IUPSC stands for Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s Skateboard Club. IUPSC became a club on the 23rd of September 2003 when IUP officially recognized it as an organization. IUPSC conceptually started when the police stopped us (Brian Buck, Christian Jerman, and friends) for doing tricks skateboarding (which is illegal around IUP) and one of the officers recommended that we start the club. I was soon filling out a 30-page form to get the club going and hoping for the best.

The first meeting had a lot of probably 30 skateboarders. The next meeting had about half that and then we settled down into having about 5-15 skaters attend each meeting. We had lots of ideas of things to do like skate-park outings, demos, contests, getting a local skate-park, overturning anti-skateboarding laws, etc. Getting these things done would take a lot of work and people soon began fizzling out.

Our first big accomplishment was getting a few obstacles under a set of bleachers by a large local parking lot. We held a competition on a beautiful day and had a large turn out. IUPSC gave out a deck and had a highest ollie competition. The police had agreed to let us skate there whenever we wanted but we soon found out that not all of them liked us there. We made a fun-box out of a refrigerator door, a bank ramp and some other obstacles thrown together out of things we could get out of the trash. It was a pretty fun little set-up to skate. A few weeks went by and then one day everything we had collected and built was gone. The police and janitors didn’t admit to knowing where it went and a few weeks later we were told we weren’t allowed to skateboard there any longer.

A website came about with the help of my friend and was hosted for a while under my IUP account. It currently needs a new host since I graduated (losing my IUP hosting) I met a guy that was starting a snowboard company called Lost Creek. He wanted to get some publicity so we teamed up and made a video covering our first competition sponsored of course by Lost Creek.

We wanted better obstacles for our next competition so we decided to hold a concert. IUPSC held it’s first benefit concert on February 25th 2004. The event lasted around 3 hours and took place in the Hadley Union Building (HUB) at IUP. The bands that played were The Last Hope, Paddington, United 51, and Apology for Bleeding. We had two local DJs scratching between sets. We had a projector shooting up skate videos starting with some local footage then going into a few skate videos. There was a TV and Ps2 with THPS going and root beer pong. It raised about $400 and was our most successful concert.

IUPSC also decided to do a Sheetz fundraiser selling MTO coupons. We didn’t do a good job keeping track of the coupons so this cost IUPSC about $200. This left me frustrated and I continued to struggle w/ delegating responsibility. IUPSC progressed slowly if at all over the next few months.

One of my friends bought a screen-printer and said he’d make us T-shirts that we could sell for profit. After struggling for a while to get people to come up w/ designs we settled w/ IUPSC written above a side shot of a skateboard. Our intention was to have the wheels line up over the nipples and to giggle at our silliness as we sold them. We decided to go w/ black on a white T-shirt. Our screen printer friend had to dry the ink on the shirts in an oven and ended up lightly toasting all of our shirts. This cost us about $30 instead of making us anything.

The next year we also held a concert but it was a disaster. The first band to play didn’t show up until an hour in and played w/o their lead singer. We also had to pay for security for the room this time, which cost us an absurd amount of money. People also didn’t come through with activities and we had a smaller turn out. As people entered they got a ticket for a door prize and could buy a $1 raffle ticket for a deck. We feel the smaller turnout was due also to less advertising prior to the show.

IUPSC decided to have another competition since we had some money to make better obstacles this time. We bought some angle iron from a local scrap yard at cost (it pays to be an organization) and got IUP’s power plant workers to drill holes in it for free. Soon we were making a box and bank ramp out of old doors and wood we dug out of dumpsters. Some were skeptical about the quality of a box made out of dumpster wood but it turned out to be one of the best boxes I’ve ever skated.

Most recently IUPSC had a competition called, “Skate Slam 2004” It was held on Sunday November 21st 2004 at R & P Parking Lot. R & P is a large parking lot at IUP. Highest Ollie Winner was our treasurer Carlo Leo (6 decks side-stacked). Best Trick Winner - Christian Senrud with a Kickflip to Backside 5-o and a F/S 50/50 Finger-flip out. The weather during this event was pretty poor. The original date it was scheduled for was rained out and the second day the weather was barely skate-able. Chalkings’ around campus was our primary form for advertising, which obviously rained-out. The skater turn out was better than the first comp but the crowd was really small. We gave out another deck and we got to skate a sweet set-up for a day so overall it was successful.

Trying to develop a skateboard club taught me a lot more than I anticipated. It really was an invaluable experience. From organizing meetings, delegating responsibilities, attending local borough meetings, collecting information, holding competitions and concerts there was a lot to learn from. It might not sound like a lot but there was a lot more that went into it than you could possibly imagine. Probably the hardest thing to do was motivating skateboarders to do something for themselves through this club. I think I’ll always have an interest in skateboard organizations looking to promote skateboarding.

If anyone’s interested in IUPSC or starting a club of their own they can email me at kickflip25o@hotmail.com IUPSC also has a spot on www.theskatespot.org which is my current project. Theskatespot.org is an online community for skateboarders that features a skate-spot directory, skate-shop directory, skate-video reviews and more.