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A Secret History of the Ollie

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A SECRET HISTORY OF THE OLLIE Buy Now

Initially, I had thought I could wrap the project up in a year or two, just in time for the 30th anniversary of the Ollie, but it just kept going. Part of the reason for this was that this history had never been documented before, and part of it was that the story kept evolving. But I was committed to it, and probably should have been committed! I worked on it day and night, often seven days a week, without much of a life outside of the book.

The original manuscript for A Secret History of the Ollie became immense, over 1,400 pages long, and covered four decades, from the 1970s to the 2000s. My editor Gary Lee Miller and I then split the book up into volumes, with Volume One focusing exclusively on the 1970s. Jonathan Harms, my copy editor, also became another mission-critical part of the project.870xsecret-ollie-article-1-skater-in-bowl
A Secret History of the Ollie was published on February 2015. It was a happy occasion, for many reasons, but also a forlorn one. Forlorn, because Skitch Hitchcock had passed away a year or so earlier before getting to see the book, and also Curtis Hesselgrave, Shawn Peddie, Tom Sims, Mike Weed, Tom Fain, Waldo Autry, Jay Adams, Chris Yandall, Shogo Kubo, and the person who truly made this happen in more ways than one, my father.

When Michael Brooke asked for an excerpt for ConcreteWave, I settled on Chapter 15, because it, like many of the chapters in the book, was a short, almost self-contained story,and it featured Scott Goodman, the South Florida skater who came up with the name ā€œOllie.ā€ But it was more than that; it was to honor Scott, who suddenly and unexpectedly passed away in March 2015, just several weeks after the book was released.Scott was an incredibly humble, talented, and fun-loving guy who touched the life of everyone who knew him. He made everyone smile, making him very hard to forget. Skateboarding, however, had forgotten about Scott Goodman, or rather it never
knew about his talent, role, and story – until now. The consolation, though, is that Scott did get to see the book, and attended the book release and first signing. For that, I will be forever grateful. Craig B. Snyder

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The ā€œlimit huntingā€ that Surfer magazine wrote about just months after the Cadillac wheel premiered in 1973 took on a whole new gloss by 1977. The advent of precision bearings, better trucks, and solid wood boards with kicktails allowed skaters to take the sport farther than ever before.

The game of limit hunting at Skateboard USA in Hollywood, Florida, also included a variety of fly-outs, popouts, freefalls, and fence rides. Dave
Nicks, who often rode without shoes, was most certainly an instigator. His barefoot adventures included riding off the lip of the North Bowl onto the chain-link safety fence, only to kickturn on it and come back down again. It was a killer move that few could duplicate.

The low-lying areas in the skatepark were not exempt from the fun. Another popular maneuver among the concrete literati involved hauling across the freestyle area and popping off the curbhigh ledges to catch some no-handed air.

According to Bert Parkerson, ā€œI know Jeff [Duerr] started it. He used to come in at this angle and just ā€˜ollieā€™ across the corner. It was shaped just that way. He would ollie off the corner and come onto the other side.ā€ It was minimal air, meaning just a few inches, and though not a true Ollieā€” the controlled no-handed maneuver had yet to comeā€”it was a thrill all the same.

In 1977, Jeff Duerr started to come into his own, and soon he was the most advanced rider at the park. Already an accomplished freestyle skater, the 16-year-old took on transition and vert as the next logical challenges. According to Parkerson, ā€œJeff was a natural; heā€™d see a maneuver in a magazine, and the next time you saw him he was doing it. He definitely stood out compared to the other skaters.ā€

At the same time, Alan Gelfand was also advancing. Instead of hanging around Bill Reilly and Bobby Summers, he spent an increasing amount of time in the company ofĀ  Duerr, Parkerson,Kevin Peterson, Scott Goodman, and Rick Furness. The Lipslides and Boardslides being performed by these skaters, still older than Gelfand but closer in age, became a critical influence on his skating.

Though smaller than the others and even small for his age, Gelfand skated as an equalā€”or at least tried to. The problem was that he just didnā€™t have the weight or height to throw around like the others.

Gelfandā€™s equipment compounded his difficulties.Ā  Most skaters took advantage of the recent advancements made in truck design. The Bennett truck, with its quick turning radius, was perfect for lipslides andĀ  surf-style moves. Gelfand, however, chose to ride Trackers, which were wider,Ā  lower, and less responsive in turning. And instead of loosening his trucks likeĀ  everyone else, Gelfand rode them so tightly cranked down that the advantages of this new-generation truck technology were almost lost.

But precisely because Gelfandā€™s small size and preferences for equipment did not allow him to ride in the exact manner others did, it led to the accidental discovery of a revolutionary newĀ  skating move.

The Lipslide had quickly become the most popular trick at Skateboard USA and by the summer of 1977 it was all the rage. But as much as Gelfand tried to emulate it, the Lipslide remained elusive.

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One day while attempting a Lipslide, Gelfand instead caught some air, passively drifting just an inch or two over the lip before landing his board. It was not unlike the Lipslide aerials made earlier by others such as Reilly and Bert Parkerson. Or was it? In any case, skater Scott Goodman was ready with a name for the new maneuver, at literally the moment it happened.

