Even if you’ve never touched a skateboard, Sk8atSHU is here to help students get their feet off the ground and on a board.
The club’s president, Ben McGinn, a freshman physics major, said skateboarding allows him to “clear [his] mind,” and he wanted to start the club to build a community around skateboarding.
“It's fun to skate with groups of people, the more people, the better it is, and the more fun I have,” McGinn said.
Daniel Montgomery, a freshman Biochemistry major and the club’s secretary, agrees with McGinn.
“For me, skating has brought me what Ben said, ‘an opportunity to clear my mind’ and to give me something that I can work towards by setting goals for myself,” Montgomery said. “ I want to be able to bring that to other people too.”
Sk8atSHU hopes to bring together skaters of all levels and create a welcoming space for students interested in the culture, creativity, and camaraderie of the sport. Montgomery reiterates this mission.
“The more people that can skate with you, it's more fun,” Montgomery said. “I think that's also why I decided to, like, help be a part of skate club.”
Clubs have unique ways of starting up on campus. Blake Marasigan, a sophomore graphic design major and the vice president of Sk8atSHU, explained how the club made it out of the group chat.
“This started as a group chat, with a bunch of skaters we were collecting on campus,” Marasigan said. “If we saw someone skating, we were like, ‘Yo, you want to come to the group chat?’”
The e-board has high hopes for Sk8atSHU's success.
“We don't really have a budget right now because we're new, but next semester, I'm hoping to use the budget to make skating more accessible for people who can't afford boards,” Marasigan said. “It’s an expensive sport.”
Apart from making the sport more accessible to SHU students, Sk8atSHU hopes to bring it to people who would not otherwise have given it a chance. To do so, their main goal is to “get more people to show up,” according to Marasigan.
“Just like being able to teach other people and get them better at skating,” Marasigan said. “We also want to do more board giveaways and stuff like that.”
The skating community is a major draw for skaters and college students. It’s a freeing medium for art expression for skaters, as Marasigan reinforced.
“I wanted to integrate that into this community at Seton Hall because everyone is just so willing to help you learn how to skate, teach you about the mentality block and everything that you need to unlock when you skate,” Marasigan said.
Thomas Canela, a junior political science major, has been skating for the past five years. He’s currently working on a “pop-shove-it and mastering an olly.” Canela hopes to join Sk8atSHU for more open skate sessions and to practice at off-campus skate parks.
Haley Acevedo, a sophomore philosophy major, does not skate, but she joined because she loves skating culture and supporting her friends.
“I’m here to look at the boards and watch them skate,” Acevedo said.
She also enjoys the welcoming community from Sk8atSHU.
“I greeted them with a smile because they greeted me with one first,” Acevedo said.
Starting a club doesn’t come without challenges. For McGinn, the most difficult aspect is attracting members.
“Not a lot of people [skateboard] and a lot has to do with the fact that it's kind of expensive to start,” McGinn said. “It’s a hard commitment to do because you don't even know if you like it. So this, the club, gives people an opportunity to try, try it, see if they like it.”
A year from now, Marasigan hopes the club will hold combined events with nearby college skateboarding clubs.
“I know there's skating clubs in Montclair right now, and Rutgers had a skating club, so I'm hoping to come together with other schools and have a little collaboration,” Marasigan said.
Sk8atSHU is screening Mid 90s, an indie film about skating, on March 25 at 8 p.m. on the top floor of the parking deck. To find out more about the club’s upcoming events, stay updated through their Instagram.
Blake Marasigan, who was interviewed for this article, is a photographer for The Setonian.
Thomas Canela, who was interviewed for this article, was a writer for The Setonian’s News and Campus Life sections.
Keira Bala is the videographer for The Setonian. She can be reached at keira.bala@student.shu.edu.
