffocating film of dust and occasional car bombings.
“Whenever I turned up, kids gathered around and asked, ‘What is that?’ ” he said, referring to his skateboard. “They’d ask to have a go, and I realized quite fast it’s an excellent way to interact with youth.”
Afghanistan has the highest proportion of school-age children in the world, 1 in 5, according to the United Nations. For a vast majority of these seven million youngsters, sports are virtually nonexistent.
Most public schools, stretched to provide basic materials like desks, do not have playgrounds. Boys play pickup soccer or volleyball games on dusty fields. But sports are an afterthought for most girls, who are discouraged from public gatherings.
About 20 embassies and nongovernmental organizations rejected Percovich’s financing proposal for a skateboarding school. After breaking up with his girlfriend, he said, he was down to $1,500 and had maxed out his credit card to pay the rent.
“I was banging my head against the wall, saying, ‘What am I doing with no money?’ ” Percovich said. “But in the afternoon, I was laughing and skating with kids running toward me saying, ‘Oli, Oli, Oli.’ ”
Even his successes have been somewhat frustrating. Last March, an Australian retailer donated 30 skate sets — including boards, shoes and body pads — but Percovich could not afford the $5,000 for shipping. The equipment remains in Melbourne.
Percovich’s break came last October, when the Canadian, Norwegian and German governments pledged a combined $120,000. The Kabul Parks Authority chose a site in a poor area of the city, about eight miles from the fountain.
Andreas Schüetzenberger, whose German company, IOU Ramps, has built 300 skate ramps in places like Israel and Mongolia, plans to install the platforms at no cost once Skateistan is built.
Percovich also recruited Titus Dittman, who delivered one ton of secondhand skate equipment this month. In 1982, Dittman transformed a parking lot in Germany into one of the world’s most well-known cult skate scenes, Monster Mastership, which has since become the World Skateboarding Championships.
The goals for Skateistan are a bit more grounded.
“Afghan kids are the same as kids all over the world,” Percovich said. “They just haven’t been given the same opportunities. They need a positive environment to do positive things for Afghanistan and for themselves.”
Driver out of gas on 405 Freeway takes to skateboard
Morning rush hour commuters call the California Highway Patrol after seeing him riding along the shoulder in Costa Mesa. The Freeway Service Patrol gets him back on the road.
February 24, 2010|By Amina Khan
Heads turned Tuesday morning on the 405 Freeway in Orange County as motorists saw a man skateboarding along the shoulder during rush hour after his black Nissan coupe ran out of gas.
Motorists began calling the California Highway Patrol about 8:15 a.m. with reports that a man was skateboarding on the southbound shoulder near Red Hill Avenue in Costa Mesa, said CHP Officer Denise Quesada.
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The officer who responded found the driver standing with his thumb out and holding an empty gas can. The officer called the Freeway Service Patrol.
The unidentified man, who was in his 20s, was soon sent on his way after being given enough gas to restart his car. He was not cited.
"This is very unusual," Quesada said. "Usually people walk off the freeway or use their cellphone and ask for a towing service."
CHP Officer Jennifer Hink said skateboarding was the wrong idea: "Right shoulders and center medians have debris all over them that could cause him to lose control."
Morning rush hour commuters call the California Highway Patrol after seeing him riding along the shoulder in Costa Mesa. The Freeway Service Patrol gets him back on the road.
February 24, 2010|By Amina Khan
Heads turned Tuesday morning on the 405 Freeway in Orange County as motorists saw a man skateboarding along the shoulder during rush hour after his black Nissan coupe ran out of gas.
Motorists began calling the California Highway Patrol about 8:15 a.m. with reports that a man was skateboarding on the southbound shoulder near Red Hill Avenue in Costa Mesa, said CHP Officer Denise Quesada.
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The officer who responded found the driver standing with his thumb out and holding an empty gas can. The officer called the Freeway Service Patrol.
The unidentified man, who was in his 20s, was soon sent on his way after being given enough gas to restart his car. He was not cited.
