SSOTY (Skateboarding Stories of The Year) 2024
An incomplete collection of the year's best writing.
Skateboarding, that big, gloopy amorphous "skateboarding" — at once a practice, an ideal, a market share, etc. — is in a fascinating place.
There is the gloom, like how the industry and its attendant companies that keep skateboarders supplied with the necessary product strains under the weight of inflation, layoffs, acquisitions, and shutterings. That's without even mentioning the potentially existential threats of juiced-up tariffs the incoming American presidential administration keeps casually lobbing at its neighbours to the north and south, who both supply much of the material and affordable manufacturing of said products.
Despite this uncertainty, bright spots bloom. Skateboarding continues to progress. The level of on-board ability has never been higher — can a handrail get more kinked and curved? The demographic shifts of its participants are apparent and positive, as the white suburban boys club of yore is now less white, suburban, male, and straight than ever before.
For our purposes here, the diversity of skateboarding media is also unparalleled, even if "media" is now an ad-hoc conglomerate of Instagram and YouTube accounts, blogs, newsletters, and a handful of new and established magazines. The people behind them produce excellent, exciting work within that disparate ecosystem — and increasingly outside of it. The gyre inches ever wider. In that way, skateboarding media is both ailing and primed for revolution. Popular interest in the sport has never been higher. It's no longer a one-off when the paper of record reports on skateboarding or a story breaks out of the bubble into the mainstream. That's because there's a hunger for these stories. Ones that dive into the gooey, growing, dynamic thing that is skateboarding.
Whether that's reporting of the beat or gumshoe variety, personal essays, fiction, data-driven deep dives, trenchant analysis and criticism, interviews with and profiles of the sport's best, features on the names you don't know but you will soon, blog posts that provide overlooked cultural commentary or simply take the piss — all of it has value and helps shape the way we see and appreciate skateboarding.
That brings us here, to Simple Magic's Skateboarding Stories of the Year for 2024, an annual effort to celebrate some of the best skateboarding-related writing from the year that was. If your piece is on this list, congratulations, you’ve won SSOTY. Send me a message and I will mail you a print of whatever Wordy you like (seriously). There are four to choose from, all wonderfully illustrated by Faye Moorhouse.
Happy reading.
(Check out the SSOTYs for 2023 and 2022.)
“Judith Cohen”
Natalie Porter, Womxn Skateboard History (January 26, 2024)
Judith recalled that in 1976, a friend gave her a rare 36” laminated wood skateboard deck designed by the east coast surfer, Mike Grassley which she enjoyed in comparison to some of the heavy wooden boards on market. She then purchased a new Tracker set-up with Tracker trucks and Road Rider 2’s, which Judith cruised about barefoot like a surfboard. She would often head over to the Haulover Bridge where skaters would ride under the bridge.
“My folks came by one time because they were worried about me because if you got going too fast and miscued the grinding at the bottom to slow down, you could hit these pylons and crack your head open. So, somebody brought these giant mattresses and roped them to the pylons! I never had an injury!!”
“Con Edison Banks: A History”
Jeff Haber, Village Psychic (January 28, 2024)
According to Ernie, in the summer of 1980 he and a classmate of his named Patrick Burns were skating in the courtyard of Burns' building in Astoria. He suddenly asked Ernie "Did you ever take it down to the Pyramids?" He hadn't. They went to the spot and Ernie watched Patrick ride up the side of one of the banks, do a kickturn, and come down without falling. "It was magic. It was glorious. I had never seen anything like it."
Bonus Jeff: "Cellar Doors: Pretty Words, Grimy Living, and Skateboarding " Village Psychic (March 19, 2024)
“The Trans Skaters of America’s Growing Queer Skate Scene”
Laura Pitcher, The Cut (February 12, 2024)
The increased visibility of openly trans people in skating is bringing queer people of all ages into the sport. Jeane Robles, 28, avoided skate parks throughout middle school because of the crowds of men, only to pick up skating in college in Iowa. “It was tough because there weren’t many skate parks there, and I didn’t feel like my full self,” they said. Robles moved to Seattle in 2019 and started attending events with Skate Like a Girl, an organization aiming to build an inclusive community through skate sessions and school programs for queer, women, and trans skaters. Robles went for the first time in 2022. “When I go to skate camp, that’s when I feel like I could be anything,” they said. “Skate camp is probably one of the few places where I’m not scared to just exist.”
