"Every male had sold drugs, been shot, been in jail, been on the path to destruction," Darren Harper recalls of his childhood neighborhood, in the Southeast quadrant of
The twist in this story is that it's not the past of a druglord or even a rapper, but a professional skater.
Harper got his first taste of the sport after watching a movie called "Gleaming the Cube." He was instantly hooked by how the skaters seemed to defy gravity and make the complicated appear simple.
"I was fascinated by how they got the board off the ground," Harper said of their aerial acrobatics.
Harper and his friends strived to be the athletes they saw on TV. "We would act like the cats we saw," said Harper. "We couldn't skate a lick but we pretended." Harper's skater of choice to imitate was none other than Tony Hawk, no doubt foreshadowing his success to come.
As he grew in the craft over the years, Harper became known for his ollies, a trick he used to captivate audiences with big-air jumps, clearing objects like refrigerators to the amazement of spectators.
Unfortunately,
In a conversation with the mother of his son, he began to reminisce about skateboarding, how the sport had gained popularity, and about how he should have stayed with it. "I think I could have made a career out of it," Harper remembers telling her. "These rappers are talking about SB Dunks and I knew about that way before them. That could have been me."
With that Harper got back into skateboarding, but he couldn't leave his "day job." "I would leave the block early and head downtown to skate. When I wasn't skating, I was on the block." Things went this way until Harper caught a charge . That was the inspiration he needed to put everything into skating.
Pit Crew Skate sponsored a video with wide-ranging distribution that featured Harper. Chris Hall decided to back Harper's career and sold his entire shoe collection to finance DVDs of Harper.
A short time and a plethora of sponsors later, Darren Harper is well on his way to cementing himself as a household name. To Harper, it's prudent that he makes himself accessible to the kids who look up to him. "Coming up, my role models were all hustlers. I come from that culture. I want to show that you can get those things without selling drugs," Harper said. "I cater to the kids. I do what the other skaters don't do."
In response to his varied fan base, which includes skateboarding's traditional demographic of suburban white kids, Harper said, "It's a beautiful thing."
1. my goddaughter Victoria loves skateboarding, and she is a black girl,who has 7 skateboards, and the ramp. she scares me when he flips and twists on that board with wheels. but it is exciting.
sandra at 8:20AM on Jul 26th 2008