ā€œI was the first one who saw him do it besides Alan himself,ā€ says Goodman. ā€œWhen I saw him do this little move I called it an ā€˜Ollie Pop.ā€™ It was the first thing that came out of my mouth. I was just goofing on him. I had named him Ollie, so I named that move an Ollie Pop.ā€

ā€œOllieā€ was a nickname that Gelfand initially found irritating. During the summer of 1977, he and Goodman had been spending nearly every day together at Skateboard USA. Most times, the park was nearly empty in the daytime because no one wanted to skate under the hot summer sun. Despite unlimited skating time and games of pinball, tedium inevitably set in.

ā€œWe got kind of bored and we didnā€™t have transportation,ā€ remembers Goodman. ā€œWe both got dropped off there in the morning by our parents. If we wanted food, weā€™d have to skate all the way toĀ  Dennyā€™s by Sheridan Street. Weā€™d order something, then skate all the way back. That was kind of an annoying ride on those lousy roads.ā€

When those moments ofĀ  absolute restlessness came, Goodman would scratch his head and call Gelfand ā€œOllie,ā€ with the same hapless inflection used by Stan Laurel toward his partner Oliver Hardy in their Laurel and Hardy comedy films of the 1930s.

Once he realized Gelfand didnā€™t appreciate the joke, Goodman maintained it, scratching the crown of his head with one finger and calling Gelfand ā€œOllieā€ at every opportunity.

ā€œI would never say Alan and I were tight, tight friends, but for a short time we were together every day. It was a like a ā€˜love the one youā€™re withā€™ kind of thing. It was just the two of us. We put up with each other,ā€ says Goodman.

ā€œI think I used [ā€œOllieā€] to provoke himā€” just to get a reaction or something. Itā€™s not like he was hard-boiled or anything, it was just because of his lack of a sense of humor, or lack of being childish. I was just trying to stir him up a little bit, which didnā€™t work,ā€ remarks Goodman. When Goodman blurted out ā€œOllie Pop!ā€ after Gelfand caught an inch or two of unexpected air, it was just one more joke and another moment of instant gratification.

ā€œIt was all silliness. It was childish nonsense. Thatā€™s all it was,ā€ says Goodman of the nickname that would one day dominate the world ofĀ  skating. ā€œIt was a big joke back then. It was nothing. It took on a life of its own, more than I could have ever imagined. ā€œOne day someone said to me, ā€˜Oh, ollie, thatā€™s in the Oxford English Dictionary.ā€™ And I was like, are you kidding me? Then the next thing I hear is this word being used all over the world. And every time I see a kid on a skateboard and say to them I used to skate, the first thing that comes out of their mouth is ā€˜Can you do an Ollie?’.Ā  And Iā€™m thinking, this is just bizarre.ā€

The Ollie nickname might have easily died; Gelfand initially resisted it, or at theĀ  very least ignored it. But after the other Hollywood skaters heard Goodman say it enough times, the nickname stuck.498x662-ollie-article-bookcover-workfile

ā€œYou were the guys who kept that going,ā€ says Goodman. ā€œThe reason that got on the map, the reason why Alan let that be acceptable, has to do with you, Kevin Peterson, Jeff Duerr, and Rick Furness. Lums also might have been part of the reason, the thing that kept it going also.ā€

Lums (previously Lumā€™s) was a chain restaurant located at Young Circle on the east side of Hollywood. After Skateboard USA opened, it became a place for skaters to grab some food before or after a session. Lumsā€™ menu featured a delicacy called an Ollieburger, a 1/3-lb. hamburgerseasoned with an eclectic mix of 23 secret spices. Despite his irritation at his newly acquired nickname, the burger became Gelfandā€™s entrĆ©e of choice. In fact, he refused to order anything else.

With constant repetition, the Ollie nickname became irreversible, and Gelfand eventually grew to like it. At one point he even started writing ā€œOllieā€ on the bottom of his skateboard deck. But the name also stayed with Gelfand because of the popularity of the Ollie pop. After that maneuver appeared and everyone started doing it, it seemed like it couldnā€™t be called anything else. Gelfand, the trickā€™s inventor, just had to be Ollie.

If the first part of the Ollie Popā€™s name came from cinema, the second part came straight from skating. ā€œPopoutā€ was a common term at the time for the primitive aerials that occurred between 1975 and 1977. The Bunny Hop was sometimes called a Pop-out when done on banked walls, as were other moves. ā€œFly-outā€ and ā€œFly-awayā€ were two more terms used for maneuvers in which all four wheels left the ground. Some of these moves were grabbed, some grabbed and planted, and others were no-handedā€”much in the fashion of freeform flying, with little control, but the desire to land without eating it.450x642-ollie-article-bowl-workfile

The most advanced no-handed aerial at this time or later was probably the
ā€œOff-the-Lip,ā€ largely because it was being done on vert. East Coast skaters were doing this type of pre-Ollie nohanded air, as were some West Coast skaters such as Jerry Valdez from the San Fernando Valley and David Hackett from Malibu. ā€œIt was a surf move that we emulated and transferred from the ocean into swimming pools,ā€ says Hackett.

An Off-the-Lip was basically a vertical kickturn performed with speed. When this type of maneuver was performed with aggression, a skater sometimes became airborne. Aerial lipslides in ways were similar to Off-the-Lips, performed on banks instead of on the vertical walls of pools.

The Ollie Pop, despite its name, was not an Ollie, but a form of no-handed air similar to other forms of no-handed air happening around this same time. Like the Off-the-Lip, the Ollie Pop was unusual and new, but also a temporal wonder. In the beginning it was an unrefined move, but almost as soon as the Ollie Pop was invented, it began to evolve. BUY NOW

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