3/3/2023 0 Comments Ben nordberg mini ramp![]() ![]() I don’t think that exists quite as uniformly in skateboarding as it did when I was younger. As a skater you just accepted people the way they were, if they like skating and you like skating, there really wasn’t anything else in the world that could divide you. As a skater, race and religion weren’t anything you even cared about. “It’s not worth it baby, don’t do it, baby.” “Come on man, fuck that gook, let’s go!” “Come on baby, that piece of shit ain’t worth it! Get back in the car.” Needless to say, we were scared shitless. ![]() And this other dude and this girl get out of the car and try to stop him. Another time my friend Matt and Linh and I were skating downtown Lincoln at night and this car pulls up and another huge jock gets out of the car, he’s wasted, and he starts yelling at my friend Linh, who is Vietnamese, “You killed my brother!! You killed my brother!! Fuck you!!! I’m gonna kill you!!!” Apparently his older brother was in the Vietnam war. They were too young and small and this guy and his two friends were way too big. There were at least 15 of us and no one could do a thing. I must’ve been about 15 and weighed all but 100 lbs. It’s where all the college and high school kids go on friday and saturday night to cruise up and down and we were trying to do wallies on this slanted pillar that held the light pole, there must have been about 14-16 of us there and this huge football player jock from the Cornhuskers gets out of his car and starts yelling and screaming and next thing I know he’s got me in his arms and picks me up and throws me about ten feet into a telephone pole, like a ragdoll. One time we were all skating on this popular street in Lincoln, Nebraska called O street. There would be times when we would get followed by carloads of jocks, chased, get stuff thrown at us, just because we were in a parking lot learning how to do no complies like Mike Vallely in the Public Domain video. Outside school, however, was a different story. They didn’t really mess with me like they did the two other skaters, but they didn’t talk to me anymore. At my school it was mellow for me because all the jocks knew me, because I was one of the best soccer players in the state and they, to some degree, respected that and all had once been my friends, but soccer faded away and I just skated so they stopped being my friend. Their sole purpose was to harass you and make you feel endangered. Jocks were way worse than anyone else at that time. I loved it for my friends and for the fact that we had a skatepark, but being a skater in the early 90s in Nebraska, a state whose cultivated its entire image and life around the football program, was not a super safe place to be. I’ve learned to like it now, but I did not like it then. I left school a month early but I did graduate. Louis for a year, then back to Omaha for the rest of 9th grade and the subsequent years of high school. Louis until I was 12, then Omaha for a year, then back to St. ![]() What was it like growing up in Omaha? What was the skate scene like? Luckily, that problem doesn’t exist at the Berrics. I understand they’re quite a nuisance the skatepark. I don’t have enough visibility on them to make that call with any real certainty, but I would guess they’ll fade into obscurity within the next 5 years. Ya know, I don’t know why they haven’t died. Why haven’t scooters died out yet? Do you think they’ll eventually go away like rollerblading or are they here to stay? Some may even be against that, but I want skateboarders to make $45M deals because I think what skateboarders do is so much harder and more beautiful than any guy swinging a bat or running towards an end zone. If we want to see skateboarding grow and be on a level the way baseball or basketball or soccer is, where their athletes make a lot of money, skateboarding becoming an Olympic sport will help that. Like I said, it’s going to happen regardless because the Olympics needs skateboarding to try and attract a younger audience, much more than skateboarding needs the Olympics at this point, and they’re a globally recognized, backed by governments of the world organization. There are pros and cons to it being an Olympic sport but I think the cons are blown way out of proportion and the pros are for a select few people. "It’s going to happen whether we like it or not or whether I am for or against it. How do you feel about skateboarding potentially becoming an Olympic game? I was there trying to figure out how to make the event better. What were you doing at Dew Tour Portland last year when we bumped into you? Do you typically attend those types of events? ![]()
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