skategeezers in Texas

[skategeezer]

Age hasn't slowed skaters down


Friends hang on to adrenaline-fueled hobby into middle age

11:49 AM CDT on Sunday, July 29, 2007


By MICHAEL J. MOONEY / The Dallas Morning News
mmooney@dallasnews.com
Wind lashes Greg Stubbs' cheeks as he whips his skateboard down a cement embankment at 35 mph. He balances himself and rides the force of gravity.

SONYA HEBERT / DMN
While taking a breather, Greg Stubbs, 40, who got his first skateboard at age 7, right, gives advice to younger skaters at the Lively Pointe Recreation Center Skate Park in Irving.


Mr. Stubbs is 40 and still as intense a skateboarding enthusiast as they come. He started skating in the 1970s, when skateboarding was first popular, and he never let go. Not when he got married. Not when he had a daughter. Not when he started a job as a business-suit-wearing legal consultant.

He shreds with more than 30 veteran skaters – almost all in their 40s and 50s. Often ducking the police, these middle-aged thrashers jump the fences of closed motels to sip beer and grind their boards across the empty pools. They trespass into back yards. They swarm local skate parks, speeding past kids half their age.
They also own their own businesses. They have families and mortgages and disposable incomes. "I vote Republican," said Mr. Stubbs, who lives in Dallas. "I'm not your typical skateboarder. There is something about being out there, that feeling of freedom. Even if you wanted to give it up, you couldn't.
"We kept growing up, but we couldn't give this up."

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Video: Skateboarders haven't slowed down


Older skateboarding groups like Mr. Stubbs' are not unusual, said Dave Swift, a writer at The Skateboarding Mag, a national magazine devoted to skateboarding culture.
"All across the country, there are guys in their 40s and 50s who either became enamored with skating again or could never shake it," Mr. Swift said. "It's part of the subculture. They've grown up with this lifestyle, and they live for it. Everything about their lives is surrounded by that culture."

There are more than 11 million skateboarders in the U.S., according to Board-Trac, a marketing company based in Orange County, Calif., that specializes in research on "action sports" like skateboarding. Of the 11 million, an estimated 5 percent are older than 35, and 2 percent, or about 200,000, are older than 45.
Mr. Stubbs' North Texas group includes real estate developers, chiropractors and lawyers – ages 36 to 61. They get together in the early hours, before the ramps and public parks get crowded. Some of them even skate with their children and grandchildren.

Al Coker, a 51-year-old CEO from Highland Park, can't get enough time on a skateboard. He started skating in the '60s.

"We're just adrenaline junkies," he said. "When you're on a skateboard, you're not thinking about a client, about bread and milk, about that tax check. You're just in the moment. It's all about that thrill."
Skater evolution
Greg Stubbs first experienced "that thrill" as a boy in Oklahoma City. He grew up playing football and baseball, but he fantasized about surfing blue waves off the beaches of California. He first read about skateboarding in a surfing magazine. It was something surfers could do when they weren't near the ocean.
"Oklahoma City is about as far from an ocean as you get," Mr. Stubbs said. "Skating seemed like the perfect thing for me."
SONYA HEBERT / DMN
Dave Bonnell, 45, of Forney attempts a maneuver while skating the bowl. A group of more than 30 veteran North Texas skaters – almost all in their 40s and 50s – regularly get together. Sometimes they bring their children and grandchildren.


He got his first skateboard when he was 7. He cruised around his neighborhood, imagining himself surfing cement waves in the driveways.
In high school, Mr. Stubbs played several sports. "I was a Joe Jock growing up," he said. "But nothing gave me the feeling skateboarding did. Other sports were fun, but you don't get that full-body rush."
Even when skateboarding lost popularity in the early '80s, Mr. Stubbs' enthusiasm didn't waver. "That's the time when everyone thought skaters were just a bunch of punks," he tells younger skaters. "If you had a skateboard in 1980, you were hated."
In 1990, he moved to Dallas, a place Mr. Swift, the magazine writer, calls "a farm for some of the best skaters in the world in the '80s and early '90s."
Reluctantly, Mr. Stubbs took a job in sales. One thing led to another, and he ended up at a litigation support firm, working with corporate and civil attorneys.
Now he wears a tie every day. But underneath the suit, he remains a skater punk. Mr. Stubbs says he has had to explain more than once to co-workers and clients why he has pus oozing through his slacks.
His shins are ultra-sensitive from years of banging them. His elbows are the same way. He recently bumped his right elbow on the console of his SUV. It swelled to the size of a golf ball.
Most of these men have shaky knees and, though they don't like to discuss it, arthritis. But then the smooth cement calls.
Family men
"A lot of kids think I'm the cool dad because I skateboard," Mr. Stubbs said. "They just don't get to see me bust too often."
A regular gang of venerable skateboarders gathers most Tuesday nights after work. Some bring their children or grandchildren. If they can't find a pool, they go to skate parks in Arlington, Irving or Allen.
SONYA HEBERT / DMN
"A lot of kids think I'm the cool dad because I skateboard," Mr. Stubbs said. "They just don't get to see me bust too often."


