He jumps at the opportunity to hit the skate park trying new tricks on his board every chance he gets.
On this episode of the Supercast, a South Hills Middle School student talks about his goal to become a professional skateboarder, the grit it will take to get there, and the lessons he’s learning along the way. Lessons that are helping him in the classroom as well.
Audio Transcription
Anthony Godfrey:
How many hours in a row, if you didn't have anywhere else you had to be, do you think you could skate non-stop before you got tired of it? Do you ever get tired of skating?
JaShawn:
I've skated for 10 hours before.
Anthony Godfrey:
10 hours straight? That is so awesome and it's so much better than sitting for 10 hours straight with a screen in front of you.
Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. Today we're heading out to a local skate park to meet South Hills Middle School student, JaShawn Hill. JaShawn has some serious skills on wheels and he wants to become a professional skateboarder. Find out about the grit it will take to get him there and the lessons he's learning along the way. Lessons that are helping JaShawn in competitions across the country and in the classroom.
And now we meet up with JaShawn on the heels at a national skateboarding competition.
[Music]We're talking with JaShawn Hill here at the Bluffdale Skate Park. Thanks for talking with me today. Tell me about some of your accomplishments as a skater right now.
JaShawn:
Just practicing every day and stuff. Trying to become pro.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah?
JaShawn:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
Have you been in competitions lately?
JaShawn:
Yeah. I was like in one like a month ago.
Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me about that.
JaShawn:
I got third place. Tried my best.
Anthony Godfrey:
And what kind of competition is that? What's the competition called?
JaShawn:
Street competition.
Anthony Godfrey:
Street competition.
JaShawn:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
So what does street competition involve? Lots of ollies I'm sure.
JaShawn:
Well, yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
That's the only term I know. You're going to teach me some slang. Some skateboarding slang. Tell me what's involved in that street competition.
JaShawn:
Like ledges, rails, like eight stairs.
Anthony Godfrey:
So it's set up as if you were just doing some street skating as opposed to on a course or in a park like this.
JaShawn:
Pretty much, yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
So do you have a specialty going downstairs? Going along a rail?
JaShawn:
Going on rails and downstairs.
Anthony Godfrey:
And downstairs? So tell me what goes through your mind the first time you skateboard down some stairs.
JaShawn:
Don't fall.
Anthony Godfrey:
Don't fall. But skateboarding involves a lot of falling. When I've watched skate videos over the years, there's a lot of falling and picking yourself back up and figuring out how to make the trick stick that time, right?
JaShawn:
Yeah. I just fell. Just barely.
Anthony Godfrey:
You just barely fell? What were you trying to do?
JaShawn:
Just back tail slide.
Anthony Godfrey:
A back tail slide?
JaShawn:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
So what does a back tail slide involve?
JaShawn:
You do like an ollie, but you 180 halfway on the ledge and you put your tail on the ledge and slide it and you pop right out.
Anthony Godfrey:
So you try to slide. So the back of the skateboard would be along the ledge. Can we go to a ledge and you can show me what that would look like?
JaShawn:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
This is a pretty cool setup. Is this your preferred park?
JaShawn:
Yeah. I like this park.
Anthony Godfrey:
This is a cement ramp with some cement sides to it and it's reinforced with metal edges so those edges don't wear down. Show me what the skateboard would do if you were doing that trick. The back– tell me what it's called again?
JaShawn:
Back tail slide.
Anthony Godfrey:
Back tail slide. So show me a back tail slide.
JaShawn:
So I go like this and then I go like that and then you go down.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. Actually I'm going to have to see you do that. Okay. Let's see you try it again.
JaShawn:
Actually actually.
Anthony Godfrey:
Have you done this a lot?
JaShawn:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay.
JaShawn:
I'll do it right there.
Anthony Godfrey:
Alright. Let's see you do it.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. I could not. If I tried that, we would be calling 911 shortly and I would be healing for many weeks. Tell me about your board here.
JaShawn:
I got a Directive board.
Sister:
I got stickers.
Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, and your sister is here. Did you get the stickers? You got stickers from the board when it came.
Sister:
From him.
Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, nice. So tell me, so Directive is a brand?
JaShawn:
Yeah, it's my board sponsor and independent wheels. I mean no trucks.
Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, so independent. So the truck is what attaches to the board and holds the wheel right?
JaShawn:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
So because you're sponsored, do you get some free stuff?
JaShawn:
Yeah, I get free shirts and boards.
Sister;
And stickers.
