Skateboarding has a rich history. Scooters were basically what you would call the first skateboards. They were usually used for transportation because they were so primitive. Metal

wheels and 2x4 boards, this wasn't the kind of equipment you would want to do tricks on! In the 50's surfing was the cool thing to do and surfer clothes and attitude was "in".

Most kids weren't near an ocean so the next best thing they could do is making their owns skateboard. A modified roller skate axle attached to a board with smooth wheels supplied everyone

with something to do on a boring Saturday.

In 1959 the first mass manufactured skateboard was the "Roller Derby". The first known skateboard contest was in 1963 At Pier Avenue Junior High in Hermosa California.

Skateboarding really hit big, now boards were selling fast, and everyone joined in the craze. LIFE magazine even featured an article about Skateboarding. Unfortunately skateboarding started to be banned in cities because of safety concerns, the clay wheels did not grip good and hospitals got tons of kid's who got hurt on their skateboards. The sport died out. One day a brilliant mind Frank Naswo

Freestyle skateboarding became less popular, vert dogs such as Jay Adams, Tony Alva and many became very popular, Tony Alva even got an article about himself in People magazine. Pretty soon skaters took vert tricks onto street. In 1978 Jeff Duer* invented the unquestionably best trick ever in skateboarding, the "ollie" which is a way of getting air on your skateboard without using your hands. 90 percent of street tricks today require the ollie and 50 percent of vert tricks require the ollie. This brought the new age of street tricks. Like it had done before skateboarding was about to die out again and the dawning of street tricks was put to a halt, in the early 80's skatepark insurance was so high that many parks had to close.

In '81 Thrasher came into publication for the few hard-core skaters left. Around '84 vert riding took off again and street skating was popular too. The famous "Bones Brigade" video launched off on that same year. Launch ramps were popular. Around the late 80's street skating was the focus, Steve Caballero led the street skaters in contests and Rodney Mullen practically invented the tech aspect of it. This era was the dawn of New School skateboarding. New school skateboarding was all on technical maneuvers, Switch Pop Shuvit Tailslide is one example of what one pro might do. While an Old-schooler might do a 50-50 (A

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 919
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)