The Old Versus the New

by Adam Cece

Okay this is not an article designed to rehash memories of yellow vinyl banana boards that plagued our streets during the 1970's, nor is it an article about a seventy-year old grandpa versus a ten-year old grommet in a ten minute expression session down at the local skate park. It is a look at the trends in skateboarding, the personalities, and the changes in attitude over the last twenty years. Which is better, the old or the new face of skateboarding?

Skateboards aren't purchased from Wal-Mart any more, were they ever? Skating fifteen years ago I never purchased a board from Wal-Mart, and a banana board I once had I found abandoned in a local drain. In fact I can't remember ever buying a board. It's not to say the sport was free in those days but boards were definitely cheaper, the average kid could purchase a second hand one off his friend for less than five dollars, and get into skating that afternoon. In the new century you'd be lucky to pick up a half decent deck for a hundred dollars and even then you're staring down the barrel of three times that amount in designer padding, helmets, accessories and clothing. Not to mention the fact that with smaller wheels and weaker, lighter and subsequently more fragile trucks you are buying replacement parts for your board even before you leave the shop! Skateboarding has become less of a hobby, or a sport, less of a culture and more a billion dollar industry, with the big names such as Nike finally jumping on a bandwagon that has been bigger than Ben Hur since the 1970's.

So what does this mean for the sport? Well in my day a skate park was as rare as a hundred dollar bill found lying on the sidewalk, skate parks were streets, schools, malls, miniature lethal backyard ramps that you constructed from the left over wood your dad gave you. The fact that in many places it was illegal to ride your stick only made the whole experience more enjoyable. Many were drawn to the laid back non-conformist lifestyle as much as anything else (most of my hardest skating friends I'm still not sure if I ever saw them ever actually set foot on a board), a chance to hang out with mates, and revel in the experience of being young and carefree.

The sport evolved through a stage, around the period late eighties, early nineties, where skateboarding became associated with crime much more than it ever should have, and along with that came associations with drugs, bad upbringings and wasted youth. A high percentage of the public saw skateboarding as little more than a complex form of vandalism. Fortunately this didn't end the sport, we live in a free society where people are not shunned for participating in activities that are socially unacceptable. Even though local members and politicians could care less about the average street kid skater, they didn't want to eliminate them altogether, they just didn't want them polluting the streets any more, knocking down the elderly and annoying the voting public.

So the skate parks made an emergence, in a big fashion, sprouting in just about every town on the map. True most of them facilitated around twenty skaters or less when there were two hundred grommets in each town all wanting to use it at once. But at least the politicians and councils could go home at night feeling good about the work they were doing to keep everyone satisfied.

But has this ruined skating? Advertisers and merchandisers have flooded a previously untapped market, there are top rating TV shows dedicated to the sport, and I see more and more young kids exploding onto the scene and looking to not just take up skateboarding as a hobby, but compete, and even make a decent living out of it.

But where are the groups of young skaters who hang out down the local mall car park on a Saturday afternoon? Because isn't the old, and I think, true essence of skateboarding that we've lost over the years. On the streets, isn't that where the limits are pushed, not on the pro tour, or in a skate park flanked by a hundred of your peers, but rather a flash back to the olden days, somewhere between when skateboarding was a new fad and when it became a public nuisance, when one lone skater pulled off tricks that no one had ever seen over a discarded shopping trolley at four in the morning. In those days you only had yourself to beat.

I sat the other day and watched a group of kids enjoying themselves in a local parking lot, every hour or so a security guard, who was specifically employed it seemed to perform this one task, would come along and shoo them away. But the kids would eagerly return time and time again with youthful persistence and I smiled, knowing full well that those street skating times are still upon us, it's just gone awry a bit. Such as when I attended a large skateboarding function recently where thousands of young impressionable minds gathered to witness their favourite pro skaters, and the man of the hour arrived without a board in check. Apparently the advertisers had pulled his appearance fee last second, and he refused to perform for free, not stepping foot on a board and preferring to sit to one side and smoke all day. I watched the young skaters that idolised this arrogant professional, with their head dropped in disappointment and shook my own head. I realised that rather than this being a memorable opportunity to view their idols it would instead be the point where their interest in the sport wavers and two months later they are probably bound to disregard their Powell Peralta deck to the back of the cupboard and take up tennis!

In my day there were no pros, travelling the globe on sponsorship dollars, or indeed there was but they drove nothing more lavish than a Volkswagon which gives you some idea of the mediocre income they were bringing in. People lived to skate, ate, slept, breathed skate. A pro wouldn't not skate because a sponsorship deal was pulled, he would skate not for money, but because he had to, otherwise he couldn't sleep soundly at night.

As I restrict my skating to weekend jaunts on sidewalk wooden benches of late, with a backwards hat and a pair of cargo shorts, I see my younger brother attacking the streets, armed with a two hundred dollar board and a four hundred dollar outfit, he boasts a newer age gusto. At least the sport is progressing, he's ten times better than I was at his age.

All I can say is that we need to keep an eye on skateboarding, and maintain that underground sport feel that dominated the late eighties, because this is it's background, it's history, this is the old. Money, fame, arrogance and perfect boards are the new. Still this can be said about every sport that eventually breaks free and goes mainstream. I just wish my brother would have been skating in my day, when getting up enough speed down a hill you got speed wobbles was as impressive as a 180 kick flip over the hood of a BMW. For skatings sake I hope I am just getting old, and out of touch, because in the battle between old versus new, new might be flashier, but old is the faithful, the fun, but most importantly it is the true character builder. I think we can't go wrong as long as we remember one thing. Just remember to keep on skating...