Dogtown Research Paper

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By the end of the 20th Century, professional team sport and college athletics were maturing and becoming part of everyday entertainment. Alternate sporting activities emerged from the new individualism of the mid to late 20th century. Many of these new sports went against and clashed with the team sports. Clashing was caused by the new idea that sports to could be fun and being an individual by expressing one’s self. These new ideas and views were much different from the traditional values of organized sport. Dogtown contributed to the rise in skateboarding in the 1970s and the 1980s. Dogtown was more then just a place; it was a mindset. Dogtown was the prime factor for the rise of skateboarding and was the face of this new culture. Dogtown…show more content…
It was their form of the attitude era. Everyday, these boys brought something new to the table when it came to skills and tricks. Something that the Dogtown boys brought everyday was their attitude. They had a give no cares attitude that brought them to the top of the world. It was like they were invincible at the time and they knew it. They were the outlaws that everyone looked out for, but nobody messed around with. This was an attitude that is almost unknown to the skating world today. “Most so-called skaters are only buying in superficially, he explained, by wearing hooded sweatshirts or playing video games like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater or watching the X Games” (D. Cave, 2005). Skaters these days skate for the flashy reasons and to only buy the best equipment sometimes. This was the exact opposite for the Z-Boys of Dogtown. They were the bad boys of the business. They didn’t worry about being flashy or even impressing people. They were skateboarders because they loved doing it and they were the best at it. They always didn’t have the big skate parks or the best areas to skate at. So instead, they found pools that were drained and turned them into their own skating area. Pool skating was something that helped the sport very much. More tricks were developed and the popularity of the sport grew 10-fold. The Z-boys of Dogtown used whatever resources they had to get…show more content…
First of all, the Zephyr team was the most influential group in in skateboarding and in surfing. Everything that they did, others wanted to do the same thing. Real fans of skateboarding and real lovers of the sport, know who the Zephyr team is and they know how big the boys from Dogtown were. They would just skateboard as an after activity for when they were done surfing. They were arguably better at skateboarding then they were surfing. Jeff Ho and Skip Engblom instilled the boys to be aggressive and passionate about the sport. “This young crew of Dogtown skaters were driven ruthlessly to aggressive, competitive perfection by Jeff Ho and Skip Engblom. They reached the peak of fame, completely up-ending and innovating the the sport along the way– first with their unique surf-style skating, and then setting the world on fire with the epic pool sessions and radical vertical skating” (Patrick,

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