Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Column

Skaters warned, but will they listen?

By LISA BUIE
Published January 16, 2005

On most weekdays after 3 p.m., they come.

Viewed from the air, they would look like columns of ants crawling from different directions toward an Oreo crumb, these teenage boys in dark T-shirts who show up as if signaled with a whistle only they can hear.

Skateboards in hand, they head toward this asphalt rectangle to fly over steel ramps and perfect their tricks, with names such as ollie, kick flip and grind.

Like superheroes, the skateboarders do seem to defy gravity. If they were in comic books, they'd be the rebels in the pages of Marvel. Definitely not like DC's straight-laced Superman.

The Man of Steel would wear a helmet.

These guys are more like Daredevil.

"My mom just tells me to be careful," said Robert Torres, 13.

The skateboarders at this city-owned park in Zephyrhills risk losing their only place to practice because they won't wear helmets. Such safety equipment is not an option. The sign attached to the chain link fence spells that out clearly: "Failure to register or wear your helmet may force closure of this facility."

The skateboarders ignore the sign. Recently, some kids even stole it. Vandals also have written things in wax on the asphalt, one skateboarder said.

Every day is a battle. Police stop by periodically to make sure the teens wear helmets. The teens keep an eye out for the cops.

"Five-O!" yells the first to see the cruisers cross the train tracks. Then everyone runs outside to the bleachers or hastily puts on headgear.

The battle of wills has police Chief Russell Barnes so annoyed that last week he ran out all the skateboarders and locked up the park. That night, he complained to the City Council.

"We are considering closing the skateboard park if the issue of wearing helmets becomes too much of a problem," Barnes told council members. "The problem ... is liability for the city."

Barnes hates having to play the heavy. He recalled the slingshot fights he and his friends had when they were growing up.

"We got lumps and bruises, and it hurt like the dickens," he said. "And it was a dumb, stupid, kid thing to do."

But if the police told them to stop, they did. Because Barnes' dad said his son could count on two things if he ever got in trouble with the police.

"If I ever got put in jail, I'd spend the night, and second, the police would be the least of my worries," he said.

Today's parents are more likely to sue the city, Barnes said.

So what's the big deal about wearing a helmet?

The skateboarders gave their reasons. They're heavy, so you can't get as much air when you jump. They make your head sweat. They're uncomfortable. A park in Tampa doesn't require them.

Besides, skateboarders already have to sign a waiver saying they won't sue the city if they get hurt, they said. So what's the point?

The teens said they understand that injuries are part of skateboarding.

They even showed off their scars.

"I got one here," said Chris VanDam, pointing to his eye. Recently, a "busted up" knee sent the 14-year-old to the hospital. His parents didn't let him skate for a few weeks.

"You can't skate with a big helmet on your head," said 16-year-old Eric Wilbanks, as he and his girlfriend got ready to leave.

Bryan Martell offered the most honest answer: peer pressure.

Bottom line, no one wants to be the only one wearing a helmet and looking stupid.

"If they had an attendant, then everyone would have to wear their helmets," the 16-year-old said.

His mentor and role model, Jason Hoy, has no sympathy for the teens.

A 20-year skateboarding veteran, he always wears a helmet at the city park and makes the others do so when he's around.

"When I was younger, it was more or less uncomfortable, but as long as you practice in it, you get used to it," said Hoy, 29, who is teaching his wife and two young daughters to skateboard.

He also blames the pros for not pushing safety enough to teens who have a false sense of invincibility.

"They don't really understand what can happen," Hoy said. "They don't think they're going to crack their head open at the bottom of a ramp."

Regardless, he said, rules are rules.

"The city was nice enough to build a park, and they're only asking us to do one thing," he said.

Hoy knows the difficulty skateboarders face in being accepted. As a kid, he tried to get officials in Colorado to build a park, and "they laughed in my face."

"Their attitude is the city owes them a skate park," he said of the Zephyrhills teens.

City Manager Steve Spina can relate to the teens. He doesn't enjoy wearing bulky safety glasses when he plays racquetball at the East Pasco YMCA.

But the rules say he has to, so he does. But he also used to be a teenager, and he understands the power of peer pressure.

He hates to be a killjoy, but he also knows the city's insurance company requires helmets in skateboard parks. He also knows that in the end, the waiver that skaters must sign "probably is worth about as much as the paper it's printed on."

Spina visited the park last week to talk to the skateboarders. Every head was bare. He knows this will continue.

Hiring an attendant, at least for afterschool hours, is worth considering, he said.

"We don't want an $85,000 skate park to stand empty."

Lisa Buie is the editor of the central/east edition of the Pasco Times. You can reach her at 813 909-4604 or toll-free 1-800-333-7505, ext. 4604. Her e-mail address is buie@sptimes.com

[Last modified January 16, 2005, 00:33:22]