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Board BY NICK STEELE | PHOTOGRPAHY BY TARYN KENT
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n December of last year, after a decade of discussion, budgeting and planning, the City of Ocala broke ground on Ocala’s first skate park. A large number of local skate and BMX enthusiasts joined city officials, including Mayor Kent Guinn, Councilman Matthew Wardell, and the Ocala/Marion County Chamber and Economic Partnership’s Director of Business Retention Joe Reichel at the ceremony for the 10,000-square foot street course, which will be located at 517 NE Ninth Street in Tuscawilla Park. The $410,000 street course is just phase one of a larger plan, which will includes a snake run, larger bowl, additional lighting, a pavilion and other related amenities. According to the City, skateboarding is currently one of the fastest-growing recreational sports. It is estimated that there are 4,000 skateboarders in the city of Ocala and 22,000 in Marion County. Those numbers will likely experience some serious growth over the next few years, as competitive skateboarding will officially make its debut at the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo.
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| OCALAMAGAZINE.COM | MAR 2019
ORIGINS OF SKATEBOARDING There’s some debate over how and when skateboards first came into being. Some believe that, as early as the 1940’s, school kids mounted roller skate wheels to the bottom of wooden boxes or boards. Others believe that, in the 1950’s, a group of frustrated surfers wanted something to do when there were no waves and created land boards with wheels attached to emulate the surf experience. This was largely referred to as “sidewalk surfing” until the word skateboard was coined in 1959. By the early 1960’s, a number of surfboard manufacturers began creating skateboards and their popularity grew. In 1976, Charlie’s Angels sex symbol Farrah Fawcett rode her skateboard into the hearts and minds of fans around the world and the first two public skate parks opened in Port Orange, Florida
and San Diego, California. The lack of these sorts of parks and the rise of “vert skateboarding” (riding a skateboard on a ramp or incline in order to perform tricks) meant that skateboarders were hitting the streets... as well as the parks, parking lots, building ramps and reservoirs. This sort of activity was not only illegal, but it caused communities to view skateboarding as controversial and destructive, due to the damage that was done to public plazas, steps, benches and stoneworks. This prompted cities, across the nation, to begin looking into skate parks as a possible solution to the problem. Skate parks represent a win for communities, as they promote an active lifestyle, create safe spaces for our youth, and have been shown to reduce injuries and falls that are a result of skateboarding on city roads or uneven
“THE MAIN HEALTH AND FITNESS BENEFITS OF SKATEBOARDING FOR ME ARE, GETTING OUTSIDE AND FREEING YOUR MIND,”