Bringing skateboarding to school

Amelia Schafer ICT + Rapid City Journal

RAPID CITY, S.D. – In the mid-90s, skateboarding was beginning to gain in popularity across the United States. In 1999, the first Tony Hawk video game hit shelves, and when it did skateboards began to hit the streets across America, including on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Kyle Mesteth, Oglala Lakota, was one of these teens, skating at the Pine Ridge High School with his cousin and other "rebel" skaters.

Now, in a "full circle" moment, Mesteth will serve as the first skateboarding coach of the new skateboard team in the very high school he used to skate around.

"It's a great honor and a major compliment for them to pick me," Mesteth said. "I didn't even know they were going to have a program, and it was just mind-blowing for me. It was full circle for me."

When he started skating, Mesteth and his friends were potentially the only ones on the reservation, he said. Together with his cousin Toby Eagle Bull and a few friends, they were a rag-tag scrappy group of skaters, skating wherever and whenever they could.

Mesteth remembers seeing "no skating" signs come up at the high school, which he tore down. But now in 2024, the school is encouraging skateboarding through an official team.

This is a brand new initiative for not only the reservation but anywhere in the Midwest. Skateboarding teams are rare for schools, the South Dakota High School Athletic Association doesn't offer skateboarding as a sanction sport and no high schools in the Rapid City area offer a team.

"Nobody's done this before, you can't just Google skateboarding in schools," Mesteth said. "So how do we run competitions? We're developing the program as we go."

Last year, Mesteth's sister, Tiara Mesteth, started a skate club at Lakota Tech High School in Wolf Creek. Now, the two siblings will plan how to host competitions for their teams.

"Skateboarding is not only a sport but a form of self-expression, it's an art form," Mesteth said. "It's this feeling that you can't explain. There's this feeling when you land a trick, whether you do it alone or in a skatepark, it's just you and your skateboard."

Mesteth has taught skateboarding to kids through Ground Control, a project Mesteth started and aims to encourage youth art and hobbies including skateboarding and create a safe, welcoming environment.

Skateboarding builds confidence and self-worth in youth, Mesteth said. It gives kids a creative outlet to express themselves and push themselves.

"You get a sense of self-worth when you finish something really difficult," Mesteth said. "It's a piece of wood with really fast wheels on it, you get a sense that you're not supposed to be doing this, to be standing up on this. Your body tells you, 'I'm gonna slip, I'm gonna hit my head.' But you don't. And you just get this feeling of accomplishment."

Through Ground Control, which opened in 2021, kids can get free skateboards and practice indoors. They can also practice making music and other art forms, or just hang out.

"In the 2010s there was kind of this boom in skateboarding," Mesteth said. "And after COVID people realized it's really a no-contact sport, it's just you and the board. It was perfect timing for Ground Control."

Through ground control and other initiatives, Mesteth has been involved in creating a safe space for youth for decades.

Each summer, Mesteth helps organize the Toby Eagle Bull classic in honor of his older cousin at the Toby Eagle Bull Skatepark outside the Powwow grounds. The classic, which started 22 years ago, is meant to honor Eagle Bull and encourage friendly competition.

Mesteth also helped bring skateboarding to the Lakota Nation Invitational last winter.

"There's so much history with skateboarding here," Mesteth said. "With Toby's passing, and before that the rebel skaters. Skateboarding is this whole huge thing here."

As of now, the team is still accepting sign-ups and is in the area planning stages of development. A lot of the students who signed up have boards, but boards will be provided for those who need one.

This story is co-published by the Rapid City Journal and ICT , a news partnership that covers Indigenous communities in the South Dakota area.