What if we treated all athletes the way we treated skateboarders?
Thanks to 'petite betise' from the Silverfish Longboarding forum.
Baltimore police officer intimidates 14 year old while 13 year old arrested for skateboarding. I'm not kidding. This video's not so funny.As an Xtreme sport newbie, I mistakenly thought that all BMX was created equal. Reading a recent online Bloomberg News opinion piece clarified the matter.
If you watched the Olympic BMX motocross final, it became clear to anyone under the age of 40, that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) doesn't quite know how to blend Generation Y's action sports with it's institutional inertia.
And as any marketer knows, Gen Y is all about changing the dynamic, turning concepts on their proverbial head. It's why the real cult heroes of BMX are in Portland, Oregon, this week headlining the AST Dew Tour.
John Helyar, commentator, said it best, "... you got the wrong BMX... Millions of kids who flip for BMX freestyle -- wherein riders perform flips and other stunts -- could care less about BMX racing.
"But the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) is the world federation for bicycle sports. BMX racing is part of UCI; BMX freestyle is not.
"The Olympics added the version of BMX which best suited its institutional imperatives, not the one that most appeals to a new generation."
The BMX racing I witnessed was about as interesting as watching archery.
According to John Zogby, pollster, who calls today's 18- to 29-year-olds the "First Globals," the younger set isn't into the games' nationalist subtext -- countries vying to win the most gold medals ... .," and believes that they see themselves more as global citizens than national partisans.
These "First Globals" are forsaking Olympic viewing by larger margins every four years, Michael Phelps notwithstanding.
The IOC was actually considering adding skateboarding to the London Olympics, but those pesky UCI spoil sports, who rule all things wheel-based(!), couldn't agree on a format.
Thank god for small favors.
Skateistan is Afghanistan’s first dedicated co-educational skateboarding school. The school engages with the growing numbers of urbanized youth in Kabul through skateboarding and provides new opportunities in cross-cultural interaction and education.
Increasingly, those sk8ters are grrrrls.
Skateistan received a large private donation from two women working in Afghanistan and Betty Magazine, a Canadian monthly publication targeting female skateboarders, expressed support for the project.
According to their FAQ page:
"With 70% of the population under 25, it is vital that development efforts in Afghanistan engage with youth immediately so they can take ownership of the problems they will soon inherit.
"We want to provide a safe and supportive environment where trust is built between participants and across the “western” Afghan cultural divide.
"We also want to develop the student’s ability to speak out about the issues that concern them and for them to present their visions for the future of their country."
No slackers here.
If you want to support their efforts, they sell awesome t-shirts for 30 bucks.
Skateboarders, BMX riders and freestyle Motocross athletes will gather at the Sam Houston Race Park (West Lot) Sunday, July 20, 2008.
Tony Hawk’s Boom Boom HuckJam will feature skateboarders Tony Hawk, Kevin Staab, Jessie Fritsch, Sergie Ventura and Neal Hendrix; BMX riders Kevin Robinson, John Parker and Dennis McCoy and Motocross stars Greg Garrison and Drake McElroy.
The event will be held come rain or shine.
If you've been reading this blog, and are curious about NoBruise!, keep a look out for our Bruisin' Babes who'll be cruisin' the grounds with product samples.
For more info visit www.boomboomhuckjam.com or www.stopbruises.com.
Xtreme Sports List
The nature of extreme sports suggests that it would attract extreme personalities (no offense), so I'm offering my readers Alltop, a Web site aggregator (a techie word meaning "collector of") of all the top stories related to extreme sports.
Here's a partial sampling:
This may not list the Top 10 extreme sports, but I can guarantee you that Alltop provides you all the extreme sports clips, articles and news reports, from power sports to water sports, than any one human being can absorb, no matter how fanatic.
Knock yourself out! (Not literally ;-)
Mid-Life Skate Club
The notion of an older demographic of skateboarders is apparently not that unusual. Of the more than 11 million skateboarders in the United States, an estimated 5 percent are over the age of 35, according to reports attributed to Board-Trac, a California marketing company that researches "action sports."
As a physically uncoordinated midlifer, if I were ever to glide atop a skateboard, it would have been in my youth. Sad to say, my one experience at 12 years old, had me flat on my back and gasping for air having had the wind knocked out of me.
For some skateboarders, the time to stop hasn't arrived, even as middle age has shown up at the party.
In Walla Walla skaters say, Why not?
If cerebral surfing is more your style, visit our other site, Man-o-pause.com - Providing midlife men a place to breathe.
Bruises Don't Bother Tony Hawk
True to his roots, Tony doesn't "hawk" just any product. "There are plenty of product ideas out there. But are they authentic, are they real?" said Hawk in a recent USA Today article. (Tony Hawk leaps to top of financial empire, Money, March 10, 2008.)
At 40, he hasn't slowed down. In trying a new trick, he still breaks down the moves, adjusts his angle of attack, then works to perfect it.
He brings this same drive and passion to philanthropy. The Tony Hawk Foundation has helped build 400 skate parks in poor neighborhoods through $2 million dollars in gifts to non-profits.
As this is my inaugural post, I wanted to dedicate this page to the penultimate skateboarder and pioneer of action-sports video games.
If you want to catch extreme sports videos, Hawk's launched an entertainment Web site called ShredOrDie.
Three cheers for the ambassador of the sk8er culture.
Hey Tony, if you're reading. I know a great product to help stop bruises.
