The History of Skateboarding
Written by Brian Bobby
The Early Days
Since the dawn of time, surfers have tried to mimic the feeling of wave riding on asphalt. They got creative and mounted roller skate wheels on planks of wood. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, the first commercial skateboards found their way to store shelves. The products kept evolving. So much so that the previously known asphalt surfer eventually became the skateboard.
The 1970s
In the 1970s, a new type of material (urethane) for the wheels was used and made skateboarding much more accessible and smoother. Thanks to the urethane wheel, skateboarding was able to hit its first big wave of popularity. Skateparks started to open up everywhere, and that hype gave birth to a legendary generation of skateboarders. Tony Hawk is just one big name who started during that era.
Unfortunately, this hype ended relatively abruptly, and every skatepark started to close down, and many people stopped skating. The genuinely passionate skaters kept pushing and realized that they don't need skateparks, so they began to skate on the streets.
The 1980s
During the 1980s, skateboarding lived through another big hype and became a part of pop culture. We could see the sport in movies like Back to the Future or in video games for the Nintendo Entertainment System. With its growing popularity on the streets and its rebellious nature, the bond between skateboarding and punk rock grew so strong that even today, the two are often associated together. It's hard to find a skateboarding event or a video game that doesn't play punk rock music. Throughout the decade, skateboarding became more prominent than anyone could've imagined. The stars of the scene could make a lot of money by simply skating; this was unheard of before.
The 1990s
In the early 1990s, the sports industry crashed again, and Tony Hawk recalls a time where his sponsors cut his salary in half every month. He even had to take on another job to put food on the table. Skateboarding itself changed as well. The maneuvers became more technical, and the Kickflip became a part of everyone's repertoire. By the end of the decade, skateboarding gained some traction again thanks to the rise of the X-Games, but it wasn't until the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater video games when the sport changed forever.
The THPS-series changed the landscape of skateboarding, and it was the reason why people were aware of the sport and knew terms like Ollie, Kickflip, and Manual.
Today
Since then, most of the changes stayed within the industry; companies hired people to do content on YouTube, Content Creators founded companies, technologies are being improved, etc. It's exciting to think about what the Olympics' implementation might do for skateboarding. Maybe it's just another contest, or perhaps we might see just as many skateparks as we see basketball courts.