Books : Dropping in with Andy Mac : Excerpts

Chapter 7: Skating Michigan
"You can do it!"

It's not that I ever wanted my parents to be divorced, but there was an upside to the situation. I was lucky because I could skate the New England area by my mom in the winter and then skate Michigan all summer with my dad cheering me on.

Dropping in on a Half Pipe
In the summer of 1986 I turned thirteen and was going into seventh grade. I landed in Michigan with my Variflex board under my arm, ready to find a good place to skate. Right away my dad brought my brother and me to a local skateboard shop.

We were looking around when a shaggy-looking teenage kid came in. My dad completely embarrassed us by going up to him and saying, "I want you to meet my boys, who just got into skating." And he wasn't finished. "Do you know any good places to skate around here?" he asked. A little taken aback at first, the kid was totally cool and gave us his phone number and said he'd take us around and introduce us to other skaters in the area. This kid, Dave Tuck, became a good friend of ours.

Dave was a few years older than Kyle, and he had his own car. He picked us up the next day and brought us to Jeff Hadley's house in a town called Ypsilanti. Hadley had built a half pipe vert ramp in his backyard that he let the local guys use. It was sixteen feet wide and eleven feet high; it had plastic coping on top and was painted two different shades of pink. It was beautiful. At this point I had been riding the quarter pipe at home in our driveway, but we had not yet built the other ramps and I had not yet dropped in on a half pipe. Kyle dropped in on the pink pipe almost right away, but I still wasn't ready. So I just fakied back and forth most of that summer.

But the next summer before eighth grade I was ready -- or at least Dave kept telling me I was. With my dad nearby with his video camera, I stood on the deck of Hadley's ramp looking down from eleven feet up, scared to death.

"Go ahead!" yelled Dave. "You can do it!"

"Don't think about it," added my dad. "Just do it."

Taking a big breath, I dropped in -- actually, smashed in is more like it. I stepped too far forward on the nose of my board and went right over. I slammed on my elbow and ribs, knocking the wind out of myself.

"Okay, try again," said my dad from behind the video camera. My dad wasn't one to panic over a fall. He just kept right on recording. I looked back up at the top of the ramp. Eleven feet is almost the height of a one-story building. But if my brother could do it, so could I. I climbed back up, took another deep breath, and dropped in. This time I made it! Everyone yelled for me, and I ran back up the ramp to do it again. It was definitely the highlight of my summer. After that I could drop in on any half pipe I skated.

The AKR Tour

By the summer of '89, when I was sixteen, summers in Michigan were really busy. In between my work hours serving up food at Red Hot Lovers (a hot-dog joint), I spent most of my time skating. Every day I skated the steel, city vert ramp that was thirty-two feet wide and eleven feet high, with a roll-in channel and two extensions. (The steel would get so hot that once we cooked hot dogs on it!) There was also some good pool skating in the area at abandoned hotels. And there was an indoor park called the Skate Escape. But I wanted more.

My pop suggested we take a road trip down the East Coast. So we piled into his new used minivan and the Andy/Kyle/Rod (AKR) tour officially began. I even made T-shirts for each of us with AKR Tour 19SK-89 on them, and my dad brought his trusty video camera along. We went on the road for two weeks, mapping a route according to skate spots and campgrounds. We'd stop at night and set up our tent at campgrounds, or else we'd stay with skaters who were kind enough to offer their couches and floors to sleep on. It was the best vacation in the world.

We worked our way down through Pennsylvania and to the Ocean Bowl Skatepark in Maryland. Once we were on the coast, my dad called ahead and found out that the park in North Carolina was going to be closed on the one day we would be there. Without hesitation, he called the local newspaper and told a reporter our story.

"I'm making a film of the AKR East Coast Tour with amateur skateboarders," he said with a straight face. "Can you get the owner of the local skatepark to open up on Monday for us?"

The next thing you know, we pull up to the park and the owner rushes out to greet us. While my dad "interviewed" him on video about the history of the park, Kyle and I had the whole place to ourselves. You gotta love my dad.

Then we went on to skate the "farm ramp" in South Carolina. It was actually two ramps placed side by side. It was about one hundred feet wide, which made it the biggest ramp in existence at that time. There were two hips and a three-quarter pipe at one end. My brother thrust big frontsides into the three-quarter pipe, and I learned slob fast plants over the channel. It was a dream ramp and a big stop on the tour.

Our next stop was Florida. We had planned to hit three different parks during our four-day stay there, but then plans changed. We went to a brand-new park in Daytona Beach called Stone Edge that was all cement bowls. We had so much fun the first day that we decided to skate that park for all three days!

When it was time to head back home, we drove north to the Cedar Crest Country Club in Virginia; it was our last stop on the tour. They had a huge steel ramp and a camping ground right next to it. It was a perfect setup for us, but it turned out to be not quite a perfect day for me. This ramp is where I took one of the nastiest slams of my career.

