Whether it’s by the Belltower, in front of the bookstore or by Orbach Library’s staircase, the University of California, Riverside (UCR) is home to excellent skateboarding locations. You can often see people grinding a ledge or trying to stick a kickflip wherever you go on campus, but few know that there is actually a school sanctioned space for it. Skate Club at UCR is committed to providing a safe space for skateboarders of all levels to learn, grow and have fun with those that share a love for the board.
Zach Nish, second-year environmental engineering major and co-president of Skate Club joined last year after attending one of the club’s general meetings, “I heard that they were gonna host a little general meeting, and I just came. It was really a pretty small turnout, so it was just pretty much me and like a couple other people … Owen was the president last year. He was on a scooter, and he liked how I was skating … he filmed a couple of clips for me.”
Nish himself started skating when he was in middle school, but many people who join skate clubs often have never been on a board before. The club meets by the Belltower after Wednesday’s weekly club tabling where more experienced members coach beginners. Nish explains, “if anybody’s ever trying to learn even the simple stuff, pushing or stopping, or basic stuff, ollie, which is just a normal little jump, we try and teach people those little things.”
Though Wednesdays are the club’s official meeting time, the club often meets informally at locations all across campus, “it’s not necessarily a scheduled thing, whenever somebody goes out and skates, they’ll just send a message to the Groupme and just tell other people to come and usually others will pull up.”
In terms of learning to skate, Nish explained that while tricks do look cool, they may not be the best to start out with. Once you’ve mastered the basics, trying tricks such as ollies and shove-its will come naturally.
As many people are often intimidated by the idea of skating, Nish emphasized the importance of just starting and giving it a shot: “I remember when I first was starting out, it was just [a] really intimidating thing to go to the skate park, and I would go and I wouldn’t even skate. I would just watch people because I was so scared of being judged. But we try and make it a safe place for people to just learn without embarrassment … I would say the first steps are probably finding like-minded people.”
Nish explained the difference between ledge skating as opposed to transition skating, which is done primarily on structures such as a half pipe where the board transitions from one side to the other. Ledge skating is what is most associated with street skating as it involves grinding on ledges and jumping up on structures.
The club hosts events with other board clubs on campus such as the Surf Club and Snow Boarding Club, “There’s an event called Switchboard, where you basically, in the morning, go to the beach and surf, and then in the afternoon, you go to a skate park and skateboard, and then you hit the ski slopes and snowboard after, all in one day … That’s one of our bigger events …”
For more general events, Nish explains, “We’ll drive out to other parks and stuff, and we’ll shuttle people there and we play music and stuff, and it’s [to] just hang out pretty much.” The club also attended events with other schools such as UC Irvine and UC Los Angeles.
The club has struggled with communication specifically in regards to organization and planning, but are working towards establishing a clearer set of expectations. Their goals this year involve reaching out to more people: “we really just want to recruit more members and get more people skating, just because it’s a pretty positive thing, I would say, just to pick up a hobby and something that you know. You can spend time on [it] productively and exercise [and] meet new people.”
Much like UCR itself, Skate Club reflects a sense of openness and acceptance, “UCR is already such a unique school, everybody says that UCR students are more chill than other schools. That definitely helps the atmosphere in Skate Club. I don’t know if I could really say for sure, but I’m sure other clubs might have issues with judgment and beef. UCR Skate Club really doesn’t have that at all. Everybody’s friendly and it’s really just an inviting club.”
So the next time you find yourself enviously watching someone make an insane jump outside the bookstore or wince as you watch someone faceplant by the University Lecture Hall, know that there is an opportunity for you to experience both with the Skate Club at UCR.
