Based strictly on the facts, who was the last professional skateboader to come out of Nebraska that actually made it big? Steve Berra is the only name that can kind of be listed, but he was actually born in St Louis so technically he’s not a true Nebraska native. This means that since the first skateboard was created in California in 1958, there hasn’t been one person who was born and raised from Nebraska to even reach that semi-icon status that Steve Berra holds. There are/have been plenty of skateboarders from Nebraska that were/are pretty good, but when you sit back and watch one of the latest videos like Fully Flared, can you seriously sit there and think, “I’m gonna be the next professional skateboader?” The last person from Nebraska that I thought for sure was gonna blow up was Mark Goode, but in the end things didn’t pan out. Mark Bussey was another guy that had some amazing talent, but after he placing 73rd in the Tampa Am in 2005 I realized something - being good for Nebraska isn’t good enough to make a career out of it. It bums me out to see kids dedicate themselves so deep into skateboarding with the idea of being “the next professional skateboarder” pounded into their skulls, that they lose focus and stop caring about very important things that will actually make them money some day - like school. Unless you are fine living pay check to pay check for the rest of your life, you really have to face the facts and accept that the odds of being a professional skateboarder are very slim, and rollin’ like P-Rod just isn’t very likely. The sad part is that kids are very gullible and you can get them to believe anything you say. If giving them the wrong impression so they skip lunch every day to spend that money at your store is all that matters, then that is very sad. For the short term it might be ok because hey, the kids want to skate so that’s cool. The long term is where the problem is though. The next thing you know the kids get their priorities all mixed up and soon drop out of school because all they want to do is skate. Admirable for their dedication, but saddening to see a kid throw their life away on a dream that will never be fulfilled. Granted, this happens every year with basketball & football players that dedicate themselves 100% to their sport until they tear an ACL their sophomore year in college, and are soon hit with a semi when they find out their careers are over. What are they left with then? Nothing, because they didn’t take the time to actually care about school because they were 110% sure that they were gonna make millions of dollars playing sports some day. Is this really what skateboarding has come to? Is this really what skateboarding was suppose to be about when it was created 50 years ago? I stopped playing all team sports in Jr High sports and started skateboarding because I wanted to get away from that kind of mentality. To me skateboarding is about being free, doing whatever you want, and being yourself. Not being one big competition used to mislead kids and leave them thinking that making $10 will be good money some day. Trust me, it’s hard enough to rent an apartment making that much, let alone buy a house and start a family. It is official that skateboarding isn’t going anywhere - 50 years is a pretty solid fact to prove that. It has become such a huge money making business that no matter what, kids are always going to be skateboarding. Fifty years of skateboarding has cemented it’s place into this world. No longer is it necessary to mislead kids just to get their lunch and allowance money. Start being a bit more humanistic and use your authority in a positive way to give the impression that skateboarding is a scapegoat to keep you out of trouble and vent any and every emotion, instead of the sad but true idea of some day being a skateboarding rock star. Make a difference not just a dollar. You will still make your money, it’ll just be clean money by cutting out the misleading mentality.

Trust me when i say this kids… SKATEBOARDING IS FUN! This may be a hard one for some to digest, but I truly do have fun when I ride a skateboard. I skateboard because it’s fun and keeps me in shape. Gas is also really damn expensive these days, so it’s a very cheap form of transportation too. I love to progress and learn more tricks, but have always accepted the fact that skateboarding will never make me money. That’s fine though, I skateboard because I choose to.

Most people probably didn’t read this whole thing. If you did, kudos my friend. Just a good ‘ol Monday vent.
-Matt

This entry was posted on Monday, March 24th, 2008 at 9:56 am and is filed under Random, Skateboarding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.