Riding the Road to the North State Skate Series

Skateboarding is an extremely huge part of my life and who I am today as a person. I was one of those kids that never had much growing up--my family wasn't exactly the richest, or even close. Instead of doing team sports, I got into skateboarding, and it forever changed my life.
Skateboarding is my choice as an artistic and passionate way of self-expression. It's a way of life and understanding. It has kept me from doing drugs and getting into trouble (with the exception of a few tickets for obstructing the questionable laws against the sport).

I picked up a board when I was in eighth grade, right after my little brother passed away and my family moved to Red Bluff-I haven't put it down since. I've made life-long friends who share the same love for this spectacular way of life that has taken me as a troubled kid and helped me do something constructive and positive.

My friends and I were ecstatic last year when we found out about the 2007 skateboarding competitions that were being held in Anderson, called the North State Skate Series. We waited nervously to sign up, and practiced our tricks for the competitions. I wasn't sure how we would all do, and I figured it didn't matter-this was what we all wanted, and the competition was/is a time that all of the best skaters of the North State come together to skate and have a good time.

We all had a blast, I won a ton of free stuff and some sweet trophies, and I made a lot of new friends to skate with. It's a win-win situation. It doesn't cost much to enter, and I won something like $500 worth off the free stuff for doing what I like to do best.

I cannot give enough thanks to the people who put the North State Skate Series on, for what they have started and helped spread though these few small towns where there was not much to do. It's amazing to see parents and others that are a part of the community realize that skateboarders aren't a problem, bad people or criminals. There were kids watching the event who decided to pick up a skateboard because it was so cool to watch that one kid who did the huge tweaked-out 360º melons ten feet out of the bowl, or the kid who 360º kick-flipped the pyramid to flat, or maybe that kid who kick-flipped backside-lip-slid the hubba.

Skateboarding is not a crime. Whatever you want to call it, skateboarding is a good and positive thing.

Since the competitions last year, many kids have asked me where they can sign up to help out with these events, and where to find a skateboard. There is a younger skateboarder that I'm extremely close to, almost like a son. Ha ha-- everyone calls him my son anyways. He is the best kid I have seen at his age, he has great style with his tricks and everything.

People always ask my friends and I why we don't try to get sponsored. It would be nice to, and a lot of us are exceptionally talented enough to, but we choose to skate for fun and because we love it. Those who put on these competitions give us a little taste of what it's like to compete like the pros, and give us motivation with hope for the future.

To everyone who has in any way helped out- from driving a kid there and dropping him or her off, to teaching a complete stranger new tricks because he or she saw you at the competition--thank you all for bringing these small-town kids what they have dreamed about and hungered for in their far-fetched goals in life.

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Writer Anthony Novach is a Red Bluff native. Now 18, he has been skating for the past 5 years and currently skates for Setaks Skate Shop in Red Bluff.

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