By Laura Leedy

James Newton, the owner of Nags Skate House in Kent, watches as Kurt Blankenship, 15, rides his skateboard. Photo by Laura Jo Quail

Walking on the sidewalk in front of Olson Hall, he takes a little skip, lays down his skateboard, hops on and lets the wheels carry him a few feet before stepping down with his right foot to push off again. Rolling past Bowman Hall, he notices the steps and goes down to try a few tricks.

He jumps with his board, doing an olie, and runs the bottom of his board along the step. From the reflection of the windows, he sees a cyclist coming up from behind him. But it's not just anyone on a bicycle. It's campus police bike patrol, and the officer has a message for him: Stay off the grounds.

Damage to steps, curbs, benches, handrails and walls by skateboarders has raised concern among campus police and grounds crews.

Although many are sympathetic to the skateboarders, they want the damage to stop and the skaters to find another place to practice their sport.

The repair crew
"I'm not just a kid anymore, but I'm sure it's a lot of fun," says Joe Gregor, assistant director of Physical Plant Services. "But we've got chipped stairs, chipped curbing, and the grease coming off the wheels when they go up and down the walls - well, you can't clean that off. It run us thousands of dollars for skateboarding damage."

Photo by John Arthur

Despite the many things needing repair, handrails are the biggest problem.

"I can't pain them fast enough," he says. "I can't paint hose things on Monday, and by Tuesday there's no paint left. And we're doing some major repairs on the may 4 Memorial because of the skateboarders. This year we had to go to Montana to get the granite to repair it."

Other places that have needed repairs are Terrace and White halls. Repainting and repairing the gouges by skateboarders running their boards against metal at Terrace cost the university $1,400 last spring. The walls on the ground level at White Hall, where skateboarders run their boards against the walls doing "wall rides," cost $1,600 to fix.

"Some of it we repair, and the very next dy it's torn up. So I'm glad they built some place for the kids to do it," Gregor says, referring to the makeshift skate park that was built in early summer in Stow. A half pipe and street course were set up in the Stow-Kent lanes parking lot. With $5 daily and $60 two-month passes available, skaters of all ages used the park until it closed Aug. 27, when bowling leagues resumed and the parking lot was needed for patrons.

"We can't fight it, so we might as well give them a place to do it," Gregor continues. "We have to remember that we were all young once. I just hope they go over there to do their tricks and stay off the plaza and the stairways."

Even while the skate park was open, people still came to campus for the hills, hndrils and curbs, so damage kept happening.

"It's a never-ending thing," Gregor says. "We can't keep it up. Evry single little penny counts. We have a beautiful campus, and I would like to see it keep looking that good."

The culprit
"People who are having a bad day and like to go home and kick their dog like to complain to us," says Ben Talbot, a 21-year-old skateboarder from Kent, referring to those who dislike skateboarers.

Nick Fertig Lands precariously on a handrail.

Talbot says it's convinient to skateboard on campus because it's close and there are good curbs and parking lots.

"For the most part it's pretty east to up and ride there," he says. "But you run around a lot. Police tell you it's OK to skate here and then they'll tell you to go somewhere else."

Talbot says it bothers him that all damage on campus is blamed on skateboarders, despite the prevalence of inline skaters on campus.

"That really sucks," he says. "There is this one part of campus where i've never seen skaters. It's where all the Rollerbladers go, and we get all the heat. And handrails - it's the Rollerbladers that scrape them all up."

About two years ago Talbot had a run-in with campus police and got kicked off campus. He was considered "persona non grata", meaning he was banished from campus for two years and could have been arrested for trespassing if caught on the grounds.

Jack Scott, the nterim program officer of Judicial Affairs, says the status was "designed to keep people from Kent State campuses who may cause damage to property or people."

Talbot's persona non grata status has expired, which means it's back to campus. He says he's not the only one taking advantage of Kent State's "facilities," expecially since the skate park closed.

"I've noticed people going back to campus," he says. "It really is one of the better places, even though the people who work there don't like it."

The law
A skateboarder can do more damage than 100 years of erosion," says Alice Ickes, Kent State Police Department crime prevention officer. "They've damaged the May 4 Memorial and that's pretty sad."

