Students seek adrenaline, down hill slopes, camaraderie
By Alec Vick ’15
THE ROUNDUP
The school is one body of people until the bell rings at the end of the day.
At 2:46 baseball players go from practice to Gardening Club to club baseball practice. Football players go from conditioning to Best Buddies to tutoring sessions. The options are limitless.
Then there’s longboarders. Most longboarders at Brophy go on weekends to their local hill, or travel long ways to a hill with their friends.
Some go every day, whether that be 30 minutes away from their house, or as close as their driveway.
Streets along slopes of Phoenix mountain ranges, such as Camelback or South Mountain, are favorites among the sites of local longboarders.
A longboard consists of a board that is finely cut and shaped to the riders liking, four soft wheels perfect for their specifications on sliding, and trucks that hold the wheels in place with the board.
A longboarder typically wears an outfit with a helmet, knee pads, slide gloves and skate shoes.
Once on the hill, the longboarder propels himself down the hill at breakneck speeds only to come into a slide or a combination of a few.
“(Longboarding) is my escape from the real world. It relieves me from all my stress,” said Joey Underwood ’15.
A slide is when the rider forces the board along the pavement on the wheels. Slides come in many forms and many riders have mastered the basics, but not all too often is it that you find a rider who knows almost everything about the hobby.
“It makes me feel so powerful, like nothing can stop me,” said Jack Werner ’15.
Longboarders come from all over when a slide-jam is hosted, a tournament of longboarders.
Winners receive anything from cash prizes to bragging rights depending how big the jam is.
Although the fun of longboarding is often overshadowed by the danger that coincides with it, to the longboarders in Phoenix, a 20 foot downhill fall is nothing but a small scratch.
“I can’t really describe the feeling when I get on a longboard, of course I feel the adrenaline, but something that I think even overpowers that is the freedom,” said Michael Abert ’15.