"This is very unusual," Quesada said. "Usually people walk off the freeway or use their cellphone and ask for a towing service."
CHP Officer Jennifer Hink said skateboarding was the wrong idea: "Right shoulders and center medians have debris all over them that could cause him to lose control."
Day In The Life: Chris Cole @ Skate Cayman
Day In The Life: Chris Cole @ Skate Cayman
Myhro
July 29 200989 comments
We headed down to the Black Pearl skatepark with Chris Cole last week. Aside from enjoying everything the Grand Cayman Island had to offer, Chris put in some serious time at the skatepark. Even when Cole is messing around, you are going to witness some amazing skating.
Categorized: Features, Marqueed, Videos | Tags: Black Pearl, Chris Cole, Day In The Life, Skate Cayman
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Comments (46)
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10 Skaters Who Changed The Decade: Chris Cole
[...] Chris Cole has unarguably changed skateboarding over the past decade. The truth is, skateboarding wouldn’t be the same without him. When his part in In Bloom came out in 2002, we got one of our first glimpses into his rare combination of technical prowess and straight up gnarlitude that he continued with for the next… well… he’s still hasn’t stopped. Listen to how he remembers it eight years ago and where he sees our four wheels taking us next. [...]
0
PiAnerk@ · 5 weeks ago
Hearing voices no one else can hear isn't a good sign, even in the wizarding world.
festnetz zu handy billiger drug interactions with hoodia 57 elderly pain medication alieve pain reliever after birth child pain
Report
Reply
Christmas & New Years Skate Camps @ Black Pearl | Transworld Skateboarding
[...] right, if you didn’t make it this summer down to the Black Pearl skatepark on Grand Cayman (we hit it up with Chris Cole), you better ask Santa for a trip there over Christmas or New Years. Two skate camps are jumping [...]
Brian Page...
Trackback from Brian Page
...
PianoFan...
Trackback from PianoFan
Hello ;) Thanks heaps for this indeed!... if anyone else has anything, it would be much appreciated. Great website Super Piano Links http://www.en.Grand-Pianos.org Enjoy!...
0
sk8xtreme15 · 20 weeks ago
chris cole is the best skater did u see that fakie 540 across the bank
Report
Reply
Duffel, Dompierre, And Cole At Salt Lake Dew Tour | Longboarding and Skimboarding Commentary and News
[...] Duffel, Nick Dompierre, and Chris Cole have all been confirmed to join the rest of the skaters at the Salt Lake City Dew Tour stop coming [...]
0
csizzle · 29 weeks ago
David Bowie - Sound and Vision
Report
Reply
0
geothermal · 30 weeks ago
too many backside frips
Report
Reply5 replies · active 29 weeks ago
0
Andy · 30 weeks ago
Hey! Let's go to the world's biggest skatepark and only skate ledges, rails, and a 2' quarter!
Report
Reply2 replies · active 29 weeks ago
0
eddy · 30 weeks ago
ey dawg i think that was his son in the beginnig
Report
Reply
0
heyitsbill · 30 weeks ago
skate trip to cayman islands..whos down? haha
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0
dirty d · 30 weeks ago
what song is that? i know its bowie, but don't know the song
Report
Reply1 reply · active 30 weeks ago
0
Aaaa · 30 weeks ago
This was good and all, but he just needs to work on those tuck-knees.
Report
Reply5 replies · active 30 weeks ago
0
jack tedeski · 30 weeks ago
haha?
Report
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0
cay-man killed it · 30 weeks ago
coles just awesome and i saw wyatt killin it! get him a pro model on Crocs!
Report
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0
skatorade · 30 weeks ago
David Bowie FTW
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0
jrm · 30 weeks ago
wow i love cole
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0
jrm · 30 weeks ago
loving the coverage you guys!!! keep it up all the stories the last few weeks has been great
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0
Yeaah · 30 weeks ago
sw bs flip?! siaaack
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0
anthony bourdain · 30 weeks ago
cab 540 no grab fo show!
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0
Justin · 30 weeks ago
180 switch 5-0 sex change!.........Whoah!
