One of the first skateboard street contests- Oceanside, California 1985

Shot and produced by my one time boss at Vision's Unreel Productions, Don Hoffman, this video is a look at skateboarding "streetstyle," about a year after the first contest, I think.  Roots.  

On Facebook a couple days ago, BMX legend Dave Voelker asked, "Who invented street contests first, BMXers or skaters?"  Since I was at the Oceanside street skating contest in 1986, a year and a half before Wilkerson's first 2-Hip Meet the Street in Santee, in 1988, I knew it was skaters.  Dave Vanderspek put on a bike street contest in NorCal before that, but skaters still did it first.  When I went looking for an early street skating contest video, this one came up.  This was when skateboarding was ruled by vert skating, and the freestyle skaters were a sideshow, off to the side, as talented as they were.  Freestylers got their revenge a few years later, by becoming the guys running the industry.  Street skating was just begining to be a thing, and people were trying to figure out just what could be done with a skateboard in an urban setting.  Thirty-seven years later, that mission continues. 

Local news show profiles Tony Hawk in 1986

Yeah, we all know who Tony Hawk is now.  But way back in 1986, pretty much only serious skaters knew who he was.  Here's 18-year-old Tony Hawk, two years after the first Powell Peralta Bones Brigade video, skating and talking in front of his first house in Carlsbad, California.

Where were you in 1986?  Many of you may not have even been born yet.  I'm a couple of years older than Tony, and 1986 was the year my BMX freestyle zine in San Jose landed me a job in Southern California, at BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines.  I barely knew who Tony was in 1986, although I had been goofing around on skateboards since 1976.  My co-worker and roommate at Wizard, Mark "Lew" Lewman is the guy who showed me his skate magazines, and got me more interested in skateboarding, along with my boos there, Andy Jenkins.  We covered skating in FREESTYLIN', and Lew introduced me to 19-year-old Rodney Mullen my second night in Redondo Beach, who happened to practice at The Spot, by the Redondo Pier, where we practiced our flatland on BMX freestyle bikes every night.  

As big a name as Tony Hawk was in skateboarding in 1986, skating was still not cool to most people.  Skaters and BMXers were still weirdos back then, though Tony was already making more money than most of the old geezers telling him to "Go get a real job, punk."  That is something we all heard in our late teens and early 20's, while riding skateboards or BMX bikes, in the 1980's.  Action sports has come a long way since 1986.