Kyle Fredrickson as fellow Boarder. Steve Alba and the rest of the gang at the Ghetto Café. Photo: Courtesy of Steve Alba
If you’re anything like me, you may have felt like an even bigger outsider at school than usual after learning that not only do college kids really own skateboards, but that they are doing it in pools.
Here in America, where swimming has always held a kind of sacred place, it’s so hard to imagine a child of any generation not having taken a dip in a pool at some point during their lives. But for most of us, it’s just a mundane activity that takes place between showers—while we’re standing in line at the gym, holding our towels, or occasionally even the other kind of towel while we’re getting ready for work.
It’s easy to forget that for many people, pools aren’t just a place to wash, but a place to play. I grew up in Switzerland, where swimming pools and the water’s edge were the two most common gathering spots for kids to play in the summertime. In the village where I grew up, they were a big part of the social scene—we all went swimming together, and they were always the perfect spot to kick back with your friends and unwind on a warm summer day.
It’s that same relaxed, fun spirit that keeps people returning to pools year after year. And as skateboarding has become more popular among teenagers in the past few years, the pool has become an increasingly popular place for skateboarding as well.
Of course, it’s not entirely uncommon for people to skate at a pool—it’s just very rare to see adults do it. But what is rare is to see kids in their teens and early twenties doing it. It’s not uncommon to see kids ranging from eight to fifteen skating in poolside parks and splash pads.
I’ve also seen some pretty incredible videos of pool skating posted online over the years. Back in 2005, two friends of mine at the University of California, Santa Barbara—Randy Hanel and Kyle Fredrickson—began creating a viral video called California Pool Skateboarding. It’s a simple idea—Hanel and Fredrickson skateboard down a pool in Santa Barbara, and the rest of us watch from the sidelines. They’re not doing anything complicated
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