On a recent Tuesday at Lively Pointe Skate Park in Irving, Mr. Stubbs had to watch his friends dart around on their boards for almost 30 minutes while he dealt with a parental crisis. His wife, Corbi, called him on his cellphone to say their 11-year-old daughter, Chloe, was unhappy at basketball camp.
"She'll be OK," Mr. Stubbs told his wife on the phone. "Tell her she can go over to her grandma's house at the end of the week."
"Greg is a good, levelheaded guy," his wife said later. "He is a good father. But sometimes he just needs to get away and go skateboarding. Some men go golfing. My husband goes skateboarding."
One of Mr. Stubbs' friends, Steve Flusche, 39, says he took a short break from skateboarding in his late 20s, but picked it up again after his daughter was born. When she was a toddler, he would put her on the skateboard as he rode.
"I'd put her up there at the front," said Mr. Flusche, of Dallas. "I'd hold her hands and we'd cruise down the street real slow, just to get a sense of balance on the board."
Pool hunting
Any chance he gets, Mr. Stubbs grabs a board and hits a pool or a drainage ditch. He can't resist the rebellious, anti-establishment attitude that comes with a good ride. Even if he only gets a half-hour of skate time.
"These guys are putting on their dress pants in the morning, but they're constantly thinking: 'Maybe [i] should grab a board, maybe guys are meeting up,' " Mr. Stubbs said. "I always throw a board or two in the Suburban just in case."
Mr. Stubbs says one of his favorite activities is sneaking into "cracked-out motels" – abandoned structures inhabited by drug addicts and homeless people. One night earlier this summer, he and his friends hopped the fence of a shuttered motel. They removed a couch someone had thrown into the pool. Then they took turns flashing around the smooth surface, their boards grinding against the pool edges.
As Mr. Stubbs recalls it, their fun was interrupted by the flashlight of a police officer. The officer laughed when he saw how old the skaters were. "When your license says 1967, that's your pass most of the time," Mr. Stubbs said.
His favorite tool is Google Earth. He can scan a satellite view of neighborhoods around his house for dirty pools. When he finds one on the map, he calls his buddies.
"I wear my slacks and nice shirt, and sometimes I carry a clipboard," Mr. Stubbs said. "I even have a sign for my car that says we are a pool cleaning company."
He explains to the owner of the dirty pool that he and his friends have a pump and can clean their pool, free of charge. All he asks in return is a few hours to skateboard in the clean pool. He even brings liability release forms he's had his lawyers draw up.
"Sometimes we get run off," he said. "Sometimes we end up mowing the grass and scrubbing the pool and skateboarding all night. We've even had people bring us beer and sit and watch us."

[skategeezer]

When he does finally get to skate, as he did on a recent Tuesday in Irving, Mr. Stubbs starts by pausing on the edge of the pool. He takes a breath. He drops in. Then he takes off, zipping up and down the gray walls. He shifts his weight slightly to steer as he carves invisible arches in the cement like a surfer leaving a trail of white foam in a wave.
"He's good," observed Daniel Torres, 16, one of a group of teens watching Mr. Stubbs. "For these guys to be able to do those types of things, at their age, that's true skill."
Their legacy
As he shows off his longer, "surf-style" board to kids in Irving, Mr. Stubbs is pensive. He knows he can't skate forever. He discusses the legacy he and his friends want to leave for young skateboarders in Texas.
He has approached Dallas officials, asking for a public cement skate park. The skaters want "Texas-size" parks that can't be disassembled or bulldozed.
"We want huge monoliths to leave for the future of skateboarding," Mr. Stubbs said. "We don't want something someone can destroy the next time skating isn't popular. We're now taxpaying citizens and have a bigger voice. We're ready to parlay that clout into a voice at City Hall."
Mr. Coker, who established Al Coker and Associates, a real estate sales firm based in Highland Park, says he's given up on trying to get a public park built. He has scouted warehouses where he says he'd like to build a private, indoor skate park where his friends can come any time they want.
"I might have a small one-time fee – maybe a hundred dollars – and hand out keys, and these guys can come in and do their thing," he said. "I might even get Centrum Silver to sponsor us."
They envision a place where they can drop by after a long day at the office. Or they can take their kids and grandkids on the weekends. They can relax, drink some cold beer, dazzle one another with death-defying tricks and ride the stomach-turning pull of gravity.
Mr. Coker says he wants a place where his buddies can come and bleed through their tattered jeans.
He says he has a name in mind for the private park: "Fool's Paradise."

[BobLoftin]

Stubbs's advice to the two boys in the top picture:

"Stop wearing girls pants".

[gorillabiscuits]

Awesome, sick picture of Dave too!

[Arrowsmith]

I am proud to say I know these guys...I tell you what.

[Stubbs]

Originally Posted by Arrowsmith

I am proud to say I know these guys...I tell you what.

HA! Likewise, John.

I really expected the article to be a lot more about our network of friends that I spoke of in the video....

http://www.dallasnews.com/video/index.html?nvid=161410

...and I was hoping of an actual pic of some skateboarding....

PHOTO: Jeff Newton

...but, whatever. The piece turned out halfway decent and I'm already speaking to the reporter, Mike Mooney, about several follow up pieces going into the history of Texas skateboarding, the current roster of it's pros and maybe even some pictoral stuff featuring different spots.

Nau, next time I am in Austin I want to skate Round Rock. You need to come out.

[sloweyefasthand]

Haha yes, no more girl pants.
Too bad my dad's not a skater, but oh well atleast he's a gear head hot rodder so I've got nothing to complain about.

[vetterable]

Nice coverage from DallasMorning News. I just moved to Frisco, anyone know of some good longboard downhills in the area? I'm an old guy also - 43. I'd like to meet up and ride with you all sometime. Post up with logistics for next ride if possible. Thanks.

[EBasil]

"Hey Grandpa! What do they call a skater like you?"

"They call me, 'Mister Stubbs.' "

Great article!

[sprinkle]

excellent read.