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0
spagett · 30 weeks ago
fakie 540 was so non-chalant!
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0
SK858 · 30 weeks ago
Cole as ICE!!!
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0
******* · 30 weeks ago
chyyyyyyyyyeaaaah bitches
Report
Myhro
July 29 200989 comments
We headed down to the Black Pearl skatepark with Chris Cole last week. Aside from enjoying everything the Grand Cayman Island had to offer, Chris put in some serious time at the skatepark. Even when Cole is messing around, you are going to witness some amazing skating.
Categorized: Features, Marqueed, Videos | Tags: Black Pearl, Chris Cole, Day In The Life, Skate Cayman
Login
Follow the discussion
Comments (46)
Sort by: Date Rating Last Activity
10 Skaters Who Changed The Decade: Chris Cole
[...] Chris Cole has unarguably changed skateboarding over the past decade. The truth is, skateboarding wouldn’t be the same without him. When his part in In Bloom came out in 2002, we got one of our first glimpses into his rare combination of technical prowess and straight up gnarlitude that he continued with for the next… well… he’s still hasn’t stopped. Listen to how he remembers it eight years ago and where he sees our four wheels taking us next. [...]
0
PiAnerk@ · 5 weeks ago
Hearing voices no one else can hear isn't a good sign, even in the wizarding world.
festnetz zu handy billiger drug interactions with hoodia 57 elderly pain medication alieve pain reliever after birth child pain
Report
Reply
Christmas & New Years Skate Camps @ Black Pearl | Transworld Skateboarding
[...] right, if you didn’t make it this summer down to the Black Pearl skatepark on Grand Cayman (we hit it up with Chris Cole), you better ask Santa for a trip there over Christmas or New Years. Two skate camps are jumping [...]
Brian Page...
Trackback from Brian Page
...
PianoFan...
Trackback from PianoFan
Hello ;) Thanks heaps for this indeed!... if anyone else has anything, it would be much appreciated. Great website Super Piano Links http://www.en.Grand-Pianos.org Enjoy!...
0
sk8xtreme15 · 20 weeks ago
chris cole is the best skater did u see that fakie 540 across the bank
Report
Reply
Duffel, Dompierre, And Cole At Salt Lake Dew Tour | Longboarding and Skimboarding Commentary and News
[...] Duffel, Nick Dompierre, and Chris Cole have all been confirmed to join the rest of the skaters at the Salt Lake City Dew Tour stop coming [...]
0
csizzle · 29 weeks ago
David Bowie - Sound and Vision
Report
Reply
0
geothermal · 30 weeks ago
too many backside frips
Report
Reply5 replies · active 29 weeks ago
0
Andy · 30 weeks ago
Hey! Let's go to the world's biggest skatepark and only skate ledges, rails, and a 2' quarter!
Report
Reply2 replies · active 29 weeks ago
0
eddy · 30 weeks ago
ey dawg i think that was his son in the beginnig
Report
Reply
0
heyitsbill · 30 weeks ago
skate trip to cayman islands..whos down? haha
Report
Reply
0
dirty d · 30 weeks ago
what song is that? i know its bowie, but don't know the song
Report
Reply1 reply · active 30 weeks ago
0
Aaaa · 30 weeks ago
This was good and all, but he just needs to work on those tuck-knees.
Report
Reply5 replies · active 30 weeks ago
0
jack tedeski · 30 weeks ago
haha?
Report
Reply
0
cay-man killed it · 30 weeks ago
coles just awesome and i saw wyatt killin it! get him a pro model on Crocs!
Report
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0
skatorade · 30 weeks ago
David Bowie FTW
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jrm · 30 weeks ago
wow i love cole
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jrm · 30 weeks ago
loving the coverage you guys!!! keep it up all the stories the last few weeks has been great
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Yeaah · 30 weeks ago
sw bs flip?! siaaack
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anthony bourdain · 30 weeks ago
cab 540 no grab fo show!
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Justin · 30 weeks ago
180 switch 5-0 sex change!.........Whoah!
