Skate Park Welcomes Kids Into a Community
By Lenore McKenzie-Morris
Twelve-year-old Brandon Kern stood the top of the quarter pipe, one foot on top of his skateboard, his head down as he focused on the ramp he so obviously wanted to traverse.
After a minute or two had passed, a few of the older boys at the skate park rolled gracefully up another side of the quarter pipe and stopped beside him. When he still didn’t move, one teen bent down and told him where to put his foot on the board, how to move forward onto the steep ramp and when to put the pressure on the board on the way down. Then the teen disappeared down the ramp.
Another minute passed with teenagers looping around the pipes throughout the park, greeting new arrivals and exchanging announcements of their next feat on their skateboards.
Another teen arrived, offered a bit of advice and took his skateboard down the ramp. Kern nodded okay. When the first friendly teen returned to Kern’s side, he advised Kern to try a small ramp just a few feet away. Kern looked up, spotted the other ramp, smiled and headed over to the other ramp.
“People over here are really nice,” Kern said a few minutes later after a few more attempts on the smaller ramp. “I like it here. They said just clamp down and position your feet in the middle of the board so it goes down smoother.
“I tried it and it really works,” he said.
Watching from the other side of the fence, Robert Kern was happy to have the opportunity to bring his son Brandon and younger brother Gavin to the park just a day after moving into the area from Springfield, Va.
“I like the idea,” he said. “They were really excited and it’s good for me. This is the first time we’ve actually come but it looks like they are having a good time.”
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Camaraderie is the norm at the Matt Hughes Memorial Skate Park. Located between the Doug Shaw Stadium parking lot and Myrtle Beach Primary School, the skate park is open from dawn to 9 p.m.
It’s not unheard of to see a teenager on a skateboard at the park at first light and to find them on their skateboards fighting the early nightfall during winter at the unlit park.
“If we had a sign-in sheet there would be over 100 kids on it every day,” said Aaron Frobase, a recreation assistant at the nearby Pepper Geddings Recreation Center. “The kids come in at dawn, at their lunch break, then there are kids after school and then comes the after eight crew,” he said. “That’s why it’s a brotherhood; you never know who is going to be there and you are all friends.”
Frobase, who’s been skateboarding at the park since it opened 10 years ago, offers a clinic for kids ages 5 and older twice a week at the park.
“I have some 5-year-olds that are doing okay,” he said. “You can be any age: I’ll teach a 30-year-old how to skateboard. But most kids past 12 don’t want to be part of it, that’s just kids and coolness and peers…
“The kids come in all different skill categories,” Frobase continued. “Sometimes I have kids that can’t even stand on skateboard and some who can ride the ramps pretty good. I split up the class between beginner, intermediate and advanced kids. A lot of times I try to get the older kids to mentor the other kids.”
Frobase said the class covers how to push on the board to tic tac, which is a way of using the momentum of the board to move forward by making it go left and right. He teaches the kids how to turn their board and the more advanced kids learn how to go backwards on a board in a move called fakie. “It’s when you go up a ramp and then you go backwards coming down,” he said.
Frobase said he closes the park down for two hours for the clinic. It gives the kids in the class a chance to gain their confidence. While not every kid shows up for the clinic every week, the class generally is reserved to the maximum of 25 kids.
Helmets and skateboards are must-haves and pads are recommended. Those who sign up now can begin on Feb. 2 for the three-month clinic. There is a $10 fee for city residents. Non-residents pay $17. Those who sign up at the beginning of the three-month clinic will receive a t-shirt.
When the classes end at 5:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Frobase said there are 30 kids waiting outside the fence for the park to reopen.
“It’s a showcase for them to go and learn new tricks,” he said.
“The skateboard community is a community,” Frobase continued. “Everybody there is really a brother. We do watch out for each other. For the most part, being a tourist town, we welcome kids from other places. We want to show them what a skate park is.”
The park keeps the kids active and out of private parking lots where they would otherwise get tickets for trespassing, he said. “It’s a basic street course with four, 4-foot quarter pipes,” Frobase said, “an 8-foot vertical ramp, a really steep pyramid, a small rail and a long ledge box which is like a grind box in the shape of a tall curb.”
The park also has a half pipe, wood obstacles and banks.
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