RUND
What's your first memory of skating?
Cruising down the street on a Ty Page
Freeformer.
Was that your first board?
I think my first board was a Cal 280 or
something. It was about '78 or 79. I remem
ber watching Bruce Jenner and Kristy
McNichol do the slalom thing on the Battle
of the Sexes. Once I saw a contest in a mall
parking lot in Indianapolis. This was a long
time ago, probably about 78. Leif Garret
showed up in a limo and all the girls freaked
out. He didn't even skate.
worry about it too much. We knew there were
more skaters in California. Back during the
M.E.S.S. series, skateboarding was pretty
much at its lowest point. I really wanted to
Did you get to a point where you were come out to California, but I didn't take it too
good enough but had no place to skate?
Well, actually, we always had a ramp to
skate. I had a halfpipe at the side of my house
for a while. Eight feet wide. ten-foot
transitions-a total rampage ramp. A U-type.
We added flat bottom after a while. At the
same time there was the Roxbury ramp
which was killer, twelve feet wide, nine feet.
high, seven-foot transitions, two feet of
What is the first thing you remember in vertical that almost went over vert. Bob
your life?
Pribble. Chip and the guys built it with tight
transitions to be like Apple skatepark. We
changed the transitions later, then we had
to tear it down because Chip's dad got
bummed. Then my uncle had a lot of acreage
and he let us build a ramp there. It was called
the Love Ramp. It was 28 feet wide, a good
size for 1984. We skated that for maybe a
year, then my uncle got bummed because
it got too crowded. He made us lay off. After
a while I got my mom to call him up and talk
him into letting us ride again. We rode it for
another six months or something, but it was
kind of a pain in the ass for him.
Racing Big Wheels. I don't know why that
comes to mind, but I raced Big Wheels once.
They had this Big Wheel race in front of
Children's Palace, a big toy store like Toys
RUS. They had boxes of Big Wheels all over
the place to form an oval track. It was funny.
They had those plastic tires, and everyone
would try to take off but they would just go
bzzzzzzt and not go anywhere. You had to
start out really slow. My dad tried to tell me
to start out slowly, but I went bzzzzt and sat
there spinning with everyone else.
What got you into skateboarding?
I used to race bicycles a long time ago.
would ride around the neighborhood and see
this guy who had a halfpipe. He got me into
skating Eventually, I didn't ride my bike much
anymore. It was so much fun learning how
to skate. We didn't have pools or anything.
just ramps Well, little slanted pieces of
plywood.
I remember Caballero coming back and
saying, "Kendall's ramp is THE best."
Yeah, they liked it. It had a brand new layer
when they came out, so it was killer. We had
three different kinds of coping on it-pipe,
pool and PVC. It was weird, we just threw the
ramp up. I can't believe it came out as good
as it did.
Did any guys from Indianapolis influence Did you skate the contests out there, like
you?
Sean West did. from the time I first started
skating. He and his friends were the only truly
devoted skaters around; that's all he did. It
was rad because back then skateboarding
was considered weird. Sean had a halfpipe
in his driveway. Five or six feet high with a
foot of vert and four feet of flat. It was gnarly.
They'd do wheelers and stuff
the Mid-Eastern Skate Series (M.E.S.S.)?
Yeah, almost every one of them. Those
were fun days-small backyard contests.
Groholski and I used to battle it out every
time. Usually I'd get second place. Those
contests were put together well.
What did you guys back there think about
the California scene?
We had our own scene, and we didn't
seriously because I was still in high school.
When did you first travel?
I flew to Virginia Beach for a contest and then
Right after I got on the Santa Cruz team
I went to Tahoe. Virginia Beach was the first
big contest I ever entered.
How did you do there?
I
got first place as an amateur. Then I went.
to Tahoe and got fourth.
Why did you settle in San Jose?
I held out for as long as I could in Indian-
apolis but there was nothing to skate except
the streets. That's why I was into street
skating. When I travelled out to California.
all of my friends were in San Jose, so I
decided to move there. Even when I moved
to San Jose there wasn't really any place to
skate, but I figured something would happen
because there were so many skaters there.
I remember you lay low for about a year.
Were you still skating?
I've always skated a lot, I just didn't travel
that much for a while. I was street skating
After that I had to work on getting back into
vertical. Time had flown and I didn't realize
how much I hadn't skated. If there had been
ramps to skate. I would not have spent as
much time street skating. I took it more
seriously then because that was the only kind
of skating I could ride competitively
Do you think street skating helps you
develop your vertical skating?
Yeah. They help each other. But street
skating was just a side kick. It was really
nothing compared to ramp riding
What's your sponsorship history?
There were no shops in Indiana, so I never
had any local shop sponsors. I rode for
Madrid for a couple years. I rode for Powell
Above: Ramp curator Kendall whips a half-cab
Right: Inverted and alerted in SJ Photos: Keenan
"... their buildings will get thrashed if
they don't create public skating facilities."
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