17-year-old El Paso skateboarder dreams of making it big
EL PASO, Texas - Gavin Kish has been skateboarding since the age of 3. Now, at age 17, he will finally become a senior this year. Kish has his eyes on a professional skateboarding career and wants to turn pro before he turns 18 next May. He is currently at the AM or amateur level.
Check out his Instagram profile here, where you'll see all types of tricks he's done. You'll find him skating off roofs and bridges, grinding on all sorts of rails, and pulling off incredible air stunts that this author would have no idea how to describe unless they showed the videos on his profile. That being said, take a look for yourself...this guy has skill!
ABC-7 met with Gavin on Wednesday at El Paso's very first concrete skatepark- Carolina Skate Park- to hear firsthand about his accomplishments, his crazy stunts, crashes, goals for the future, and advice for other skateboarders.
"I've just been trying to make it out of El Paso, and just put our city on the map for skateboarding. No one's ever gone pro out of El Paso, like fully, officially and that's my main goal," the 17-year-old said.
Gavin's dad was the person who introduced skateboarding to his son,
"Right when I was able to walk, he would always hold my hands on the board and take me with him 24-7. So I guess like him always being there, and taking me around with him...I fell in love with it," Gavin recalled.
At this point, Gavin has not created any new tricks, but he's mastered plenty such as: kickflips, trade flips, and "pretty much all of the flat ground tricks." Of course, if you checked out his Instagram, you'd see he's gone much further than the flat ground tricks. He even jumped over our ABC-7 Photojournalist Shaun Felice...twice!
Of course, with any success in skateboarding, first comes many fails. Gavin shared this piece of advice with ABC-7 on how one should fall:
"Tuck and roll when you fall. You kind of just go with it. So you'll roll and you'll be able to just get back up and then you can get up and go again. And usually, just your shirt or clothes will get dirty, and you may just get a scrape or two."
Ummm...yeah ok we'll try that! Finally, on his journey to go pro, Gavin explained just how much work goes into skateboarding for a living. That includes making a name for yourself and of course, time and effort.
"If you are really trying to take it to the next level, you are really going to have to put a lot of time, effort, and work into it. You really have to be about it. It takes a lot of energy and time, and you take a lot of falls, but in the end, I think it's very worth it."
