From the slogan “skateboarding is not a crime” to the sport’s Olympic debut, this is how skate culture entered the mainstream.
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00:00He was a skater boy
00:30Skateboarding has the speed of skiing without the need for snow, the grace of surfing without
00:47the need for water.
01:01Skateboards are miniature dry land surfboards fitted with four plastic rollers to take the
01:05place of the real ones, wheels instead of waves.
01:20How did you get started with something like this?
01:22Well, I took it up because I've been surfing for about seven and a half years now and I
01:27took it up from practice.
01:28Pick up your foot and put it right on the front of the board.
01:30Now this is going to be just like a scooter that you used to use.
01:33Skateboarding, or skurfing, really reached the crest of a wave in 1965.
01:38That year, America held its first national championships.
01:43Thousands turned out to watch and the event was televised to millions more.
02:03The technology of the 70s gave skateboards a new lease of life in the States and launched
02:28them across the Atlantic.
02:42In the 60s, it was standing up, you know, people standing on a board and they were doing
02:46tricks on the board and running up and down like a longboard and doing like little tic-tacs
02:49with the skateboard, right?
02:50Early 70s, it started being like surfing style.
03:14I'm calling skateboarding one of the most highly physical things I've ever done in my
03:17life.
03:19And people don't realize it, but it is high performance.
03:22I mean, heavily high performance.
03:31The first thing people want to learn besides just riding a skateboard is how to ollie and
03:35that's basically snap the board with your back foot so that it gets up in the air and
03:39As it's up in the air, you slide your front foot forward and that levels it out.
04:09I'm going to start putting people in jail for skating over here.
04:20I'm getting disgusted with having to tell people the same thing over and over again.
04:24This is not a skate park.
04:47I'll get it back to you, all right?
05:00They've been seeing this stuff on skateboard parks for years.
05:04Finally, the world got to share it.
05:27I never really set out to make a career out of skating because when I started skating,
05:33the best you could do was to maybe get some free stuff.
05:37There were no rich or famous skateboarders.
05:49My next big thing is our video game, obviously.
06:12The whole world is skateboarding.
06:32Skateboarding is just straight creativity, art, and architecture.
06:35The whole world is a skate park.