“Postcard From Montreal — An Interview With Max Wasungu”
Adam Abada, Quartersnacks (February 14, 2024)
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t have any video parts, right?
That’s real. That’s a thing. I’ve never really filmed a video part. It all happened really quickly with Dime. They put me on the team right away, and I had never filmed a part – it was from Instagram and shit like that. I’ve felt weird about it sometimes. Why do these companies want me on the team since I’ve never really filmed anything “solid,” you know? It’s all social media. There was a period of time when I got on some companies and was only filming with a phone...
Bonus Adam: "Late Nite Stars — An Interview With Alan Bell" Quartersnacks (November 20, 2024)
“Matt Price on Criticism, Photography, and the State of Skate Media”
Anthony Pappalardo, Artless (February 19, 2024)
When you're working for a magazine or any media publication, you have to understand that you're helping the people who started that publication build and carry their narrative. That's what you entered into.
What sucks is that a relationship like that can stifle some creative people. Think about someone like Thomas Campbell—who I think is one of the most talented photographers of all time. His photos didn't always fit into the mold of Transworld. Transworld had a vibe, an energy, and a style. Those guys would get Thomas Campbell photos and not know what to do with a lot of them. Thomas knew they were good but maybe the person seeing them didn't feel that they fit their narrative and that's something that could push a unique style or voice out.
“Identity Politics — On Skateboarding's Evolving Attitude Toward Sports”
Mike Munzenrider, Quartersnacks (February 28, 2024)
Deathwish am Davey Sayles was too ripped to rip. “I couldn’t skate the first month, I was so top heavy, I was swole,” he says. Six years ago, Sayles quit college football. He took a three-day bus ride home from West Florida University to Vista, CA. At 5’10” he had a playing weight for the Division II Argonauts of 220 pounds. Sayles says his skating weight is 50 pounds lighter. “It took me three months to slim down.”
Bonus Mike: "The Long, Strange Trip — How Travel Took Over Skateboarding" Quartersnacks (August 28, 2024)
“The Rise and Fall of Pro Model Skate Shoes”
Lucas Wisenthal, Jenkem (April 3, 2024)
[Sebastian] Palmer says the move away from signature models can also be credited to the athletic brands that entered skating. At the height of pro shoes, companies like DC, DVS, and Circa dominated skateshop walls. As Nike, Adidas, and other brands edged them out, pro shoes began to disappear. “Nike came in and said, ‘Hey, we’re not going to give everybody signature shoes,'” he explains.
Nike introduced the SB line with colorways for its original riders, but it took four years to drop a signature pro shoe—the first Paul Rodriguez model, which arrived in 2005. “Paul getting a shoe was a significant thing,” says Palmer, who worked for SB in the 2000s.
As Nike and Adidas limited the release of pro shoes, pros themselves felt less urgency to chase them, since those athletic companies could pay competitively without gambling on signature designs.
“Sick Boy”
José Vadi, Alta (April 12, 2024)
At the spot, all I can think is go fast, push into the smaller side of the bank and try to get enough speed to hit the larger part of the concrete bank where Reyes skated years prior. I run and jump on my board, still getting used to the feel of this beat up cruiser. Overcompensating my speed pushing slightly uphill, I approach the bank and suddenly change my mind. I can’t decide whether to ollie into the bank or kick out and bail, but I was going too fast to do anything logical, so I tried both—impossible—leading to a chaotic tumble onto chewed up asphalt. My wheels, already a softer urethane, were more worn than I had thought. My board flew one way and my body another. Landing I planted my left leg down like a mast raising a white sail of defeat and I heard a click more so than a pop come screaming from my left knee. All this, before my body hit the ground and rolled a couple times into some knee and arm scrapes, before my body came to a stop, shook.
