"It's a Living" or "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love a Paycheque"

Hi, my name's Brandon, and at times, I'm a professional skateboarder.

I'm sorry? Oh, no, I don't have a pro model board..... Yes, I am sponsored by a skate company...... Well, no... you probably haven't heard of them....

But, seriously, sometimes I am a professional skater. Not in my mind, not in video games, but for real.

Around the time of the Copenhagen pro contest, there was a video interview of Arto Saari posted up on the Transworld site, in which he tried to define that ever-so-delicate term in our business: "pro"



Arto Saari CPH PRO trailer # 5 from simon weyhe on Vimeo.

I can, to a degree, understand Arto's sympathies on the matter: the men and women who have pro models out with well-know board companies are some of the most gifted skaters the world over. Were it not for those few screens of ink forming a name on an internationally sold skateboard, there would be no delineation between Daewon Song or Chris Cole, and that local park hero who probably beats kids in SKATE for their lunch money so he can buy new boards. That would be like comparing Sir Ben Kingsley to that guy busing tables in Hollywood, hoping to land an infomercial gig, right?

Okay, so maybe I only name-dropped Ben Kingsley as an excuse to link this video...

And yet, say that actor lands that infomercial gig, and commercials end up becoming his livelihood, he's a professional actor, right? The poor guy may not be the next Ben Kingsley, but he is being paid to act. He doesn't need a production company to tell him so, and he isn't internationally known, but he is being paid to act.

Okay, so the acting world may be a little different than skateboarding, which can be considered an art as much as a sport. In terms of professional sports, then, what makes a professional golfer professional? There are literally hundreds of  professional golfers the world over, who are simply good enough at golf to be paid for it, be it from sponsors, competitions, or courses where the pro might give lessons or seminars. He or she may not have a Nike driver with their name scrawled across it, but they are paid to golf, or teach golf, and are ergo professionals.

In the premier episode of Mike Vallely's Drive series, Mike talked with Lance Mountain, in which Lance said, succinctly, and with his typical humble wisdom, that a pro skater's job was to "make kids fall in love with skateboarding". To me, this has no bearing on whether someone has a top-selling board the world over, but someone who is paid to make kids fall in love with skateboarding, whether it be through giving lessons, doing demos, filming video parts, or getting in Thrasher or Transworld every month.

That's why I can say, comfortably, that I am, sometimes, a professional skateboarder.