To cut down on damage and increase safety, Kent State police have a campus policy: Skateboarding in buildings, stairwells, the Student Center Plaza and the May 4 Memorial, as well as blocking building entrances, is not allowed. Despite this policy, campus police still receive calls from worried or upset people.

"We get alot of complaints," Ickes says. "We get a lot of people concerned about the skateboarders themselves, that they could fall and hurt themselves - that kind of thing. We have other calls from people when they see them in parking lots because their cars are susceptible to damage."

When not it parking lots, where they do tricks on the curbs, some skateboarders to to the steps at the back of Bowman hall. Ickes says broken windows and chipped steps there are reminders of the destruction skateboarders cause.

Those who are caught can be charged with criminal damage and criminal mischief and sent to the city court. Ususally, skateboarders receive a verbal warning and have campus policy explained to them the first time. Subsequent offenses can lead even nonstudents to conduct court.

"Our limitations are basically the law and campus policy," Ickes says. "The bike patrols have been pretty effective."

"A lot of times, it's one of those things that they're hard to catch and hard to hold accountable. Some of the time, the kids are oblivious to their fun and their sport. So it's OK if you explain it to them. Then you've got some who are young and rebelious, and you tell them and they think, All right. This bothers people. Great."

The guardsman
"As a whole they're good people," says henry Brown, a senior guard at the Kent Stae University Museum. "That's why you have to feel for them, because they really enjoy what they're doing.

Photo by John Arthur

"It looks like a lot of fun. I imagine if I were younger, I might enjoy it. I get fascinated by it. Most of the time I watch them for a bit before I go out and tell them."

Brown tells them to go somewhere else. Besides chips in the stone benches at the front of the museum, he says the potential for museum visitors to get injured or offended are the reasons he asks skateboarders to find another place to skate.

"Not only that, but we have a lot of elderly people coming in and people who come here from out of town," he says. "Those people who come in, they are not students, so they expect a little more. I mean you walk out the door, you don't expect to get hit by a pair of skates. Not that it's happened, but that's not to say it won't happen."

Brown says the skateboarders he has talked to are nice, regardless of stereotypes about them because of their baggy clothes and chain wallets.

"I don't look at the way people dress, because I'm sure in my day I was considered extravagant," he says, smiling. "I think it's all in the way you approach it. I'm just no going to go out there and yell. That doesn't make any sense."

The supplier
"I don't know hot it comes about," sys James Newton, owner of Nags Skate Shop, 106 E. Day St. "But Kent State is one of the best places to skate in the tri-count area, whci is good for us but not for the university."

Although there are many hot spots on campus for skateboarders, Newton says many skaters he knows steer clear of certain areas.

"One thing we don't condone is skating on or around the May 4 Memorial," he says with a very serious tone. "We try to find out who it is [damaging the memorial] and tell them to not be stupid."

Before graduating from Kent State in 1995, Newton relied on his skateboard to get to class.

"In 1995, there weren't a ton of skaters," he says, referring to the recent surge of skateboarders on campus. "But that's pretty much how I got around."

He says a reason for the increase may be media exposure and corporate sponsors helping to boost the sport into mainstream culture.

According to the National Sporting Goods Association, skateboarding has beat mountain biking and golf, becoming the fastest growing activity for which sports equipment is needed.

The association also reported there are now about 6.3 million skateboarders, which is a 35.8 percent increase from last year.

Newton says this increase is reflected in the number of complaints.

"The volume of kids represents ht eamount of complaints you get," he says. "The thing that kind of bothers me is the damage we supposedly are causing. I think they're targeting our kids because they stay in one place. A lot of skaters will travel in packs. If there are 10 guys, it's a lot easier to catch us than two guys going around tagging things."

The skate park helped to keep some skateboarders off campus and out of trouble this summer, but since it has closed, it's back to the university. For some skateboarders this isn't a bad thing because of the prime skating conditions on Kent State's hilly campus.

"There's a wide variety of curbs and rails and wide, open areas," Newton says, "whic are nice if you're not getting chased by a cop."