Anthony Godfrey:
And stickers for your sister. Perfect.
JaShawn:
They promote me so like bigger companies can see me like Nike, SB or like New Balance and stuff. That's my dream sponsors.
Anthony Godfrey:
Those are the dream sponsors huh?
JaShawn:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
Alright, what is your most difficult trick that you've been able to stick?
JaShawn:
Kickflip front board.
Anthony Godfrey:
Kickflip front board.
JaShawn:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
How frequently have you done that one?
JaShawn:
I'm getting better at them so like I can almost do like every other try.
Anthony Godfrey:
So what does that involve?
JaShawn:
A kickflip and like a front board on the rail.
Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, so where you slide along the rail on the front of the board.
JaShawn:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
And is sliding along on the front of the board harder than the back of the board?
JaShawn:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
Why don't you try it? I think that's better.
So he went back up on the quarter pipe just to get a little momentum and gives it a couple of kicks, comes down the ramp, up on the rail. Oh, and it flips around and but luckily he did not flip around. The board did. Wow. What do you call that?
JaShawn:
Kickflip.
Anthony Godfrey:
That is a great kickflip. How many times does it go around? 360 or 720?
JaShawn:
Yeah. All the way around once. Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
Will you do that again? That was pretty amazing. You did that like you were tying your shoe. Wow. That is fantastic. So the idea is to do a kickflip and end it with having the front of the board riding along the rail there.
JaShawn:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
How long have you been skating?
JaShawn:
Three years.
Anthony Godfrey:
Three years and you are how old?
JaShawn:
14.
Anthony Godfrey:
14. So you started at age 11. See, I'm pretty good at math. Tell me what made you want to start skateboarding?
JaShawn:
I had like a penny board and I went down the hill.
Anthony Godfrey:
Oh yeah, the plastic ones right?
JaShawn:
Yeah. I asked my dad if I can get a skateboard. I got one of the bad ones and I rode that and then I fell in love with it and got like an actual board.
Anthony Godfrey:
This is the deck and these are the trucks and the wheels. And what kind of wheels do you have on there?
JaShawn:
Bones wheels.
Anthony Godfrey:
Bones wheels. Yeah. Very nice. Well, I had a skateboard back when I was a teacher and I lived three houses away from the school where I was teaching so I had a cat in the hat skateboard and I would skate to and from school. But that was in the 1900s and I have not been on a skateboard for a very long time and I've never done any of the kind of tricks that you have.
So when you started on the penny, a penny is not going to lend itself to tricks. So you're a casual rider. What was the first trick that you really made work?
JaShawn:
An ollie.
Anthony Godfrey:
An ollie?
JaShawn:
It’s the trick that you need to learn anything.
Anthony Godfrey:
Now the ollie is kind of, it's just where you're standing still and you just go up in the air. You're able to kick on the back and then on the front which gives you some lift and puts you both up in the air and then you come straight down. Is that right?
JaShawn:
Yes.
Anthony Godfrey:
And how long do you think it took you to get your first ollie down?
JaShawn:
Like a week or two.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. Have you learned some perseverance like just sticking to it until you learn something from skateboarding? Because it seems like skateboarding teaches you that you just have to keep trying and trying. And even once you get it right, you're still going to mess up and you have to keep trying again.
JaShawn:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
Does that apply to school and other parts of your life that you realize you just have to keep trying and you're going to get it eventually?
JaShawn:
Yeah. Like, you want to give up and you're going to have some like falls.
Anthony Godfrey:
You're going to get some scrapes along the way. Like you did today.
We're here with Jessica Burkhart, JaShawn's mom. Tell me about what skating has meant to JaShawn.
Jessica Burkhart:
Oh, everything. That's all he thinks about. So that's all he thinks about. Like every day he's skating. No matter if it's here, West Valley, in Midvale, anywhere. He goes everywhere. He goes to Ogden sometimes. He goes to Bountiful.
Anthony Godfrey:
So we're under the pavilion here at Bluffdale Skate Park. How many hours have you logged at these tables while he is skating?
Jessica Burkhart:
Oh, I go to the park while he skates. He skates way too long for me. Like he'll be here all day if he can be. If he finds a lot of stairs, he'll do that. We went to California and he found like a, I think a 16 stair out there that he wanted to skateboard that a lot of like pro skateboarders do. So he just came back from Vegas and was skating at skate parks out there as well.
Anthony Godfrey:
Wow. That's awesome. So across the state, really across the country, he finds places to skate.
