Andrew Frieling

My hero's in my life would have to be my family and friends, because with out them, i don't know where the hell i would be. about my sport - stole from scherf's page "We're the sport that's not in the X Games. We're the sport that you don't see on Fuse. This banishment from Action Sports, our exile has been really the greatest blessing. Because what happened is skateboarding got so big, that it really became mainstream. The cool kids at school are wearing skateboard gear, they really have become the jocks. So what skateboarders have done for us, is they've made us them, they've made us the outcast, we are the skateboarders from 20 years ago. We're the ones that go to school with a rollerblading t shirt or carrying your skates and you get ostricised, you get made fun of, you're the rollerfag, you're the fruitbooter. The arguments they use to justify their disdain for us are the same things that they allegedly hate in the jocks. The skateboarders in sense have become the jocks, that's disheartening. My idols, the people that created this counter culture model. More than anyone else, anyone that participates in action sports, we are all following skateboardings lead. But for these guys to become what we hate, to become the elitist jocks that can't see past their own clique. That's it. There are qualitative differences between being a skateboarder and being a jock. They celebrate different things, they respect different ideals. And rollerbladers on the scale of skateboarders and jocks are a lot closer to skateboarders. We celebrate the same ideals, we are artists, we are outcasts, we are angry and rebellious. To be shunned by skateboarders, it's dissapointing. And when it all comes back around, when people do start to say that's cool, that's impressive and god willing money comes back into the sport and they put it back on tv. We'll know that the people that are there at the top representing the sport will have paid their dues and are people we are proud to have representing rollerblading." - ARLO EISENBERG