The ramp was thirty-two feet wide, and it had a channel in it where, instead of having the vert and the coping, there was a roll-in that left a gap you had to air over. I had skated channels before but this one had only eight feet of ramp on the other side of it. Being the beginner that I was, I did an air over the channel and got the wobbles as I landed. As I came across the flat bottom heading toward the edge of the ramp, I had to decide whether to slam against the other wall or jump off the side of the ramp. I decided too late and was almost halfway up the wall before I bailed off the side. I shot my board straight into the air while I went flying off to the right. I straddled a picnic table on my way to the ground and thought for sure I had broken my upper leg. As I lay curled in pain my board came back down like a missile and hit me on the top of the head. I was rolling around swearing my head off, but fortunately, I was all in one piece. And good ol' Dad got the whole thing on tape. We definitely could have sent that one to America's Funniest Home Videos. In fact, when I was on The Tonight Show in 2001, Jay Leno showed that video. It was still good for a laugh.

Dear Concerned Father
Skateboarding is not like the sports most parents were raised with, and sometimes it scares them. Here's a letter I received from a worried dad after I turned pro. I think my reply will explain why I believe skateboarding is good for kids, even when parents don't understand.

Dear Andy Macdonald's Management,
I am a father of 8- and 10-year-old boys. We are a middle-class family and reside in a fairly affluent suburb. Both my boys are very interested in skateboarding. Fundamentally I see no problems with the sport of skateboarding. I do have a major concern about the negative subculture that exists in the sport. For example, I have had a hard time finding any skateboarding videos that are not laced with f-bombers and other offensive language. Many skateboarders I have observed on TV, in videos, and in or around our town have an image of blatant disrespect for the law.

Our local skate shop resembles a head shop or tattoo parlor. In addition, the music associated with skating is often violent in nature and laced with offensive language. As much as I like the sport of skateboarding, I see the sport as a negative influence on our youth. My concern is great enough that my wife and I may intentionally try to stop their interest in the sport. Do you have any ideas of how I can guide my boys to the positive side of skating?
Sincerely,
Concerned Father

Dear Concerned Father,
From your letter, I gather that you understand and appreciate skateboarding as a sport. However, I feel you are greatly underestimating its potential. By the time I had entered the sixth grade, I was participating in just about every team sport you can think of. By my second year of skateboarding I had dismissed all my team sports as too rigid, boring, and time-consuming. I became a skateboarder. In skating there was no coach to tell me when to practice. I had to be more dedicated and put in more effort than I had in any of the sports I had given up. I learned lessons in self-motivation and self-determination that still hold fast today. These qualities are the essence and core of the subculture that concerns you.

I believe that the negative aspects of skateboarding are disproportionately highlighted because of the sport's tender age, along with the subsequent ignorance that skateboarding even exists on a professional level. From my perspective, mainstream sports are historically every bit as, if not more, subversive, violent, and "laced with offensive language." Fighting is not only permitted, but often encouraged, in hockey. Babe Ruth, a hero of baseball, was known to be a womanizer and a drinker. The World Series was fixed and Pete Rose seemed to have turned out as many bets as he did hits. I won't even go into the NFL, but suffice it to say that what you might see in skateboarding videos pales in comparison to the criminal record of just one NFL team today.

Why are skateboarders seen as disrespectful of the law? Because skateboarding is outlawed in almost every metropolitan area. Yet, in most cases, they are the only places to skateboard. Try to imagine what it might be like to be yelled at, to have your equipment confiscated, to be chased away, fined, or even imprisoned every time you went out to practice your sport. It's really no wonder that many skateboarders are on the defensive. Think of what a mess there would be if, all of a sudden, there were no public places to practice football or baseball or soccer. We wouldn't expect people to just stop participating in those sports. It's even possible that they might take to the streets, as skateboarders have been forced to do.

As for your concern about music, all different skaters listen to all different types of music. When I was your sons' age, I listened almost exclusively to reggae music, influenced by the older kids I skated with. The majority of reggae singers speak about smoking marijuana because it's a large part of the Rastafarian religion. But I was far too busy skateboarding to be concerned with the lyrics of the music I was skating to. To this day I have never taken as much as a drag from a cigarette, never mind tried drugs of any kind. Your children's decisions as to whether or not they will try drugs or speak certain words will go far beyond the messages they hear in music or skate videos.

As for the decor of skate shops, my local skate shop looks like The Gap and I don't like it. The point is: If you don't like the way your local skate shop presents skateboarding, don't patronize it. I'm sure there are other skate shops in your area, and if not, you can order equipment through mail-order catalogs.