“Cordano Russell: The Birth of Macho”
Michael Burnett, Thrasher Magazine (June 2024)
Cortez Russell was freaked out. His first child was about to be born and he was filled with anguish. "I knew this wonderful woman was about to have a baby and that I was about to be a father," he explains now in his cozy kitchen, "but I was in shock! I was like, I don't know how to be a dad. I didn't have a dad at home.
And right as he was about to be delivered I said a prayer like, God, if you want me to be a father, you need to be a father to me!" Cordano was born minutes later, weighing in at over nine pounds. Cortez smiles broadly recounting what happened next. "The second I held him, there was a power upon him like, This boy is macho! His scream, his size he was macho!"
Without knowing, the family pastor echoed the nickname a few weeks later at his dedication. "Whoa, this kid is macho!" he said, lifting him up. "He's going to be a professional athlete!"
“Women who skateboard shred expectations”
Norma Ibarra, The Globe and Mail (June 7, 2024)
Skateboarding transcends the mere execution of tricks; it is a canvas for creativity, self-expression and community. As women bring their unique perspectives to the forefront, they enrich the culture, fostering diversity and innovation. Even though challenges persist, ranging from unequal opportunities to active discrimination, we remain steadfast in our pursuit of our passions as we leave our mark on the sport’s landscape.
Bonus Norma: "Trick photography: My view of skateboarding’s big moments in Paris" The Globe and Mail (August 28, 2024)
“The Oral History of ‘The Wire Spot’ A.K.A. Marlo’s Hangout”
Frozen in Carbonite, Quartersnacks (July 24, 2024)
So when we watched The Wire, he found the spot, and in [the show], they’re like, “No one gets shot on Sundays.” It’s a church day. So we were like, “Alright, we’re gonna go on a Sunday” — but we’re gonna go crazier – we’re gonna go on Easter Sunday. Definitely [nothing] can happen right?
“Is skateboarding really a subculture anymore?”
Kyle Beachy, Huck (July 26, 2024)
Two separate but related arguments have, however, shown remarkable fortitude among skaters. The first concerns the distinction between art and sport, which, more on this in a moment. The second involves what we might call “authenticity,” which for skateboarding relies on a basic in/out phenomenology, a border between “core” skate culture and every non-skate-native interest in the world. It's that familiar tendency toward growth and the evangelism that would foster it, set against the very specialness that makes the thing capable of attracting more believers. Can the precious, sacred object survive exposure to the solicitous interests who would seek to leverage it for their own gains? Or the impure of heart who would come to it lacking innate belief in, much less commitment to, what makes skateboarding unique?
Bonus Kyle: "What Blessing is This #5: Ben Colon" Village Psychic (February 19, 2024)
“Ukrainian skateboarders take back their streets”
Photographs by Robin Tutenges, story by Kyle Almond, CNN (July 27, 2024)
Tutenges spent a few hours on the front lines with one professional skateboarder, Mitya, who joined the civil defense force on the first day of the Russian invasion. Mitya’s call sign, “Skaters,” is written on one of his bulletproof vests. On his arm is a tattoo that says “sk8 or die.”
“I had to give up skateboarding for a while,” the 22-year-old told Tutenges. “I miss it terribly.”
The war has brought much of the country together, and Tutenges said he also noticed a “huge solidarity” among the skateboarders he met. While he was in Kyiv, skateboarders there opened up their homes to some skateboarders from Odesa, which was being heavily bombed at the time.
“Will These Sensational Skateboarding Tricks Win Japan Olympic Gold?”
Pablo Robles, Mike Ives, and Kiuko Notoya, The New York Times (July 29, 2024)
Here is Yuto Horigome, the Tokyo Olympics gold medalist, executing his signature “Yutornado,” a standalone trick so complex that no other skateboarder has attempted it in competition.
But at the Paris Olympics, the Japanese skaters may have a problem.
Because a new scoring system will prioritize a weaker aspect of their repertoire — “runs” that require athletes to string many tricks fluidly — Japanese skaters won’t be able to medal on the strength of tricks alone.