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spagett · 30 weeks ago
fakie 540 was so non-chalant!
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SK858 · 30 weeks ago
Cole as ICE!!!
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******* · 30 weeks ago
chyyyyyyyyyeaaaah bitches
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FEATURESNEWSVIDEOS(…)
SKATE/explain: Lucien Clarke’s Grimey Palace
The music in Lucien Clarke’s clips is called grime, a type of music that first emerged out of Bow, East London in the early 2000s. It’s not for everyone, but it’s quite popular in England and abroad…a mix of other musical genres…
Josh Brooks
February 25 2010 | 3 comments
FEATURESMARQUEEDVIDEOS(…)
10 Skaters Who Changed The Decade: Chris Cole
“The backside flip.. only took five tries—and Josh Kalis gave he 100 bucks for it.” Listen to Chris Cole’s interview over his 2002 TransWorld In Bloom video part.
Ben Kelly
February 25 2010 | 13 comments
FEATURESINTERVIEWSMARQUEED(…)
What’s Next?: Adam Dyet
We caught up with Salt Lake City madman Adam Dyet recently to find out his next video part, next ad, next night at The Palms and a lot more!
Blair Alley
February 25 2010 | 7 comments
FEATURESUGC VIDEOSVIDEOS
Thursday Theater (Feb 25)
This one’s for all the people getting pounded with snow at the moment.
martinfobes
February 25 2010 | 16 comments
1FEATURESINTERVIEWS(…)
Now You Know: Marisa Dal Santo
So how did the hottest up and coming female skater end up on Zero?
Blair Alley
February 24 2010
FEATURESMARQUEEDPHOTOS(…)
Wednesday Wallpaper: Ryan Decenzo
This week we’ve got Ryan Decenzo clearing this desert chasm with a clean kickflip.
Blair Alley
February 24 2010 | 3 comments
FEATURESVIDEOSIVIDEOS
DVS Mix N Match x Skate & Create II On iTunes
Check out DVS’ Mix N Match commercial it shot while making its fantastic entry. Torey Pudwill, Zered Bassett, Daewon Song, Jimmy Cao and more.
Blair Alley
February 24 2010 | 5 comments
FEATURESUGC VIDEOSVIDEOS
Wednesday Woe at Wallenberg
See the unfortunate journey of Elliot Murphy and his crew unfold in this week’s Wednesday Woe.
skatenorthwest
February 24 2010 | 36 comments
1FEATURESMARQUEED(…)
Baker Boys Distribution Shred Session
Catch a glimpse into the warehouse with Andrew Reynolds, Jim Greco, Erik Ellington, Lizard King, Jon Dickson, Figgy, and more.
Blair Alley
February 23 2010 | 40 comments
SKATE/explain: Lucien Clarke’s Grimey Palace
The music in Lucien Clarke’s clips is called grime, a type of music that first emerged out of Bow, East London in the early 2000s. It’s not for everyone, but it’s quite popular in England and abroad…a mix of other musical genres…
Josh Brooks
February 25 2010 | 3 comments
FEATURESMARQUEEDVIDEOS(…)
10 Skaters Who Changed The Decade: Chris Cole
“The backside flip.. only took five tries—and Josh Kalis gave he 100 bucks for it.” Listen to Chris Cole’s interview over his 2002 TransWorld In Bloom video part.
Ben Kelly
February 25 2010 | 13 comments
FEATURESINTERVIEWSMARQUEED(…)
What’s Next?: Adam Dyet
We caught up with Salt Lake City madman Adam Dyet recently to find out his next video part, next ad, next night at The Palms and a lot more!
Blair Alley
February 25 2010 | 7 comments
FEATURESUGC VIDEOSVIDEOS
Thursday Theater (Feb 25)
This one’s for all the people getting pounded with snow at the moment.
martinfobes
February 25 2010 | 16 comments
1FEATURESINTERVIEWS(…)
Now You Know: Marisa Dal Santo
So how did the hottest up and coming female skater end up on Zero?
