In another of Jeff Tatum's series of articles, he takes a look back at the "rivalry" between the Los Angeles-area skaters and the "Down South Boys" of San Diego.  In the 1970's and '80's, Skateboarder Mag devoted ink to discussion of the conflicts and competition between the two regions... it turns out reality may have been somewhat different:

The S.D. v. L.A. Myth

By Jeff Tatum

As we all know, skateboarding was born in So Cal, but those that don’t know their sk8 history in full often think that the Dogtown dudes invented skating in the ‘70’s.  In fact, skateboarding was conceived in the late 1950’s and had its first boom in the early ‘60’s as a toy for young children.  It had all the energy and lifespan of similar fads of that era, like the hula hoop, and aficionados that went all out with what was available at the time.  The Hobie skateboard team’s early 60’s surf-style skating is something you can see in Bruce Brown’s old “extras loops”.

In the early 1970’s, skateboarding experienced a rebirth, conceived mostly by teenage surfers because the motion of sk8ing goes hand-in-hand with surfing.  Skateboarding was still viewed by most as a toy activity, though.  It was then that a few groups of subcultured surf teens started taking on skateboarding as a lifestyle, and not just “fun with a toy”.  The mainstream story of sk8ing’s history often overlooks that there were two main groups to this new subculture, one in Los Angeles and the other in coastal San Diego.  The San Diego sk8 scene really started up before the LA scene did, with homemade boards.  But that’s another story…what I’m writing about today is the myth of a bitter rivalry between the San Diego boys and the LA dudes.   It was never true.

I know, because I was right there in the thick of it.  As one of the original pioneers of the sk8boarding subculture, I occasionally found myself skating at LA and SD sk8 spots with various LA dudes like Tony Alva and Stacy Peralta.  I knew of the Dogtown and Nor Cal guys, but by reputation only—the same way most of them knew us San Diego sk8ers.

When SD boys first crossed paths with the LA dudes skating at the same spots, we would nod at each other and maybe say, “What’s up?”  That was about it.  In fact, we really didn’t care about their trip –we were too busy with our own thing and I’m sure they felt the same way about us.  As skateboarding and its new pioneers became more popular, the “rivalry myth” grew out of crafty media but not the sk8ers.

The truth was, as the SD and LA sk8 subcultures learned more of each other, they became more accepting of each other, even impressed with each other’s accomplishments.  The LA skaters developed an image as the bad boys of skating, mostly due to the antics of guys like Alva, Muir, Adams, Peters and some others.  That stuff made good press, and these guys really put a lot of energy into the LA punk mentality of sk8 ‘n destroy and F- the world, while the “down south” sk8ers had more of the “hey, dude”, homegrown, surf’s up mentality.  I know my sk8bros and I shied away from the spotlight and were more into just skating than showing off.

I never experienced it, but I always heard back then about how much of as asshole Alva was.  Over the last few years, I’ve gotten to know Tony Alva.  He had a shop down south here in Oceanside and I’ve found him to be a really cool guy that acknowledged my sk8 history and treated me with respect.  I’m now on Alva’s wheel flow team, riding my favorite wheels, the “Alva Ghandis”.

The only difference between the LA and SD skater dudes in the 1970’s was the different environments and situations we grew up in.  The LA guys just happened to get exploited, and we didn’t.  It seems to me that factors like Glenn Friedman, Stacey Peralta, a few sk8 mag publishers and some others are responsible for both the Dogtown exploitation and the myth of the LA v. Down South sk8 rivalry.  Of course, just like any exploited situation, someone wins and someone loses.  That’s what happened to guys in this story:  a few Dogtowners made out okay, one or two made out great and the rest just got dogged.   So, maybe it was for the better than the Down South sk8 scene was left out of that whole thing at the time.

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