“Explain To Me Your Music Choices, Now”
Heather Wei-Xi Chen, Defector (July 30, 2024)
Right before American Olympic skateboarder Jagger Eaton dropped into the street course for his first attempt in the trick portion of the competition, he pulled out his phone and tapped the screen a few times. Then, he stuck his phone back in his pocket and hopped on his board, where he proceeded to do a clean switch backside noseblunt slide, launching him up into second place.
Sick, I thought to myself. But what was he doing on the phone? Maybe he was tweeting? If I were in his position, that's what I would do.
“Olympics or Not, Jimmy Wilkins is Reaching New Heights”
Zach Harris, Rolling Stone (August 6, 2024)
In skateboarding, style is not your clothes and haircut, although it is sometimes that too. Style is the way you look on a board. The tricks you decide to do, the way you do them, what you do with your arms and hands, the ability to make it all look effortless. Wilkins flies higher, grinds longer, and grabs his board less. Five-foot-ten and skinny enough that he looks six feet one, with a mop of shoulder-length brown hair always hidden under a hat or a helmet, Wilkins is vert’s most stylish skater. His lanky body contorts in directions that don’t make sense except in their apparent ease. He makes skaters already accustomed to bending the laws of physics question just how far they really flex. Wilkins is water.
“The skate park was thriving. Then a right-wing YouTuber bought it.”
Will Sommer, The Washington Post (August 12, 2024)
While little about the Martinsburg skate park has changed, Amos said most skaters are staying away because they don’t want to be associated with Pool — or improve his property with more volunteer construction work on the ramps.
“After Tim Pool bought it, what’s the point?” Amos said. “You don’t want to go there, because who knows what he could do?”
But Pool’s critics made at least one more addition to the park. Amid the usual skate park graffiti, nestled above a drawing of Garfield the cat smoking a joint, someone spray-painted a message implying that Pool can’t pull off a skateboarding trick called the “slappy grind.” Their message: “Tim Pool can’t slappy.”
“Adrien Coillard – Come back from what?”
Ted Barrow, The San Francisco Standard (August 15, 2024)
One way to measure time in skateboarding is through pants. If you’ve been paying attention to the last two decades of trousers in skateboarding, you will have detected some major shifts. The taut denim and recalcitrant twill of the early millennium has ballooned like a slackened sail to the billowing forms preferred by most today. Because things over time unfold slowly, our eyes have time to adjust. What once seemed absurd and shocking now seems normal.
Bonus Ted: "Embarcadero Plaza is a living shrine to skateboarding history — don’t desecrate it" The San Francisco Standard (August 15, 2024)
“A Personalized Brain Pacemaker for Parkinson’s”
Pam Belluck, The New York Times (August 19, 2024)
A couple of years ago, Mr. Connolly volunteered for an experiment that summoned his daring and determination in a different way. He became a participant in a study exploring an innovative approach to deep brain stimulation.
In the study, which was published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, researchers transformed deep brain stimulation — an established treatment for Parkinson’s — into a personalized therapy that tailored the amount of electrical stimulation to each patient’s individual symptoms.
The researchers found that for Mr. Connolly and the three other participants, the individualized approach, called adaptive deep brain stimulation, cut in half the time they experienced their most bothersome symptom.
“In Kaslo, Canada's 1st woman skateboard champ kick pushes out of obscurity”
Tyler Harper, Nelson Star (August 21, 2024)
Few in her personal life know McKenzie, born Pam Judge, was Canada's first women's skateboarding champion and a pioneer of the sport. McKenzie didn't even tell her daughter she used to skateboard until she was 16.
Despite being a two-time amateur champion, McKenzie simply didn't believe anyone would care after she reluctantly quit the sport in 1980.
"I think that's why I kept it such a dark secret. It was heartbreaking, but I knew that my contribution somehow eventually might get there."
