Omar Varela

 In the 1940’s Surfers from small surf towns craved a new form of riding while the waves were calm.  Ingenuity took over and small board boxes attached to roller blade wheels began to claim popularity  Wooden boxes were replaced by wooden planks and wheels were either metal or clay

 Skateboarding was dubbed “street-surfing” and companies in the 1960’s began to manufacture boards (decks) that were specifically designed for skateboardingboards  This launched skateboarding into the mainstream as the first skateboard competition and magazine came about in the early 1960’s  The wheels were also redesigned in the 70’s and changed to polyurethene instead of the previous metal and clay wheels. This prevented a minor decline that the skateboarding industry was undergoing.

 During the 80’s skateboarding was backed up by skateboarders who had started their own companies. They created an industry that would be sustained within itself.  By the 80’s skateboarding was already recognized as a legitimate sport and many competitions received global attention. Attracting skaters from all over the world  In this era of skateboarding, professional skateboarders were becoming more and more common as clothing, skateboard, and shoes companies began to pay skaters to advertise their products.

 The 90’s is the era where skateboarding has since developed a more general image in terms of technicality.  Skateboarding companies began to manufacture several variations of decks and wheels for different disciplines in the sport (street, vert, freestyle)  The image of skateboarders themselves became very diverse as each skateboarder proclaimed their music taste, sexuality, religion, race, and overall personalities.

 Modern day professional skateboarders have become mainstream celebrities some even having their own TV shows, video games, shoe models, and even action figures.  Though skateboarding was an underground trend for some time, there has been talk amongst the older generation skateboarders to get skateboarding to become an Olympic sport.  Skateboarding competitions remain large scale and have been premiered on prime time television  The vast popularity of the internet social media sites has allowed skateboarding to reach anyone with internet access making it easier to become well knowledgeable about the sport.

What is a skateboard?  A modern day skateboard is a platform made up of layers of compressed wood that are attached to ball and socket joints with axis’ to hold the wheels.  The wheels themselves are of a hard polyurethane material with 7 metal ball bearings inside each wheel. The wheels are specifically made this way to reduce accidents and improve efficiency when rolling  The deck of the skateboard may have endless customized designs underneath. However, there must be a layer of griptape on the surface of the board to provide better traction for the feet.

 At the start, skateboarding was linked to surfers and surf towns.  As skateboarding seeped into urban cities, it was picked up by punk rockers, anarchists, stoners, and individuals of the sort who promoted a lifestyle of ‘edgy’ living at the cost of being unemployed and, for the most part, homeless.  As the years went by, skateboarding took on an undefined image due to professional skateboarders portraying their own styles and personalities. This helped to erase the negative stigma that objectifying parties placed on the culture

 Skateboarding has two styles, goofy and regular. These two styles are synonymous to being left and right handed. The variation is the simple placement of your feet.  Skateboarding was initially done only on ramps and in ‘bowls’. It wasn’t until the 60’s with the innovation of the “Ollie”, a trick that allowed the skater to take the board into the air with just his feet, that skateboarding began to be developed for streets and for freestyle.  There has been an estimated 18.5 million skateboarders worldwide.  Skateboarding professionals have been as young as nine years old to as old as 40 years proving that sport is not just a childish pastime and is neither a sport that can only be practiced until a certain age