Jessica Burkhart:
Yeah. He likes to go everywhere. Um, he was supposed to go to Sweden, that got canceled, but that was because of work. Hopefully, next year they can make that out there by one of his sponsors. They’re supposed to take him, which is really awesome.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. So it sounds like he's had some great sponsors that are very supportive of helping him develop.
Jessica Burkhart:
Yes, definitely. Helps me too. Cause I don't have to buy him skateboards.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. He told us about the nationals competition. Tell us about his going to California to compete.
Jessica Burkhart:
Yeah. Um, we had a lot of fun out there. They have an indoor skate park that they held it at. So he practiced there every day for an hour, two hours. They had time frame so we couldn't be there forever. Then he did really good.
He's friends with a kid that did like made first place out there. They're actually on the same team on the same sponsorship now and he does really well. We can't wait till nationals this year. He's already qualified cause he won first to his first competition.
Anthony Godfrey:
Once he started skating, did you see a change in him? He seems very determined and willing to just try things until he figures it out and is able to do things he couldn't do before.
Jessica Burkhart:
Yeah. He does a lot. His attitude changes a lot. He don't play video games. So I'm glad he doesn't play video games. He's not on his phone all the time. He's outside and that's what kids need to do is be outside.
Anthony Godfrey:
Good luck to you and good luck to him and he's got a bright future. That's for sure.
Jessica Burkhart:
Yes. Thank you so much.
Anthony Godfrey:
Stay with us. When we come back JaShawn will show us some sick tricks.
Break:
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Anthony Godfrey:
So your friends at school know you're a skater, I assume. What do they think of that?
JaShawn:
They think they support and keep trying and stuff.
Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, so have you inspired some others to try skating?
JaShawn:
Yeah. My little brothers.
Anthony Godfrey:
Good. That's awesome. Oh yeah, your little brother's trying it out. What is the trick that you hit almost every time?
JaShawn:
A front blunt.
Anthony Godfrey:
A front blunt. And what does a front blunt look like?
JaShawn:
Like this, on the rail or at the ledge.
Anthony Godfrey:
Just riding that. Oh, coming up on the ledge, kind of sticking that and then you come back down. Okay, can we see that? Oh, there he goes along the rail. That is awesome.
How many hours in a row, if you didn't have anywhere else you had to be, do you think you could skate nonstop before you got tired of it? Do you ever get tired of skating?
JaShawn:
I've skated for 10 hours before.
Anthony Godfrey:
10 hours straight? That is so awesome. And it's so much better than sitting for 10 hours straight with a screen in front of you.
JaShawn:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
Are there some skaters that you look up to? Some professionals that you really admire?
JaShawn:
Yeah. Nyjah Huston
Anthony Godfrey:
How old is he?
JaShawn:
I think like 27, 26.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, so he's an older guy.
JaShawn:
He was just in the Olympics.
Anthony Godfrey:
Oh yeah, this year there is Olympic skateboarding. And I saw that there are some unique styles from the Japanese that they think might make them successful. Has that competition happened yet?
JaShawn:
Yeah, a guy named Yuto Horigomi, he's Japanese and he won.
Anthony Godfrey:
He did win. That's cool. That's cool. Did any Americans win at all?
JaShawn:
No, not in skateboarding. Well, yeah in skateboarding, but like the vert one. I don't really look at that stuff.
Anthony Godfrey:
So that's where they're doing the tricks when they get to the top of the half pipe.
JaShawn:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
That's the vert. I did see Tony Hawk skate once and that's really his style, isn't it? It's that half pipe and then you do the tricks at the top of the half pipe. But that's not your style. It's the street skate. And the street skating is an Olympic event that's separate from the half-pipe? Is that right? Are you particularly focused on street skating?
JaShawn:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, great. Have you had any injuries so far? Any serious injuries?
JaShawn:
No, not really. I've cracked my rib, my knee too.
Anthony Godfrey:
You cracked your rib and your knee?
JaShawn:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
Well, that's pretty serious. Does that impact your skating at all or you still feel pretty good?
JaShawn:
I still feel pretty good. My knees are getting old pretty fast.
Anthony Godfrey;
Your knees are getting old pretty fast?
JaShawn:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
Well, I think you've got some good years ahead of you. Thanks very much for talking with me. I admire what you do. I always wanted to be a good skateboarder when I was your age. And I think it's really cool that you've put in the effort and you've got the talent and are seeing success. So congratulations on being sponsored and good luck with the future.
JaShawn:
Thank you.
Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you will do today. We'll see you out there.
[Music]