Blair Alley
February 24 2010
FEATURESMARQUEEDPHOTOS(…)
Wednesday Wallpaper: Ryan Decenzo
This week we’ve got Ryan Decenzo clearing this desert chasm with a clean kickflip.
Blair Alley
February 24 2010 | 3 comments
FEATURESVIDEOSIVIDEOS
DVS Mix N Match x Skate & Create II On iTunes
Check out DVS’ Mix N Match commercial it shot while making its fantastic entry. Torey Pudwill, Zered Bassett, Daewon Song, Jimmy Cao and more.
Blair Alley
February 24 2010 | 5 comments
FEATURESUGC VIDEOSVIDEOS
Wednesday Woe at Wallenberg
See the unfortunate journey of Elliot Murphy and his crew unfold in this week’s Wednesday Woe.
skatenorthwest
February 24 2010 | 36 comments
1FEATURESMARQUEED(…)
Baker Boys Distribution Shred Session
Catch a glimpse into the warehouse with Andrew Reynolds, Jim Greco, Erik Ellington, Lizard King, Jon Dickson, Figgy, and more.
Blair Alley
February 23 2010 | 40 comments
Skateboard games are a lot of fun to play
Skateboarding games are great to play when the weather is too bad to skate outside. If you're into skateboarding you should enjoy playing all these online skateboarding games. The earliest skateboard game I remember was called "Skate or Die" and was released back in the 1980s. These online games are a lot better than that game!
Skateboard games are a lot of fun to play. There are some really good games available for Xbox and Playstation but they cost a lot. With these free skateboarding games you don't have to spend a single cent!
I have put this site up because skateboarding is fun and I love to play video games. I hope you like the site and enjoy playing all the skateboarding games!
Please take a moment to bookmark us and tell your friends about the site. Thanks!
Featured Skateboard Game
Description: Perform enough tricks in the given time to advance to the next level!
Controls: Arrow Keys - Move, Spacebar - Jump (for more details see instructions in game)
Skateboarding Games
Taz Skateboard Halfpipe
A great skateboarding game with Taz the Tasmanian Devil!
Gecko Skateboarding
Earn points by doing Kickflips, Footplants, Grinds, Rail Slides and more!
Gmax Skateboarding
Do crazy tricks and get the highest score possible to beat your competitors.
Gus Vs Bus 2
Skate fast enough to help Gus catch the bus. But watch out for the obstacles!
Halfpipe Challenge
Pick your board and a tune and pull some tricks on your board.
Halfpipe Piper
Connect ramps, rails, half-pipes and other pieces to create runs. But build carefully!
In The Crib
Pull moves to rack up points. Watch out for obstacles and collect bonuses!
Jump N Grind Remix
Great skateboard game where you have to skate down streets and collect the stars.
Madness Skateboard
Dodge the obstacles by jumping or crouching. Jump on the rails to earn points.
Masters Season
Choose from a skateboard, bicycle or quad and reach the finish before time runs out.
Skateboard games are a lot of fun to play. There are some really good games available for Xbox and Playstation but they cost a lot. With these free skateboarding games you don't have to spend a single cent!
I have put this site up because skateboarding is fun and I love to play video games. I hope you like the site and enjoy playing all the skateboarding games!
Please take a moment to bookmark us and tell your friends about the site. Thanks!
Featured Skateboard Game
Description: Perform enough tricks in the given time to advance to the next level!
Controls: Arrow Keys - Move, Spacebar - Jump (for more details see instructions in game)
Skateboarding Games
Taz Skateboard Halfpipe
A great skateboarding game with Taz the Tasmanian Devil!
Gecko Skateboarding
Earn points by doing Kickflips, Footplants, Grinds, Rail Slides and more!
Gmax Skateboarding
Do crazy tricks and get the highest score possible to beat your competitors.
Gus Vs Bus 2
Skate fast enough to help Gus catch the bus. But watch out for the obstacles!
Halfpipe Challenge
Pick your board and a tune and pull some tricks on your board.
Halfpipe Piper
Connect ramps, rails, half-pipes and other pieces to create runs. But build carefully!
