At 13 years old, Ashton Scholl has been skateboarding for a little over four years.
Now, he has been spotlighted in multiple profile articles and published his own children’s book to show for it.
“I had recently got a new game called Tony Hawk Pro Skater and I saw all these tricks they’re doing on the game and I started to get interested,” says Scholl.
At first, he learned to skate on a Penny Skateboard before advancing to tricks and skate parks. After only a few lessons with his first skate instructor, Scholl found that he caught on quickly and dedicated a few hours a day to learning tricks such as 180 turns.
“I looked at people skateboarding on videos and stuff and I saw people congratulating friends doing cool tricks,” says Scholl. “I wanted to be in that position too, that’s why I started skateboarding.”
Scholl frequents skateparks all around Columbus, but he has a few favorites such as the Westerville Skate Park and Skate Naked Indoor skatepark, where he takes lessons.
He also enjoys the Dublin Skate Park and Pedal Park for its challenging ramps and rails. After sticking the landing on a stair jump, Pedal Park has been a personal favorite of his.
During the summer, Scholl spends roughly 35 hours a week practicing new tricks and mastering his skateboard skills. As a summa cum laude student at Hilliard Heritage Middle School, he has learned to balance both school and personal hobbies such as skateboarding.
Scholl maintains his grades and skater lifestyle with hard work and time management. He focuses on school first before taking his wheels to the park and mastering tricks like the frontside 180 and the ollie.
“Well, in the summer I do it mainly all the time but during school, it’s for maybe an hour after,” says Scholl. “It’s usually because I’m really busy with school because I have all Honors, so I have to do a ton of homework.”
Scholl faces a few challenges when it comes to practicing and learning to immerse himself in the process of tackling difficult skills. From fracturing his foot to bumps and scrapes from falling on the concrete, Scholl has learned not to back down.
“There’s a lot of times where I’ll be trying to do a trick and I may fail it and accidentally hurt myself really bad and that challenges me because I have to decide if I want to keep doing that or not,” he says.
Scholl has words of wisdom for youths getting into the sport of skateboarding coming from his own personal experiences. He shares that staying positive is the best way to overcome the frustration of learning a new hobby.
“Sometimes it can be really frustrating when you’re not learning a trick and I’ve been there before where it’s taken me multiple days or multiple hours to land it,” says Scholl. “You have to be willing to be going out there every single day and practice.”
Amber Phipps is a contributing writer at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at aphipps@cityscenemediagroup.com.
