Anaheim’s Seaholm Is on Board for Stardom

Austen Seaholm looks like any other 14-year-old on a skateboard: black T-shirt adorned with a skate industry logo, obligatory baggy blue jeans that make his slender build appear even skinnier.

But don’t be fooled. Seaholm is special and has the support from sponsors to prove it. This eighth grader at South Junior High in Anaheim doesn’t have to pay for any of his skating gear, from board, trucks, wheels and bearings to clothing, helmets, watches, shoes and sunglasses.

Sponsors pick up his tab because Seaholm is an outstanding performer in the street competition, the grinding, board-flipping, freestyle form of the sport.

Seaholm excels at staying on his board, landing the tricks that bedevil the kids zooming around seemingly every parking lot in Southern California. Saturday at Vans Skatepark in Orange, Seaholm will compete in the Vans Amateur World Championships of Skateboarding.

He’ll be attempting to improve on his 11th-place finish last year, and Sonja Catalano, one of the event officials, says Seaholm is among the favorites to win--a victory that comes with a one-year professional contract offer from Vans.

“Austen has a very good contest mind,” Catalano said. “There are thousands of skaters out there who might be as good as he is, but would fall apart in a contest situation.”

Seaholm predicted his path at an early age, his mother Mistie said. The family has videotape of Austen at 3, saying he wanted to be a pro skateboarder. By the time he was 8, he was taking the sport seriously. Before he was 9, he was a prodigy on the pavement and signed his first sponsorship contract.

These days, however, Seaholm is downplaying his professional prospects. He’d rather skate than talk about his future in the sport.

“I’m not in it for the fame or anything,” said Seaholm, sitting at a table overlooking the street course at the skatepark. “I just love to skate.”

Seaholm has an excused absence from school this week--he got permission to bring homework with him to a major competition in Tampa, Fla., last week--so he wanted to take advantage of the nearly empty skate facility during the noon hour Tuesday. He chatted politely with a visitor, but was often distracted by the action below.

“Watch that guy,” Seaholm said, “he’s really good.”

As soon as he could, Seaholm excused himself and took to the street course himself. Smoothly gliding up and down ramps, he pulled off several acrobatic tricks. He missed a few also, grimacing and rubbing the knee he sprained while practicing last week in Tampa.

Mistie Seaholm says her son bounces back quickly from injuries. Several months ago, he broke his collarbone and a week later he competed in a trick competition and won a $250 college scholarship.

“It’s just something in him,” she said. “Hurt or not, he wants to go out and skate.”

SKATING THE DETAILS

The Vans event brings together winners of regional competitions from around the world Saturday and Sunday at the skatepark at The Block in Orange. Seaholm is the only Orange County entrant in the street event.

Street competition will run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. The vert competition, on the park’s 13-foot-tall, 80-foot-wide halfpipe, will run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.

BOWLING SCHOOL?

Scott Norton staged a great rally to win the U.S. Amateur Bowling Championship last month, becoming the first person to win the junior and adult amateur titles.

Norton, a freshman at Cal State Fullerton, was in 23rd place going into the final 16 games of the 56-game tournament, before making a run. He still trailed Shawn Evans of Satellite Beach, Fla., by 49 pins going into their final head-to-head match, but rolled a 249, including five strikes to finish, and won going away.

“No one really expected all that much from me,” Norton said. “It’s nice to surprise people.”

Norton, 18, whose mother Virginia is a Women’s International Bowling Congress Hall of Famer and an instructor at Rossmoor Lanes in Seal Beach, qualified for the U.S. national team.

Norton isn’t the only Fullerton resident on the national team. Missy Bellinder, another Cal State Fullerton freshman, made the team by finishing third at the U.S. championships.