Skateboarding History, Evolution and Stereotypes

A detailed Summary of Skateboarding History, Evolution and Stereotypes

It is 9:30 PM, the skies are dark but the gigantic stadium lights illuminate the sleek and ever so smooth ramps in the Skate Park. The crowd is in silence as a single skater is the center of attention, as he drops into the 9-foot quarter pipe. As he rolls down the ramp the distinct rumble of a skateboard can be heard, as he approaches the pyramid the crowd gasps in hopes for a great trick or a even a great fall. As the skater reaches the top of the pyramid he crouches and unleashes a huge Ollie and quickly kicks his back foot off of the board and grabs the tail with his right hand. Just before landing he pulls his foot back onto the board and lets go of the tail. The second the distinctive sound of his board riding smoothly across the ground came again the crowd roared with approval.

If you have never stepped onto a skateboard you would not understand what drives skateboarders to push the limits of their boards their bodies and the terrain around them. Skateboarding is an interesting sport with a very interesting history. What is the history of skateboarding, How have the equipment and the sport changed since the sport was discovered? What are the stereotypes that are associated with this "extreme" sport?

The next and possibly the biggest change in the way skateboarding is perceived was the invention of the Ollie. (an aerial maneuver in which the skater jumps off the ground and the board stays under his feet while he is in the air) The Ollie was created in 1978 by a man by the name of Allen Ollie Gelfand. He perfected this trick on the bigger boards with urethane wheels. With the invention of the Ollie there was a sudden uprising of a new type of skating called street skating. Street skating took skaters into a new level of danger and excitement. It seemed that no skater could resist ollieing sets of stairs and sliding down handrails. With all the new stress on the skateboard itself, it was once again time to modify the skateboard. In the late 80s and early 90s the skateboard was turned into a highly engineered device. The nose (front ) and tail (back) were now both turned upwards, the width of the board dropped down to between seven and eight inches and the length stayed about the same. But for the first time ever there was concave. Concave is how the board was shaped in the middle, the older boards were totally flat but the new boards had concave which made flipping the skateboard over and spinning it around a possibility.

an in the 1920s and 30s; Surfers who could not get to the beach would take the bottoms of roller skates and nail them onto a plank or any p

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Approximate Word count = 929
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Sports