RIDE OF A LIFETIME: BLIND TEEN LEARNS HOW TO SKATE
STORY & PIC BY CHRIS KRIDLER • FLORIDA TODAY • January 18, 2009
Josh Stundon rolls down the slope and up again, his wheels making a raspy buzz against the concrete of the Cocoa Beach Skatepark.
The Irish 15-year-old is getting comfortable on the board. After a few lessons last summer and a couple this winter, he is guided lightly by teacher Scooter Newell, who trots alongside Josh as he rolls.
As the teen picks up speed and tic-tacs around the course, and his parents and twin sister watch from the rim, it’s easy to forget Josh is blind.
“That was good, man. That was really good,” Newell, 37, tells his student. “Same thing, like last time, only better.”
They have trust and patience and, like anyone who has nothing but four little wheels between them and a collision with the concrete, guts.
“OK, ready to go?” Newell asks. “All right, here’s the first hill. You’re by yourself. I’m right in front of you, but I’m ready for you.”
Close your eyes, and you hear the swoosh of the wheels coming and going over the concrete, like waves. It’s the sound that attracted Josh when he heard it at home in Ireland.
“There was an area in Limerick city, which is in my hometown, where a lot of the skateboarders used to hang around last year because we had no skate parks at all in Limerick,” Josh says, “and I heard the sound of a skateboard, and I knew a lot of people who skated there, and I wanted to skate so that I would fit in with my friends and so that I would be the same as other kids, as well.”
Josh is a lot like other kids. He vexes his mom because he doesn’t eat enough. He’s excited by the celebrity he earned after Newell posted a video of him skating on YouTube. But he’s also extraordinary — a skilled pianist, a top student, and willing to try anything.
The Scooter School.
“He has absolutely no hangups about being blind, absolutely none,” says mom, Mary.
“He’s been driving a car, a motorcycle,” father, Donal says.
“Camper van,” Mary adds. “He’s been sailing. He’s kind of done everything that our other two kids have done.”
was about 4 months old. Their older brother is in college, so he didn’t join the family on this trip to Cocoa Beach. After nearly 20 years of visits, they just bought a place here and expect to return for spring break.
“Last summer when we were here was the first time, he did skateboarding,” Donal Stundon says of Josh. “We came here just to see the park one day, and Scooter was there, and he was running a skate camp, and he came over to us and said he’d love to teach Josh to skate.”
Some people are afraid to teach a blind boy, Josh’s parents say, but Newell intuitively seems to know what he needs to tell Josh and when to stay out of the way.
Newell explains what a Twinkie is, since that’s what skaters call the long, low hill in the middle of the park, and they scoot up and down the slope. In the deeper wells of the park’s “pool,” Josh rides up the walls. “You went up so high and just held it, all stylish-like,” Newell praises Josh.
At the top of a hill in the shallow section, Newell preps Josh for another circuit. “All right, we’re going all the way this time,” he says.
Josh rolls down, and they tumble to the pavement. Newell lets out a groan as he hurtles over the teen. “Josh, that was the best I could do without landing on you,” the teacher says as they stand and shake it off, then jokes: “We need that for the slam section of our movie.”
He picks up the tiny palm seed that threw the board. “Hold your hand up. Feel that?” he says, pressing it into Josh’s grasp.
“Yeah.”
“Feel that little thing?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s what made us fall. Doesn’t that suck?”
Josh admits he’s a little dizzy, but he’s in good humor.
During one of their breaks, inside the skate shop, Newell hands Josh a fruit punch. “That’s Gatorade, man. It was made here in Florida.”
Josh takes a tentative sip. “Yeah, it’s lovely.”
“My apologies for all the bad American influences I’m putting on you here,” Newell says.
Josh’s parents don’t seem to mind.
“Scooter literally showed him everything foot by foot,” Donal Stundon says. “He got him to touch the slopes and the curves, and he built a mental picture of what’s here in his head. We just take it for granted. You automatically scan around, and you see everything, and you have a mental picture, but Josh, it was just blank, just blackness. . . . We actually don’t know how he remembers this.”
Newell is a longtime Cocoa Beach resident, a sales rep for a clothing company and a correspondent for skateboard Web sites. He’s been skating since he was 4. But he and Josh “see” the big hills differently. Newell says Josh has learned moves in hours or minutes that take some kids days; he’s not intimidated.
“Whenever I go to a skate park,” Newell admits, “I immediately go, OK, that’s the biggest thing here. I’m not skating that.” Josh laughs as Newell continues. “I always chicken out of skating the biggest thing in the park for some reason.”
Josh likes the feel of the hills. “It’s really nice on the skateboard. You know, you can feel the movement of the board going up and down.”
His mom, Mary, teases him. “Skateboarding is a babe magnet as well, isn’t it, Josh?” He laughs. “He’s got some phone numbers from girls at home over skateboarding.”
“Those are girls that, they’ve seen my video, and they say, ‘Josh, you’re awesome,’” he says with a grin.
Josh says he might try skating the line without Newell when he gets more confident. “See if I survive,” he says, laughing. “Once the balance improves, I think I’ll be OK.”
He’s definitely OK.
