By Holly Fertsch
On Saturday, June 8, professional skateboarders took over Atlantic City’s Sovereign Avenue skate park. After their demo, Skate AC, a local nonprofit that builds skateparks and offers free skate programs, held a best trick contest.
Organized by pro skater Ronnie Kessner, in partnership with Skate AC, the pros included Ish Cepeda, Lui Elliot, John Dilo, Nikolai Piombo, Stephen Carty, Blake Carpenter, John Shanahan, Nick Merlino, Quim Cardona and Tom Asta. Kessner, Merlino and Cardona are all New Jersey natives. Merlino is a graduate of Atlantic City High School.
They skated through the obstacles and battled it out for the best trick over a trash can in the middle of the park. To give a sense of how high-level this is, I witnessed a shov-it and a switch back 360 over the obstacle. I also saw a few slams, though these pros rolled out of them with ease. But their willingness to put their sweat and blood into these tricks was evident.
After the pro demo, local skaters competed in a best trick contest on each of the obstacles in the park.
I hear you, non-skaters: Why care about some tricks over a trash can? Well, maybe because one of those pros paid out of his own pocket for the event to happen so he could give back to his local community.
Meet Ronnie Kessner, a dude from Little Egg Harbor who used to skate in his backyard. Those backyard ramps have since been donated to the Back-Sov Skatepark. Kessner is now a professional skater for April Skateboards. Yuto Horigome and (my favorite) Rayssa Leal also ride for that company, and both of them skated in the 2020 Olympics.
Want to see how impressive Kessner’s skills are? Watch these skate parts (aka videos) that feature him:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEIE9PnBEvQ.
The latter is Ronnie Kessner’s “Cherish” NB Numeric Part, released last month on Thrasher Magazine’s YouTube channel.
Kessner invited a ton of his pro friends back to his native South Jersey to stay at his parents’ house and then go skate a local park. He paid for their flights out of his own pocket and then bought pizzas for everyone at the park. Ronnie Kessner’s parents told a Shore Local correspondent that the pro skaters were very respectful while they were staying at their house. His father added that he was very proud of Ronnie.
Another reason to care? Because the community cares.
Judging from the size of the crowd and number of participants, this was a big deal. Spectators even climbed nearby trees to get a better view of the pros battling it out. It’s not everyday that pro skaters descend upon your local skatepark, especially here on the East Coast.
While there are a few notable skaters in New York (off the top of my head, I can think of Leo Baker, Alexis Sablone, and the Skate Kitchen crew), the scene is mostly based in California. Nearly everyone who makes a living through skateboarding lives on the West Coast. That includes Kessner, who moved to California after high school to pursue a career in skateboarding.
What’s unusual is that he returned to South Jersey after finding success out there, and that he invested so much into a small skate scene here.
Jason Klotz, the president of Skate AC, said, “Ronnie Kessner flew everybody out here because he wanted to do something special for South Jersey because he’s born and raised in here. His family donated the black ramps that are at the skatepark from their backyard.
“Ronnie grew up skating on them, so this is a really iconic moment for him,” Klotz continued. “He grew up as a little kid on these ramps, and now he’s getting to be here. He lives in California, but he’s here with all his peers in the skateboard industry doing a demo for his native turf and it’s his homecoming celebration. And we’re just so grateful that he’s just donated so much effort, time, and money into making this happen for the nonprofit, for South Jersey, in Atlantic City.”
Skate AC and Kessner worked together at this event to build up the skate scene here on the East Coast. On Skate AC’s website, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit says, “We are dedicated to building Southern New Jersey into a skateboarding mecca.”
The style of skating at the take-over was a departure from the surf-derived side that you see more here in South Jersey. In my own observation, I’ve seen that many of the skaters in our area are surfers first and foremost. In surfing, you ride the wave. In skating, this translates over into surfing bowls (pool-like structures) and ramps.
At the demo, transition skating wasn’t the priority. Instead, they were street skating: an aggressive style of skating that focuses more on flip tricks and navigating obstacles in an urban environment. The pros grinded on ledges, used launch pads to soar over obstacles, and, of course, did flip tricks: heelflips, hardflips, late flips, and tre flips.
For those who are unfamiliar, those tricks are not easy to learn. I was particularly impressed with how they did flip tricks out of grinds or off of obstacles. Ish Cepeda, one of the pros, did a back smith (a type of grind) on a ledge and kickflipped out. Even crazier, many of the pros were doing these tricks switch. That’s akin to painting a masterpiece with your non-dominant hand. They made skating in the opposite of their normal stance look natural. Blake Carpenter, another pro, did a switch backside 360 over the can.
What’s next for Skate AC?
“We’re in communications with the mayor’s office. And we’re pressing hard to try to collaborate as much as we can to make more skateparks happen, not only in Atlantic City, but in Atlantic County and eventually all over the world,” said Klotz. “So right now we’re currently not raising money for the skatepark as much as we’re raising money for future programs.
“We’re hoping that we can collaborate with the city and in the state on funding for an Uptown skatepark because we believe an Uptown skatepark would change the face of the whole Uptown and provide an outlet to all the youth and the adults who live up there that find it difficult to come down to Sovereign Avenue.
“We’ve had tons of kids over the years from Uptown that come here and then their parents say, ‘Yo that is way too far. You got to stay up town.’ And they’re not able to use these facilities. So whatever they got Uptown or whatever they got Downbeach, we want to make sure they got it Uptown too. So that’s our mission for this year and for the next year coming.”
Skate AC is also offering free skateboard programs through the summer. Currently, the plan is for free skateboarding lessons to be held from 9 a.m. to noon on the weekends throughout July, August, and September. Follow Skate AC on Instagram for further information.
As for longer term plans, Skate AC wants to build a skate scene in South Jersey that will continue on for years.
“This nonprofit’s going to surpass me and hopefully be passed on to the younger future generations for decades and decades to come.”