“You Need to Know Who Saecha Clark Is”
Josh Sabini, Village Psychic (August 28, 2024)
Every so often I’d see a video pop up of a girl with a blonde ponytail skating on what I thought was an early 90’s World Industries board, but after this interview I’ve realized it was probably an Arise board. It was such a fun edit to watch, leading me to wonder who its mysterious subject, named Saecha in the clip, was. I don’t even think the video had her last name anywhere. I’d see old photos of her here and there – her Venture ad (see below) was one of them, a boardslide down a handrail. The first woman to ever do so. It was obvious she was around in the early 90’s and that she skated for World Industries, but where she went and who she was seemed a mystery.
“Ethan Loy, Dr. Dre, Werner Herzog And The Burden of Dreams”
Boil the Ocean (August 31, 2024)
‘Fitzcarraldo’ eventually was completed and went on to achieve moderate success. The peril of combining the dedicated creative’s purity of vision with the human propensity to climb and conquer, though, continues to reverberate. Axl Rose cycled through numerous lineup configurations, staffers and psychics over the decade and a half recording of Guns And Roses’ ‘Chinese Democracy’ CD. Dr. Dre spent more than a ten years turning knobs and periodically releasing soda-pop teasers before indefinitely shelving his ‘Detox’ album (though he has suggested since that it may yet live). Lil Wayne and Juelz Santana supposedly may still release their collaborative ‘Can’t Feel My Face’ LP, which has been in the works since at least the early 1970s, with Juelz a couple years ago declaring it is “definitely not unlikely to happen.”
In this bold and bilge-pumping year of 2024, with skating’s low-hanging fruits decades ago plucked from the great tree of tricks, ‘Fitzcarraldo’-style ordeals are becoming more commonplace in the hammer chase.
“‘It Feels Like You’re Both Getting The Clip’ — A Reappraisal of Fisheye Videography”
Farran Golding, Quartersnacks (September 4, 2024)
Gustav Tønneson: I’m still learning. I started filming in 2015 and it took me more than a year to be “good” at it — to get to the point where you don’t need to think where you’re pointing the camera. When we made The Sour Solution II, I got comfortable enough to do more advanced stuff like picking up my board mid-line, jumping over something, and getting on my board again.
Bonus Farran: "Talking Interviews with Eric Swisher of The Chrome Ball Incident" Skate Bylines (November 1, 2024)
“The Filmmaker”
John Thurgood, Short Story, Long (September 10, 2024)
Filming skateboarding is all about the feet. They're doing the work. They express balance, precision and strength; what it takes to do each trick. Even rolling down the street doesn't mean as much if the shot doesn't show the skater's feet. It's an incomplete story.
Feet can be a kind of heuristic for skateboarding. If you thought about your feet—your shoes, your stance or the weight distributed over them—then you were skateboarding. Otherwise, you were simply rolling on a skateboard.
“Hytham Abutaha”
Maen Hammad, Mess Skate Mag (Fall 2024)
I met him like I meet most rad skaters: via Ryan Lay. When I landed in Phoenix the night before the conference started, Ryan asked me if I knew a dude named Hytham. "Hytham? No, is he Arab?" I asked. Ryan confirmed, "Yeah, he is a Palestinian skater from New Mexico." "What?" I responded. A Palestinian skater from New Mexico was a sentence I never thought could be formulated. Ryan then showed me clips, and I was like, "What the fuck? He rips. Who is this person?"
Ryan messaged him and begged him to make the drive to Phoenix to attend the Palestine panel the next day. Hytham made the drive overnight, attended the panel, and stayed for the whole conference, doing some of the absolute best skating among everyone there, with so much ease, so unpretentious, so much heart.
“Imagine Heath Happy”
Sam Korman, Plank (Fall 2024, Vol. 1, Issue 1: Night)
It was a hallmark of Heath's image that he offered little explanation. He dropped clips in our laps like a cat drops a bird's head at its owner's feet, and his reticence to explain himself only made him more mythical. Some skaters boast in interviews of their innovations and accomplishments—Danny Way and Tony Hawk come to mind. Others express their pride in nerdy discussions of the minutia that goes into recording a clip. And then there's Heath, who downplays the entire thing, obfuscating his past and concealing his intentions. When interviewers and friends have tried to fill in the gaps, he's demurred. "I'm not doing anything special," he told Transworld.
