These past few months, I shared my idea of English classes for skateboarders with a few people from the industry. And while some were enthusiastic and dare I say, inspired – others were frankly not.Among the criticisms were the fact that it was “far too niche” and disconnected from skating. After all, why would any aspiring professional skater want to learn the language of an industry that functions in English and is largely based it America? It makes no sense.And why would a school kid who loves skateboarding ever want to learn English with a fun online platform dedicated to skaters? That too makes no sense.For a while, I unwillingly agreed with the naysayers and accepted their more traditional interpretation of skateboarding. It had never been this way before, so why would it suddenly change? Skaters care about skating, not about professionalizing their communication skills.Shorty after, I turned towards my spiritual mentors for council. Those Believers who created things that were not on the planet before they had made them. Some say it is the hardest skill of all: taking your paintbrush to the canvas of life and making something that didn't exist before you designed it.They are the Henri Fords of this world, the Wright brothers with their airplane, the Marconi's with his radio airwaves and the Graham Bell's with his telephone. Inventors whose contemporaries didn't see the angle or just called them mad.Modesty just as soon requires of me to clarify that I am not comparing myself to these greats, but only benefiting from crumbs of their wisdom. When the majority says you're wrong, push through and it eventually becomes right. The great inventors told me “Chris, look into the future. What do you see?”I see a future of skateboarding that goes in one of two directions. Twenty years down the line, skating is either a lot more of what it is now or has changed course completely.If the professionalism of skating continues on its steady growth, I see it becoming a very normal practice for aspiring pro skaters to refine their public image more and more and work with “personal brand managers”. These would be professionals whose task is to manage the social media image of the skater in view of maximizing that small window of opportunity.A skill such as the one I propose (English classes) would just be a small part of the package. It would no longer require explaining why an international pro take English classes to express themselves in interviews, and socialize with their peers.Personal brand managers would be skilled at connecting the pro skaters with their audience and designing a narrative. A pro who grew up a tiny fishing village, listened to black metal and loved to attend comic book conventions might be something to work with and expand on. They might imagine a video part filmed in that pro's forgotten village and play on the musical angle while at the same time connecting the pro with the comic book scene. The “chance factor” would be narrowed down considerably and brand managers would work towards getting the best out of a pro's personality and style of skating. They would extract the essence and the most interesting qualities of the skater.The act of skateboarding would stay as legitimate as it's always been but the careers of the pros would be left a lot less in the hands of their sponsors who would now just build and advertise the product.At the moment, it is the skateboard companies that sell their own brand (image) to their customers. Each sell items of wood or urethane, but the idea associated with these products is the true distinguishing factor. The tricks that the pros perform serve to strengthen the mental association between “rad trick” and “rad brand”. We could say that the pro works within the pre-existing brand and image.Whether a pro ride for Anti-Hero, Girl, Powell or Element they become an ambassador of that brand through their riding. The personal brand of the rider is usually smaller than the brand and image of the sponsor. Some of us older skaters remember the sad story of Frankie Hill whose amazing stunts tremendously benefited the image of his sponsors. Hill damaged his leg filming his stunts, which led him to have to put an end to his career and heroically study for a degree in the medical field.When Hill was gone, we didn't know much about him as a person. He was the kid who threw himself down handrails and dragged his hand when he landed. His sponsors had siphoned the talent but never developed him as a person. If he'd had to start again after an interruption of several years, we wouldn't have known what he was “about”. It so happens that many years later, I saw a retrospective documentary about Hill on Youtube on which I learned he had a unique way with words and even made up his own language. (as briefly seen in the old videos) But why wasn't this exploited much more by his sponsors? Why did I just learn about this by chance? This is far different from a Mark Gonzales or a Mike Vallely whose personal brands need not the slightest word of explanation. Whoever these two athletes ride for, we know exactly what they represent as public figures. One thing they have in common is a high level of self-expression, either by their words or their art. They could drop skateboarding for several years, come back, choose a new sponsor and we would know what they bring to the table in terms of creative influence and personality.The reason I am such a strong believer in English for Skateboarders is that I know that as novel as the concept sounds today, it will look like a very shy step forward 20 years down the line. It will be neither visionary nor groundbreaking. It will just make sense. As far as trusting the skateboard industry wisdom, I quietened my doubts in myself by recalling some mistakes of its own. Just 20 years ago no one saw the angle in commercializing a pro shoe. Only Natas' (1987) and Cab's (1989) were on the market before Sal Barbier (1994) and Jason Lee (1995) got theirs a good 8 years after - which in skateboard years is as good as a lifetime. How much do you think Matt Hensley would have sold if he'd had a shoe out? Progress can be very slow to implement. All this being said, my futuristic view of skateboarding might not happen at all. It is just as likely that skating follow the second route and return to a much more amateurish landscape. Big outside sponsors might see a dip in sales and just as soon withdraw from skating. The generation of pros who believed in a world series of skate contests and in the Olympic games might turn disillusioned and show the next generation that it wasn't worth the effort. Skating will then go back to a DIY scene until the cycle starts all over again in 40 years' time.The only thing we are sure of is the now. And in this now, it seems to me that every pro (or future pro) has the choice between seeing themselves as an athlete who lives the "dream life" by getting paid to skate. Or they can see themselves as their own little one-person business. It's about figuring out who is the A-side and the B-side. Is it the board sponsor or the rider? Once the pro has decided who is who, they might just say: "These kids need to know about me and FAST!"