So is skateboarding a negative influence on our youth? My answer is no, plain and simple. The lessons of self-motivation and discipline in this coachless sport make it worth a try. It was the most creative, self-fulfilling, and confidence-boosting outlet that I found at your children's age. Skateboarding is what I do for a living now. Financially, I am doing well because of it. I've traveled all over the world and witnessed a brotherhood that you will not find in any other sport. I am a spokesperson for the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, as well as for Board Aid (an organization that raises money and awareness for teens with AIDS). I am on the board of directors at the YMCA to help with youth programs, and I am a community activist in pursuit of public skateboard parks. Most importantly, I am a skateboarder. Don't let your kids miss out.
Sincerely,
Andy Macdonald

NSA
I kept skating and learning new tricks throughout the winters in Boston and the summers in Michigan. In the summer of 1990, just before my junior year of high school, I felt I was ready to enter my first National Skateboard Association (NSA) competition. The district qualifiers for my area in Michigan were held five hours away in Rockford, Illinois. Everybody there was the best of the best. I remember seeing Darren Navarette, Brian Patch, and Eric Koston, who are all pro skaters today. I entered only the vert that year, not expecting to even qualify. I worked on my line over and over during the practice sessions, trying to decide if I should do the 360 varials I had just learned. Sometimes they worked; sometimes they didn't. In the end, I wimped out and cut them from my line. I also worked on my Christ air to fakie during practice (which makes you look like Christ, with your feet off the board, both legs straight down, and both arms straight out), but when my back foot missed the tail one time, I slammed so hard on the metal ramp that I thought I was going to pass out; I decided to leave that out too.

I don't remember the whole line, but whatever I did, it was good enough to get me fifth place in my first NSA vert contest. (Dave LaRue won with a score that was five points higher than everybody else's.) Now I had to figure out how to get down to the regionals in Springfield, Missouri. One way or the other, I was on my way!

Three weeks later, with a board from my Flight sponsor and $50 from my clothing sponsor, Jobless, I grabbed a ride with other skaters going to Springfield, which was a sixteen-hour car ride away. We got there okay and even found the skatepark no problem.

Sarge, the team guy for G&S, let me mooch some floor space in the hotel room for the weekend. And I did okay in the contest, but I didn't qualify in the top ten, so I wasn't eligible for the finals. I remember thinking that it didn't seem fair that three of the five judges were from Texas and nine of the top ten qualifiers were from Texas. (A dozen years later skateboard competitions are still plagued by politics and claims of biased judging.) But that's just the way things were, and I probably wasn't ready for the finals yet anyway. I headed back to Michigan with lots of memories and lessons learned about skating in the big leagues.

The Finals

The following summer in '91, I got another chance. That summer didn't start out so great -- my dad had divorced "Sharon #1" and moved in with "Sharon #2" in Lansing, Michigan. I didn't like Lansing as much as Ann Arbor for skating, but now that I was going into my senior year of high school, I knew it would be my last summer in Michigan. I made the best of it, and it wasn't so bad.

I qualified in the NSA district competitions in both vert and miniramp. I again headed to Springfield for the regionals with my friend Dave Campbell. I had my license at this point, so we shared the driving, and I arrived once again with little money but very high hopes. We rolled into town late at night and had enough money for only one night's hotel stay. After skating practice the next day we had no place to go, but we had a plan.

We hung around waiting for people to start leaving the bars, and we both started juggling on a street corner. Dave was the real showman and looked the part. He was balding but he had dreadlocks halfway down his back and a big puffy "neck beard." He would skate with a skirt over his skate shorts. (The other skaters had dubbed him the "skating Amish man.") I showed off with my diablo and my devil sticks while Dave juggled balls. We passed six clubs for our finale. Dave handed around his knit Rasta hat at the end for tips. Surprisingly, we made enough money for a hotel that night and the entry fee the next day. Even though I hardly got any sleep, everything went right for me the next day. I qualified for the finals in both miniramp and vert and headed home a stoked little dude.

Now I had to get ready for my trip to the finals in Atlanta, Georgia. We decided to make it a big family affair. My brother, who had been working in Germany for the summer, flew back to see me. Mom flew in from Massachusetts, while Pop, Sharon, and I made the two-day drive from Michigan. Obviously, the NSA National Finals were a big deal to all of us. It was a contest among the top ten riders in each of the three regional contests -- West Coast, East Coast, and Central. If you placed in the top five, you'd probably go pro within the next year. In fact, if you look at the roster of those top thirty skaters, you'll see that about eighty percent of them are the top pros today: street skaters like Eric Koston, Willy Santos, Chris Senn, Wade Spire, and Fred Gall; and vert skaters like Colin McKay, Brian Howard, and me.

The contest was held in an indoor park called the Skate Zone. It had a wooden bowl that I had seen in magazines and couldn't wait to skate. Even though it was a million degrees in Atlanta, my brother and I spent hours sessioning the bowl when I should have been practicing for the contest. I did my tricks just fine, but I still placed somewhere in the teens: I did a fakie 540 over the hip and a one-footed frontside grind on the miniramp. I also did a trick I made up called the "mummy." It's a body wrap lien to tail; you ride up frontside, pass the board around your body behind your back, put it back on your feet, then smack the tail and come in. Of course I had hoped to do better, but I did place sixth in miniramp. I was so stoked to be there that I didn't feel let down at all.

I even got a mention in Transworld Skateboarding magazine. They said something about Andy Macdonald doing tricks no one had ever seen before. That's when I realized how out of it I really was. I just made up my own tricks because I didn't know about the "cool" tricks they were doing out in California. All I knew or cared about was that I wanted to be a professional skateboarder. By making it to the finals that summer, I had gotten one step closer to my goal.