Thrashing during the meeting.
The Man, The Myth, No Legend: The Birth of a Skate Trick
Before I met “Dirty” Josh Metcalf, I’d heard two things about him: 1) he had scabies and 2) he could ollie an obscene amount of stairs. The first thing was true, the second, not so much. Maybe it was all the mites weighing him down, but he could barely jump a curb. He talked a big game, but never even made it on the team.
Since then, I’ve learned that skateboarders, like fishermen, politicians, and 13 year old boys bragging about sex, tend to stretch the truth about their accomplishments. So when a buddy told me he skated with a guy named Dan who claimed to have invented the hardflip, I had some doubts. Daewon did that, right?
A few days later when this Dan showed up to skate with us, my bullshitometer was going nuts. He was a chubby guy, closer to 40 than 14, short, with a beat-up board and beat down demeanor. But seconds into the session, his skill melted away my skepticism. Dude was good.
After an hour of watching Dan draw long lines of technical tricks around Bancroft Elementary’s teacher parking lot/playground, I had to ask—“So, what’s up with the hardflip?” Getting story out of him required some coaxing, and he told it with humbleness—not humble braggadocio—and he just seemed earnest. The short version is that he met Rodney Mullen at a demo or contest or something, and they became pen pals, exchanging VHS tapes of them skating through the mail. Dan figured out a trick, called it a kickflip the hard way, sent it to Mullen and watched the trick spread.
I didn’t know if I really believed it but I wanted to. Dan was a good guy, who loved skating, cheered on my most feeble flailing on a skateboard. He really didn’t seem to mind being known as the hardflip’s ghostwriter.
A few years later, Daewon’s Epicly Later’d confirmed Dan’s story, and I was stoked to see the man get a little credit. But his story goes to show that there’s an army of anonymous innovators pushing their passions to new heights in countless backyards, playgrounds, sidewalks and abandoned parking lots. Who knows what kind of awesome shit they’re doing, but these guys will probably never get a board with their name on it, a lucrative shoe deal, or their rightful place in skateboard history, but they certainly deserve a little glory, and more importantly, our gratitude.
