Every Thursday night, UNC Skate Club transforms the Pit into their skate park with quarter pipes, bars and ramps.
The club is a place for "anything with wheels" — skateboarding, biking or roller-skating — and any skill level. The club values personal progression over comparison. Established as an official club this semester, the organization has worked to redefine what it means to be a skater.
But it took sophomore and President of the club Odell Escorcia-Puente and his team ten months and 8 attempts to get their club established as an official organization.
“We would get so disappointed every time that we were given ‘No’ — and it was like, ‘Man, the school probably thinks that we're just degenerate skaters that don't do anything, or that we're gonna like mess up the school, or they don't want us here or something,'” Escorcia-Puente said.
Jude Saverino, a sophomore and executive team member, said that at the club fair, he noticed people were hesitant to approach their table and thought it was because of the notion that skaters are "scary and judgmental."
“We don’t want people to think of us like that — we want to be an inclusive community of skate progression in every avenue,” Saverino said.
These stereotypes inspired Violet Worzella, a sophomore and member of the club, to produce the short film “Hate vs Skate” which stitches together skating clips, the history of the sport and her own experience with skating. In the video, she describes how skating — also called concrete surfing — gained momentum in the 1970s as a cheap, accessible way to have fun.
“There's kind of the impression that a lot of skaters are like, stoners, potheads, delinquents,” Worzella said. “And they ended up being some of the best people I think I've ever met.”
One of Saverino's favorite memories is the night the club was officially approved. He and his team brought out a cake to celebrate the occasion and took a group picture with a large turn-out to commemorate the event.
