Crash landing

When tragedy strikes, there are always those who say they expected it, or at least something like it, and others who stand by incredulous, as was the case when skateboard star Mark “Gator” Rogowski was convicted of murder in 1991.

“Shocked, shocked,” is how Bill Silva, noted concert producer and Rogowski’s agent for three years, says he felt. “I honestly would never have thought him capable of murder.”

Even many of Rogowski’s peers -- friends and fellow skaters -- who should have known him better were stunned, though some had an inkling of his Jekyll-and-Hyde personality, as Helen Stickler’s new documentary, “Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator,” which opened Aug. 29, suggests. Gator had a caring and charismatic side, and one full of hatred and rage. For those who have seen the film, it brought back memories of a strange and dark time.

“It was sad to watch,” says Randy Janson, a former professional skateboarder. “Murder’s never good.”

Rogowski, raised in Escondido, became one of skateboarding’s superstars in the 1980s, competing internationally and boasting his own line of skateboards and clothing under the Vision label. At 18 he was making more than $100,000 a year, and he was learning to spend it, as well.

Rogowski excelled in “vert,” or vertical skating, a highly gymnastic style, which started in empty swimming pools. Then street skating, which emphasized flat surfaces and curves, came in, and by 1991 Rogowski found himself out of the limelight and without a girlfriend.

Drinking heavily, getting into fights and becoming increasingly erratic, Rogowski, then 24, was the last person seen with the missing best friend of his former girlfriend, and he confessed to her murder.

In time, wild rumors twisted the truth, and even Rogowski tried to downplay his crime, saying during the sentencing, “I sincerely apologize for my carelessness...” Longtime skateboarding fan, Stickler, a New York based documentary and commercial filmmaker, was intrigued. In a series of visits to California, she interviewed more than 30 people who knew the skateboarder. Eventually, she even persuaded Rogowski, now serving 31 years to life in prison, to cooperate. Because he could not be photographed in jail, “Stoked” is punctuated by her phone interviews with him.

Signs of trouble

Even for those who knew Rogowski personally, “Stoked” has offered revelations. Jason Jesse, now head of Driven, a Santa Cruz skateboard company, grew up idolizing Rogowski and was thrilled to be invited to join the Vision competition team. In the film, Jesse recalls how he wanted to emulate everything his hero did -- including using a hand to cover up his mouth when drinking from a straw. But he had no idea Gator had owned a big rambling home in Fallbrook, as the film shows.

Jesse was, however, aware of his hero’s flip side, including the rage problem, and eventually began avoiding him. “For the last year he was just impossible to be around,” he says. “It seems like he reached a breaking point.”

Stickler has a theory: “He’d just about gotten away with everything he’d ever done before. I think it might have eroded his sense of self-control. He was also someone who had a lot of aggression, and skating had been an outlet for that.” Janson, on the other hand, says, “I never had the sense of him harboring all this hatred inside.” He knew vaguely of Rogowski’s born-again Christian phase, “but he didn’t share that with me.” There was also something in the skateboarding culture of the time, Janson says, that led to Rogowski’s breakdown.

“Honestly, all the people I was around in skateboarding had the potential to do this,” Janson says.”All of us were living fairly crazy lifestyles -- there’s a sense of lawlessness in skateboarding

Silva says it’s wrong to blame skateboarding culture for what happened with Gator. “Individuals handle success in different ways,” he says. “ ... Another skateboarder, Chris Miller, who was as popular as Gator but not as flashy ... handled success completely differently -- he was a family man, married to the sweetheart of his dreams.” Miller made a transition to the business side and runs Planet Earth Products, a division of the sporting goods company K2.

“The demons that troubled Gator all his life did him in,” says Silva. “There were self-esteem issues, some kind of addiction problem -- be it fame or a substance thing.” Nevertheless, the film did make him wonder what part they -- Gator’s friends and colleagues -- could have played in the young man’s life.

“I left the film feeling very disturbed,” says Silva, who attended the L.A. premiere. “I think Helen did a great job of painting the state of the industry at the time -- providing a look at the culture and questioning whether or not our involvement in Gator’s career was positive or negative. He was destined to stumble onto a path of enlightenment -- or of falling downward, as he did.”