Surf the Wild Bridge in 1964

An Article from Arizona Days and Ways Magazine

Arizona Skateboarding History. Let’s start here:

Preface: Alex PlesKovitch has been at it again and came across this gem from 1964 describing “shooting the bridge” by ASU students on skateboards. This total fluff article of skateboarding is one of the earliest known local publications describing the activity, treating it as a fad. They even compare skateboarding to the hula hoop! The article first appeared in a December 6, 1964 issue of Arizona Days and Ways Magazine, a popular weekly magazine insert in the Sunday edition of the Arizona Republic published from 1953 through the 1990s.

This skate spot at ASU has a special place in my heart. I spent a good two years localizing that spot in 1985-86, wondering if anyone was gonna have enough balls to ollie the short stack of stairs because you were ball-the-walls hauling ass out-of-control going down that bridge! I learned to do Boneless-ones off the side wedges. Good times. It’s still there. Get some! – Rubber Toe

The article and captions are transcribed for easier reading.

Text, photographs by Rod Moyer

Designers of the footbridge spanning Eighth Street on the Arizona State University campus probably had no inkling of the peculiar traffic it would one day bear.

Today’s students are “shooting the bridge,” “wiping out” or “kicking out” on it and some of the more venturesome even “hang five or ten” on the structure.

These terms and more have crept into the vocabulary of ASU’s dry-land surfers, riders of the skateboard or “sidewalk surfboard” which has achieved a popularity similar to that enjoyed by the hula hoop a few seasons ago.

The hundred or so ASU students who have become regular aficionados can execute most of the maneuvers common to water surfing to go with the terms they have borrowed from their West Coast cousins.

The bridge, designed to carry foot traffic, links Palm Lane on the south with the Palo Verde women’s dormitory complex on the north.

It is divided by a center guardrail; one side being a stairs and the other a smooth walk just right for surfing!

Photo Captions

Bill Cash gets his kicks while other return to the top of the bridge for another go.
Foursome of skateboards swoop down the bridge at SSU in the greatest craze since hula hoops. Stive Ringler, right risks all to the retrieve his board.
Jan Noyes does a “kick-out,” maneuver in which she learns back and kicks the board out from under her feet. This trick is used by water surfers to abandon board as the near shore.
Rusti Bartell, crouching precariously with hair flying, “shoots the bridge,” a maneuver similar to “shooting a wave” on the water.
All off! Rusti departs the board in an unconventional manner, just one step better than losing it.
Skate-boarders peel off in formation as they turn into one of spoke like walks leading from bridge. Turning corners is accomplished by shifting weight and leaning.
No term for this hand-in-hand act, but if Denny Schuh or Rusti Bartell start to lose it, the other had better let go!
Can Leslie starts to lose it. Tis is known in the trade as “wiping out.”
Another “wipe-out” as Tim Bunn almost sticks his foot into camera.
Down the bridge and through the palms.