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Skateboarding has a definite lifespan for most. Guys pick it up as a past-time when they’re young and spend a few years really getting into it, but as they grow older and other commitments eat into their free time, they tend to put away the boards and move onto other things.
There are a few who take the other path, who become so fascinated with skateboarding that it morphs into a way of life: a part of their existence as inextricable as breathing and eating. If they go withoout boarding for too many days at a time, they get cranky and weird.
Some of these guys have been able to turn skateboarding into a lifelong profession, while others manage to keep at it in spite of their careers. They’ve turned the extra time on their boards to their advantage, developing a style worn smooth and honed to a high gloss after years of practice. Here are a few examples of what we’re talking about:
Brett Shaw (recently featured in the newest issue of Session) is a man who has been skateboarding for the majority of his life. Brett turned his passion for boards, travel, art and music into a career through his company Invisible Cactus, filming skating and other boardsports all over South Africa and beyond.
There are a few who take the other path, who become so fascinated with skateboarding that it morphs into a way of life: a part of their existence as inextricable as breathing and eating.
Adrian Day (one of our judges) is another lifer. Adrian lives and breathes skating, whether it’s running Nike SB South Africa, calling the shots on Familia Skateboards, or planning his next pilgrimage to Barcelona. The guy’s knowledge of skating is near-encyclopedic. No one else matches his instinctive understanding of what makes skateboarding look cool, as well as the ability to express it.
Dallas Oberholzer is undoubtedly on the list. The man skates fast and loose, and as cliched as it sounds, the guy’s skating is gnarly. Dallas turns his passion for skating into a daily mission of upliftment, using his partnerships with the Laureus Foundation and Indigo Skate Camp in the Valley of a Thousand Hills to help people with less get a little bit more.
There are countless other examples like journalist Miles Masterson, photographer Miguel Howell, marketers Pat Duff and Andrew Morck and entrepreneurs like Clint Van Der Schyf, Brendan Body and Dave de Witt. To these guys, skating isn’t something you do for a bit, it’s something you do for life. For their contribution to skating, we salute them and the others like them.
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