Gentry Lends Pizazz to American Pastime
Chris Gentry doesn’t understand the threat. He’s tried to make sense of the connection some make between skateboarders and troublemakers, but for the life of him, he doesn’t know why an activity that seems as American as apple pie can be so misunderstood.
“In the past, when the sport was more underground and carried a hard-core, punk-rock image, there was this appearance of rowdiness,” Gentry said. “But it’s not the same now. And with television exposure, I hope the sport is erasing some of these false impressions. . . . But there’s still a lot of bad feelings about the sport.”
Gentry, 23, is one of the best vertical skateboarders in the world. He and many of his contemporaries will be in Seal Beach beginning today for ESPN’s B3 (Bikes, Blades and Boards) weekend competition.
Seal Beach is the second of two B3 tour stops, the first being in July at Riverside Skate Park in New York. The event features more than 200 of the world’s best bicycle stunt riders, skateboarders and aggressive in-line skaters. A $50,000 grand prize will be awarded in each division. And many of the same athletes who competed in June’s X-Games in San Diego will also be on hand through Sunday’s finals.
As for Gentry’s event--vertical skateboarding--maneuvers take place on a half-bowl ramp where mid-air acrobatics and precision skating define success. Judges give points for creativity, style and difficulty. The other skateboarding event is street skating.
Gentry’s ranking of third in the world by World Cup of Skateboarding and his eighth-place finish in the vertical competition at the X-Games are a result of the thousands of hours he has spent mastering his board.
“Skateboarding is just as much of a sport as baseball, football or basketball,” he said. “I work out and skate as much as I can at Birdland [in Costa Mesa], which is Tony Hawk’s ramp and is the biggest ramp in Southern California.”
Birdland is 48-feet long, 12-feet high and housed in a warehouse near John Wayne Airport; however, it’s not open to the public. Hawk, one of the pioneers of professional skateboarding and ranked No. 1 in the world at age 30, makes the ramp available to fellow pros.
Gentry has been skating since he was 10 and, like any youngster who participates in sports, has had his heroes.
“Of course there was Tony Hawk and Jeff Phillips. . . . and yeah, I saw ‘Gleaming the Cube’ when I was growing up,” Gentry said with a laugh.
“Gleaming the Cube,” a movie from the late ‘80s that featured Christian Slater as an Orange County skateboarder who was trying to solve the mystery of the death of his brother, also featured Hawk.
Gentry, who was born and reared in Texas, moved to California the day after he graduated from high school in Houston. The move proved to be an important step in more ways than one.
“I met my wife, Ricca, on the plane coming out,” he said.
After a whirlwind romance, the two married and now live in Costa Mesa. Ricca, whom Gentry calls the brains behind his operation, manages her husband’s skateboarding career and plays a major role in the couple’s business, Kingdom Skateboards, which they run out of their house.
Gentry said design changes in boards and wheels have made stunts more spectacular. But maybe the biggest change is television coverage. At the Seal Beach event, ESPN and ESPN2 will tape eight hours of programming for each network, with rebroadcasts bringing the total to 24 hours of programming.
“Skateboarding has been in the shadows for a long time,” Gentry said. “But I think with the exposure it’s getting and contests like this, it can only help to promote the sport and maybe change some minds about skateboarding.”
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ESPN’s B3
* What: A contest that features more than 200 of the world’s best bicycle stunt riders, skateboarders and aggressive in-line skaters.
* Where: Seal Beach
* When: Today-Sunday
* Event Site: 10th Street lot (south of the Seal Beach Pier on Ocean Avenue near Main Street).
* Divisions: Skateboarding (vertical and street); in-line skating (vertical and street); amateur and pro bicycle stunt (vertical, street, flatland).
* How it works: Judging is based on creativity, style and difficulty of maneuvers.
* Admission: Free