CELEBRATION
The Fine Art of Bouncing Off the Concrete
Lessons in resilience, taught by skateboarding
I officially threw my son Becker to the wolves in August, 2017. That’s when I dropped him off in Los Angeles and helped him start his new life on the West Coast. I took him out there to pursue his long-held dream of becoming a professional skateboarder.
Our drive across the country was a bonding experience that I’ll never forget. It included a two-day stop in Santa Fe for a skate contest that awarded the winner with an all expenses paid trip to Boston to compete in the national finals a few months later.
He rolled his ankle badly warming up for the contest. He limped over to the sidelines and told me he wouldn’t be able to compete. Like any good dad would, I looked him in the eye and told him to rub some dirt on it and get back out there and do his best.
Watching him stand sweaty, dirty, and victorious at the top of the podium a couple hours later was one of those moments you dream about as a father. My pride wasn’t the result of his skate prowess though, but rather of his ability to fight through adversity.
Skating is basically just a series of failures interspersed with the odd bit of success. Skating every day from the time you are five years old has a way of teaching you some of life’s hardest lessons. In particular, the need to pick yourself up off the concrete again and again and push forward if you want to accomplish anything great.
How you answer the questions it asks stand to redefine your character. Can you get back up again? Can you improve incrementally? Can you overcome concrete’s cold, hard slap and achieve the goal you set for yourself? Becker answers these questions better than anybody I know. In doing so, he has taught himself what resilience truly means.
Becker has learned these life lessons without losing his sense of self. He celebrates and elevates others, sometimes to his own detriment. But that is the best of what skating is all about. It’s a culture in which lauding someone else’s success is as rewarding as pursuing your own.
I can so easily reminisce about the hundreds of times my wife and I have fretted about his future, his safety, and whether pursuing a career in skateboarding is the “right” thing to do. Skating is not so much what Becker does though, but who he is. Taking it away would be like stealing someone’s identity. It’s possible, but only the truly evil among us would actually do it.
What an uncommon gift it is to be able to do something you truly love every day of your life. On this, his 23rd birthday, I hope he asks for nothing more than the ability to go outside, put his wheels on the ground, and push forward.
