His name is David Hallstead, but when he’s coaching the newly established Sunshine Coast BC (SCBC) Skate Club in Gibsons – which launched on July 6 – the kids call him Hallywood.
“It’s to create an element of mentorship,” Hallywood said. “Just like you would call a teacher mister or missus, when the kids are in the skate park they’re calling us by our skate names out of respect. Whenever someone joins the skate team they get a skate name. Like Pony Boy in The Outsiders, it’s a positive gang mentality.”
Hallywood used to volunteer at the Edge Skate Park in Winnipeg, where there was a strong emphasis on creating a safe space for kids and a positive skate culture. These days Hallywood is a teacher at the Alternative School in Gibsons.
“One day I looked over and saw four boards lined up next to my desk, and I thought, I’ve got to do something,” Hallywood said. “So much of skateboarding is marred by the stigma – bad kids and potheads are skaters – we [wanted] to create a positive culture around this because the sport itself is not negative.
“There’s nothing negative about skateboarding, it’s the people who do it.”
SCBC Skate Club is made up of two smaller organizations – the Gibsons Skate Team (GST) and the SCBC Sk8 Skool – and is based around peer mentorship. Most, but not all of the members of the GST are teachers in the school, with ages ranging from nine to 23.
Imari ‘Mars’ Wensel – age 10 – is one of the youngest members of the club. Mars moved to the Coast last September from Regina, where he found it hard to get enough practice in, due to the long winters and brutally hot summers.
“My son was really excited when he saw that one of his older friends from the high school was asked to be involved with the Sk8 Skool,” Mars’s mom Michelle Dueck said. “He asked me if he could go watch them do a photo shoot.
“They saw my son skate and said, ‘you need to be on the team,’” Dueck said.
Since then, Mars has been skating almost every day, sometimes twice a day, sometimes for up to three hours a day.
“Skateboarding is awesome, but it’s secondary to building character,” Hallywood said. “For me, I can’t think of any better sport that teaches you about falling down and getting back up.”
He referenced Paul Tough’s book Helping Children Succeed, which is about studies done on resiliency and – for lack of a better term – grit.
“They’ve found that university students who weren’t as academically strong, but who had resiliency and asked questions and pressed through – they actually succeeded more because they just kept trying even when it was hard,” Hallywood said.
“I think we’ve seen a massive decline in skateboarding on the Coast because it’s a really hard sport,” he said. “You talk to pretty much any adult male and they’re like, ‘yeah I skated for a bit,’ but then they gave up. They gave up because ollieing is such a barrier.”
An ollie is typically the first trick a skateboarder learns – it’s the classic jump that allows a skater to get up or over a barrier. Advanced skate tricks are almost all based on the ollie, but they get more complicated. A kickflip is an ollie plus a quick flip of the board in mid-air.
“Landing an ollie can take months,” Hallywood said. “It means going to the skate park and hanging out with the other dudes who can already do it. Then going and saying, ‘I just gotta keep trying until I can get it.’ It probably took me two months before I landed my first ollie when I was 14. It’s a major ego challenge.”
But then there’s the part when they actually land their first trick.
“There are so many moments of victory where you can praise a kid and join them in that victory,” Hallywood said. “That’s why I’m doing it, I love that aspect of it.”
The Sk8 Skool runs from July 6 to Aug. 25 at Brothers Skate Park outside the Gibsons and Area Community Centre on Wednesdays and Thurs-days. It costs $100 for a six-session pass or a $15 drop-in rate, if there’s room. They take a maximum of 15 kids per day, with priority going to pass holders. Pass holders can skate once a week on either day.
For more information on the SCBC Skate Club see their Facebook page, SCBC Sk8 Skool. To register, visit Chemistry Clothing, a major sponsor of the SCBC Skate club, and ask for Jackson ‘Uncle Jack’ Creelman.
