Exchange Club Talk
Here is a recent talk I gave to the Exchange Club of Crossville about the skatepark. If you have a group you would like for me to come speak to, please contact me a frank@crossvilleskatepark.com
It has been almost a year since my family and I were sitting around one night at dinner. My kids were wishing they had a place to practice one of their favorite sports--skateboarding. We had moved to Crossville a year earlier from Montgomery, AL, and enjoyed that city's newly built and popular skatepark.
Not long after that dinner, we began noticing more and more skateboarders on the streets of downtown Crossville. I'm sure you've seen them too. They wear eclectic clothing, have funky hair and don't seem to have much else to do but grind sidewalks or jump the stairs of local businesses. They look strange and defiant and outwardly unlike the youth you find on baseball, basketball or soccer teams. Frankly, I felt intimidated yet drawn to them at the same time. Who are they, I wondered. So, I started doing some research.
The typical skateboarder is male between the ages of 7-16, although we have quite a few dedicated girl skaters in Crossville. They come from all types of economic and ethnic backgrounds that defy stereotyping—from low income to middle class, from single parents to traditional families. From surveys we know that art & music are their favorite subjects. They are highly creative, intelligent and entrepreneurial individuals. In fact, one skater in our Association had run a skate business by age 17, and another was a semi professional skater traveling the country by age 16. How many folks their age have that type of life experience in their teens? These youth are devoted to their sport—practicing year around for hours on end. Yet due to their creative, artistic entrepreneurial gifts, they don't always fit into a highly structured organizational environment like school or traditional team sports.
Where they do fit in is skateboarding—a sport that encourages creativity, self determination and community. For those who have watched skateboarding, you may ask yourselves how they do it. There’s no play book to go by or coach to tell them what they should do. They learn the sport by watching others. No one cheers them for doing a good trick and no one puts them down when they make a mistake. They encourage each other and form a community that is as close you can come to an extended family. Skaters are highly creative as well. They show the ingenuity that made America great every time they build complicated skate ramps out of scrap wood. When was the last time a baseball team had to build their own field or the basketball team had to construct their own goals? Yet despite these positive, character building traits, skateboarding has gained a negative reputation in our community.
How did we come to perceive such great youth in such a negative light? How you go from a cute 8 year old dreaming of doing skateboarding tricks to a teen on the streets evading police? Here’s a typical scenario. A child watching TV these days is bombarded with images of skateboarding and over time wants to try what is America's fastest growing youth sport. So, he saves his money and goes to Wal-Mart to purchase his dream…a skateboard. He practices in his driveway and constructs makeshift ramps out of old lumber. Pretty soon, his skills have outgrown his driveway, and he’s ready to tackle more advanced obstacles…but there's nowhere to practice, so he takes to the streets. There he meets others who are doing the same. While on the streets, they ingeniously turn curbs, stairs, handrails and even benches into places to practice and perfect their sport. Rightfully concerned and often upset business owners on whose property they’re practicing confront the skaters, and they leave. Repeat this scenario 5 or 6 times, and the skater develops an anti-authority attitude. He and his friends spend their days fleeing authority figures, and grow up on the streets. By the time he is 16, he fears and resents the people who can help him the most. This environment puts him at risk for all sorts of problems. He was not an at risk youth when he started, he was just a little kid pursing a dream. How big is that dream and will it last?
Skateboarding began as a winter alternative for surfers in the 1950s. They discovered that riding a skateboard mimicked riding a wave. The first commercially produced skateboard rolled out in 1959 and immediately became a cultural sensation rivaling the hula-hoop. With the invention of the urethane wheel in 1973, skateboarding experienced another growth spurt which included new skateparks, professional skaters, magazines and movies [1]. During the 1980’s skateboarding took to the streets and developed a new style of skating called ‘street skating.” By the 1990’s skateboarding had gone mainstream with the help of ESPN’s X-games, skating stars like Tony Hawk and the rise of other extreme sports like inline skating and snowboarding. Today, skateboarding is among the nation's fastest growing sports with almost 20 million participants in the United States, on par with youth baseball and soccer [2]. In 2003, the skateboarding industry reported sales of $720 million, and over 100,000 skateboard decks are manufactured every month. Although hard to estimate, Crossville has around 150 active skaters and probably around 3000 skaters, in-line skaters and bikers who are inactive. Why?
There is no safe, legal place to skate in Crossville. Several years ago, families in Crossville petitioned city officials to build a skatepark. A $50,000 loan from the State of Tennessee was secured and a small skatepark was included in the architectural diagrams for Centennial Park. The City attorney at the time gave the park a green light regarding legal and insurance coverage and everything was set. Then for some reason, the money was diverted and used for other park and rec programs like baseball and softball.
That’s why my family and I along with some concerned citizens and skaters decided to form the Crossville Skatepark Association. We want to get these skaters off the streets and provide a family-friendly, safe, clean environment where youth of all ages from Crossville and Cumberland County can practice and learn the sports of skateboarding, in-line skating and BMX biking in a park designed for this specific purpose. We are actively educating the skaters of Crossville about safety, respect for authority and their sports. We hope to change the community’s perception of skaters and vice versa, while building a world-class skatepark in Crossville.
So far we’ve collected over 1600 public petition signatures, signed over 40 business supporters, participated in the annual Christmas parade, started teaching skate lessons for beginners, secured equipment donations from major skate manufacturers, and partnered with local organizations to provide temporary meeting space. We are a registered Tennessee non-profit corporation and should hear from the IRS in the next two weeks about our 501c federal non-profit status. Both Mayor Graham and Councilman Loggins have been supportive of our efforts. Last week we met with Councilman Loggins and the city park and recreation architects to discuss facility design and space requirements.
We’d like to see skateboarding continue to reach these kids before negative influences do. We envision around 500 youth a week on boards learning the sport and developing as athletes and citizens at the new park. A world class skatepark here in Crossville would be the only one on the Cumberland Plateau, attracting tourism dollars from around the southeast to local businesses through skate events and marketing campaigns. A park of this caliber typically costs between $250-300,000. We are working diligently to secure both private and corporate grants and raise the funds needed to make the skatepark a reality. We will also be working with the city to secure matching state and federal funds. But we need your help and would invite you to partner with us to bring these wonderfully talented youth back into the community and help them build a place of their own.
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