"The Separation of Church and Skate"

When I was a kid, I played organized soccer and baseball. Each season, there would inevitably be at least one overzealous parent who either got routinely thrown out of the park or should have been.

James Simpkins was a kid who always seemed to end up on my baseball team. His mother had more lip than Mick Jagger and she knew less about the game of baseball than my socks did. Either she or James got themselves thrown out of more games than Bobby Cox and Billy Martin combined. The only positive of this, though — aside from James or his mom repeatedly arguing calls with a zeal that would make Yosemite Sam ashamed to call himself 'animated' — is that there was usually only one clueless parent each season. As soccer was a bit more obscure in the '80s, a ton of parents didn't know much about the game, but most of them at least had the sense to keep their mouths shut in the stands. I said "most." One mother liked to yell out to her son, "I'll give you five bucks if you score a gold!"

That's gold.

Now that skateboarding is finally beginning to become a serious alternative to traditional organized sports, more and more parents are taking their kids to the skatepark (or dumping them off for some organized babysitting). The problem, aside from the plethora of rugrats is that the parents have about as much notion of skatepark etiquette as James Simpkins' mom did at the ballpark, which leads to a lot of unnecessary problems at the park.

If your kid is expressing in interest in skateboarding, here are a few pointers to keep your kid from getting run'd over.

-The skatepark is NOT where you go to learn to skate. That's what driveways or officeparks are for. If you can't at least stand on the board while rolling, stay home.
-There is to be NO standing around anywhere that people are skating or where you have the potential to get hit — especially if you have two or three friends camped out with you. Are you hoping that a 200-pound dude will smash into you at 20 mph?
-The first thing you must learn to do is drop in on a ramp. If you can't drop in, you will be 'that guy' standing around at the bottom of the ramp, waiting to have your insides rearranged by previously mentioned 200-pound dude.
-Skateboarding, in and of itself, is not a contest. If you are at the park to gloat at how much better your kid is than everyone else, go home. Skateboarding is about creativity and having fun. If your idea of sport involves being an asshole and talking shit, let your kid play football instead.
-Above all, just watch what the older guys are doing and copy their behavior. I, for one, don't mind the kids at the park, as long as they understand that there are other people trying to skate. I don't want to be your kid's babysitter. Wait...look at me. Do you want me to be your kid's babysitter.

That's what I thought.