Skate History

History!

I started skating in 1967, starting skating again in 1973 and was seriously into by 1975. My friend Ed collected memorabilia about skatingboard during the time before and after we met which I will use in this webpage.

I lived in the Ensley area of Pensacola. Skateboarding was very popular in many areas of Pensacola, especially in the Warrington area. We mostly skated on local streets, on the sidewalks and courts of the University of West Florida and in ditches like the ones beside US 90 near Scenic Hills.

Many of the other skaters seemed to be grouped in the Warrington area where the Paved Wave was eventually opened.

The first area that became a common area to skate was the First Baptist Church near downtown Pensacola. It was a big hilly parking lot, with two smooth asphalt roads on each side and a cement loading area at the bottom of the hill that had little slopes that were like ramps.

Every weekend day and night many skaters would gather to skate and have fun. I first met Ed McManus there. He was riding a plexiglas long board, doing one-foot wheelie's across the parking lot. I was into doing two-foot nose wheelie's and we would try to ride all the way down the hill doing our wheelies. The city and the church did their part to help us skaters by closing off the roads on one side of the parking lot to allow us to skate without worrying about cars.

Here is where I first began to meet some of the other skateboarders in the Pensacola area. Ted Scarritt was best freestylers in our area. He could do multiple 360's. I've seen him do more than 18 complete spins in a row. He had incredible balance. Yancy Spencer was a local owner. Naturally Skate Contests were starting to be organized. Look here to see newspaper clippings from that time.