In The Crib
Pull moves to rack up points. Watch out for obstacles and collect bonuses!
Jump N Grind Remix
Great skateboard game where you have to skate down streets and collect the stars.
Madness Skateboard
Dodge the obstacles by jumping or crouching. Jump on the rails to earn points.
Masters Season
Choose from a skateboard, bicycle or quad and reach the finish before time runs out.
Skateboarding in the Olympics
Rick Reilly wants skateboarding in the Olympics
Premiere columnist makes the case for sports history
February 23, 2010, 3:41 PM
By: Adam Salo
ESPN/Getty Images
Guy on the left wants guy on the right to compete in the Summer Olympics. Know what that means?
Rick Reilly wants to see skateboarding in the Olympics. For skate readers who may not be familiar with other parts of ESPN.com, Reilly is an 11-time National Sports Writer of the Year who came to ESPN in 2008 after 23 years at Sports Illustrated. He waxes poetic on everything from Tiger Woods to Kobe Bryant. While Reilly doesn't often offer up opinions on skateboarding, he brought it up in his Go Fish column on Feb. 18, pointing out that if skateboarding were admitted into the Olympics, Shaun White (two-time Olympic Gold Medalist) would have a shot at being the first athlete in 78 years to win Olympic gold in Winter and Summer.
" ... (T)he IOC needs to get skateboarding into the Olympics right now. Shaun White could be the first athlete to win gold in the Summer and Winter Games since 1932. (American Eddie Eagan did it in boxing and bobsled that year.) Please?" Reilly implores.
Whether skateboarding should be an Olympic sport is a hotly contested issue among some of our tribe. Some see the recognition and legitimacy the Games would bring as a benefit to the sport and the industry. Others argue skateboarding and skateboarders have always gone their own way; that they don't need outside recognition for validation or support.
Reilly's plea doesn't stem from advocating for skateboarding or even for the Olympics for that matter. He's making the case for setting the stage for a potentially great moment in sports history. And when it comes to sports, history and memorable moments, the man knows his stuff.
BRIAN BRANTLEY/SHAZAMM/ESPN IMAGES
Is the opportunity for Shaun White to make history by competing in Summer and Winter Games enough reason to put skateboarding in the Olympics?
Premiere columnist makes the case for sports history
February 23, 2010, 3:41 PM
By: Adam Salo
ESPN/Getty Images
Guy on the left wants guy on the right to compete in the Summer Olympics. Know what that means?
Rick Reilly wants to see skateboarding in the Olympics. For skate readers who may not be familiar with other parts of ESPN.com, Reilly is an 11-time National Sports Writer of the Year who came to ESPN in 2008 after 23 years at Sports Illustrated. He waxes poetic on everything from Tiger Woods to Kobe Bryant. While Reilly doesn't often offer up opinions on skateboarding, he brought it up in his Go Fish column on Feb. 18, pointing out that if skateboarding were admitted into the Olympics, Shaun White (two-time Olympic Gold Medalist) would have a shot at being the first athlete in 78 years to win Olympic gold in Winter and Summer.
" ... (T)he IOC needs to get skateboarding into the Olympics right now. Shaun White could be the first athlete to win gold in the Summer and Winter Games since 1932. (American Eddie Eagan did it in boxing and bobsled that year.) Please?" Reilly implores.
Whether skateboarding should be an Olympic sport is a hotly contested issue among some of our tribe. Some see the recognition and legitimacy the Games would bring as a benefit to the sport and the industry. Others argue skateboarding and skateboarders have always gone their own way; that they don't need outside recognition for validation or support.
Reilly's plea doesn't stem from advocating for skateboarding or even for the Olympics for that matter. He's making the case for setting the stage for a potentially great moment in sports history. And when it comes to sports, history and memorable moments, the man knows his stuff.
BRIAN BRANTLEY/SHAZAMM/ESPN IMAGES
Is the opportunity for Shaun White to make history by competing in Summer and Winter Games enough reason to put skateboarding in the Olympics?
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