“Community is Healing”
Emanuele Barbier, Dolores Magazine (October 16, 2024)
It might have been the roaring cheers over the soothing crackling wood in the improvised firepit. Or the string lights sketchily hanging in the tree on this chill October night. At that moment, everything stopped. At that moment, a warmth spread, submerging my sinking heart deeper. It took a minute to understand this new feeling. It was a little part of my soul that had just been healed. In this space, trauma had none.
“Skateboarders take over one of SF’s most iconic hilltops: ‘It seems kind of like a dream’”
Max Harrison-Caldwell, The San Francisco Standard (October 19, 2024)
For some attendees, community events like Unity Fest are the real heart of Bay Area skateboarding, a subculture that often views corporations like Red Bull as interlopers. The animosity toward big brands has softened over the last decade as pro skateboarders found it increasingly difficult to make a living without their backing. But the “by us, for us” mentality persists.
Tony Trujillo, skateboarding legend and Thrasher Magazine’s 2002 Skater of the Year, embodies the ethos. He said he’s happy to attend the Red Bull contest to see his friends, but he’s not totally sold on the event.
“This is pretty corporate,” he said. “It’s not core like it really is every day. The locals will have their own send-off. That’ll be the real one.”
Despite his qualms, the lure of Twin Peaks proved too strong to resist.
“Being skaters, it’s nice to get away from Market, Mission, people, filth,” he said. “It’s nice to have our own space.”
As for the $5,000 purse?
“I don’t fucking care about the contest,” Trujillo added. “I just wanna skate.”
“How Skateboarding Changed My Life”
Li Charmaine Anne, The Tyee (October 25, 2024)
While Oldenburg championed conversation as the main activity of third places and coffee shops as the best example, I posit that parks like Courts are an even better example of their benefit.
For one, entering the Courts is free. Secondly, how the park is set up — ample seating around the perimeter, shaded picnic tables nearby and proximity to a community centre — makes it accessible and conducive to conversation, relaxation and casual moments of connection.
“Team Manager Roundtable”
Eric Swisher, Closer (Issue 9)
Any team manager truly worth their wages has a million stories flickering behind the icy glare of that thousand-yeard stere, leaving us mere mortals to only imagine the sights they've surely seen on their decades-long odyssey into the heart of professional skateboarding. Essentially Swiss-Army-knives-as-people, any attempt at an official listing of their job responsibilities would be laughably incomplete at well over a mile long. Gatekeeper of product, harvester of talent, captain of the van... coach, therapist, babysitter, bankroller. The correct answer is D: all of the above.
“Aging, well...”
Walker Ryan, Stick to Skating (November 18, 2024)
I was standing on the side of the highway with a fifteen-year old Miles Silvas when Andy MacDonald finally waved down a car. It was two in the morning and we were in the middle of the woods about thirty miles outside of Philadelphia. As the car crept up behind ours, its headlights blinding us, I suddenly felt very responsible for the young prodigy. Who just pulled over? What were their intentions? And if push came to shove, how was I going to protect Miles?
“Nils Svensson Interview”
Jono Coote, Vague (December 7, 2024)
There is no clear path by which a city gains a reputation as a skate tourism hotspot. Some cities seem destined for renown by dint of their architectural merits; think Barcelona’s Gaudi-garnished expanses of marble, or New York’s uniquely appealing cellar door aesthetic. Others benefit from their playing host to bastions of industry, San Francisco being the glaring example. Often, however, it is the hard graft of local skaters toiling away behind the scenes which elevates a city to shine brightly in skateboarding’s broader consciousness. Such is the case with Malmö, a place which has thrived in that consciousness since the early 2000s due to the drive of its locals. The fruits of this drive range from the DIY spots which have been cropping up there since the early 2000s, to one of Scandinavia’s most renowned skateparks, to the insane cultural anomaly that is Bryggeriet High School.
Nils Svensson has been at the forefront of all of the above and more, documenting much of what has taken place over the years through his camera lens.
