“Konchalski is New York’s chief basketball curator and historian, someone who has long celebrated the city’s excellence, but on that afternoon, riding out to Long Island, he looked out at the playground courts and felt troubled by what he saw. For decades, those courts had been filled with ballplayers, kids shoveling the snow or stumbling through the heat so they could go 1-on-15 in overcrowded games of 21.5 Courts like these had molded players like Cousy and King and Mullin into stars; these blacktops had turned playground savants like Earl ‘The Goat’ Manigault and Joe ‘The Destroyer’ Hammond into city legends. But now, out the window, he saw skateboards. Not basketballs. Skateboards.” — “The Mecca in Decline: Why doesn’t New York City produce elite NBA talent like it used to?“
The excerpt above is from Jordan Ritter Conn’s excellent Grantland article about the declining level of basketball talent in New York City (Lance Stephenson withstanding, obvs.) Even if you don’t follow the sport, it is an interesting take on the evolution of recreational activity in this city.
Basketball has long been New York’s main athletic export. It has never been able to accommodate the space required for a football or baseball field, hence the lack of MLB or NFL players to emerge from the city. Except now, even NCAA Division I basketball prospects are going elsewhere, as it has grown so strained for space that courts and adequate high school facilities are becoming scarce. There is less cultural importance placed on the game because there is less space to play it.
Couple this with the fact that “for the first time in nearly a hundred years, the rate of urban population growth outpaced suburban growth, reversing a trend that held steady for every decade since the invention of the automobile.” Do you think there is going to be any more space for traditional sports in cities, let alone New York?
Konchalski’s observation that skateboards are becoming more common on basketball courts than basketballs is interesting when juxtaposed against a certain line of thinking that emanates from the “state of skateboarding” crowd. (Worst phrase ever, by the way.) There has always been a certain breed of doomsayer who would ask “Well when skateboarding isn’t popular, where is so-and-so going to be and what is so-and-so going to do?” …what? Do you guys live in some town where twenty people skate and four of them quit so skateboarding became 20% less popular? Have you walked around any major American city lately — even the ones with minimal skate spots? There is a skateboard rattling behind your head every ten, if not five minutes.
And no, l*ngb**rds don’t rattle.
An early nineties-esque decline isn’t happening in 2019, or ever. Maybe it’s an optimistic stance to take, but these hoards of young people leaving the suburbs aren’t only interested in pretending to go to photography school, Tinder, and hour-long brunch lines. People still like to do shit and be active, and there is increasingly less space to accommodate the sort of young person who participates in traditional sports throughout many cities.
New York’s oldest basketball scout making a joke about how we are overrunning his courts only further invalidates the assumption that skateboarding is on pace for some sort of “inevitable” decline. Skateboarders are roaches and rats on the scale of spatial requirements for athletic activity. Plaza skating is close to dead in America, yet every single scene has figured out a way to work around and thrive beyond that.
Growth has negative aspects, and yes, this will lead to more knobbed spots, more crowded skateparks, etc. The sooner American cities begin to acknowledge a more sophisticated way of thinking than “skaters = skateparks,” the quicker we’ll all begin to find a solution to the growth. On the plus side, we don’t need a proportional rectangle the same way basketball does. We’re more than content taking the shittiest, dustiest, most underused corner of the city, as long as you leave us alone in it.
Rant over :)
Very sociological piece here
The whole “if so-and-so quit” point is interesting. I agree with you that skating is most definitely not in decline and anyone who sees the inevitable mainstream/street league bubble burst or the rise of scooters as foreshadowing skatings demise than they are in serious denial or a jerkwad. I myself moved to a city (Portland, OR) from a small college/skiing town in Montana. I count myself as part of that growth trend, I moved here to skate and experience culture (and brunch lines). Skating is thriving beyond belief, busts are minimal, Vancouver (WA) and Seattle are littered with made-to-skate spots in city parks. Even the new high rise slated to be built next to the Burnside skate park has concepts in the design to incorporate transitions that work with the park. So the building blocks for progressive incorporation of skating is beginning.
On the other side of the coin, back home in MT, we have a small town with an outdated tiny park, no spots, conservative ideas, and maybe 100-200 skaters at a time. About half of which are actually skating and not fly fishing. So if so-and-so has a kid and so-and-so catches the fishing bug or moves away, is makes a visible dent . All the more reason to not complain and get out and make what you can of it, motivate instead of bitching.
In the end, if you live in a small town in middle America than you have a right to worry about the decline of skating. If you are living in a medium-large city with at least a shred of progressive city planning and concerns for quality of life, and you STILL complain about the ‘state of skating’ than you just love to suffer and complain. And I don’t really want to skate with that guy.
i’ll play you one on one for this website, game to 11 make it take it. i get ball first. no gay shyt.
No more posts without skateboarding or at least some shitty rap related shit. Please.
The popularity of skateboarding varies from spot to spot but to say that it’s in the decline as a whole is an exaggeration. Like you mentioned, skateboarding isn’t bound to courts or fields. There might not by any skateparks where I live but I’m still out there every day along with other people that aren’t at home whining on forums about how they think skateboarding is dead.
Anyone else catch the Danny Way BMW ad?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nzYrh0U1CE
Shut up you thread hijacker. I think skating does better at promoting individuality and self gratification that traditional sports which is why its coming up more. I say bravo. Fuck em. I made the switch 17 years ago and have never looked back.
Knicks aint doing shit.. Monkey see monkey doo…
Ballin is better than skaters turnt golf pros
i have the same BMW as danny
you can get one yourself for 10-20 grand
Yeah it’s not so interesting that he owns one, but more that BMW would bother to do a commercial with him.
@kevin the ad world is filled with washed up skaters
corrction ’04 3 series 10 20 grand yes but that shit is bad the fuck ass know a guy and a parts guy that thing 20 just maybe is possible