EL PASO, Texas – Gavin Kish has been skateboarding since he was 3 years old. At 17, he will finally become a senior this year. Kish has his sights set on a career as a professional skateboarder 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 the types of stuff he’s done. You’ll find him skating across rooftops and bridges, squeaking on rails, and performing incredible aerial stunts that this author would have no idea how to describe unless he showed the videos on his profile. . That said, take a look for yourself…this guy has some talent!
ABC-7 caught up with Gavin on Wednesday at El Paso’s first concrete skatepark – Carolina Skate Park – to hear first-hand about his accomplishments, crazy stunts, crashes, goals for the future and advice for fellow skaters.
“I just tried to get out of El Paso and put our city on the skate map. Nobody ever came out pro from El Paso, like completely, officially, and that’s my main goal,” said declared on 17- said a year.
Gavin’s dad is the person who introduced his son to skateboarding,
“As soon as I could walk, he always had my hands on the board and took me with him 24/7. So I guess he was always there and took me with him…J fell in love with it,” recalls Gavin.
At this point, Gavin hasn’t created any new tricks, but he’s mastered many such as: kickflips, trade flips and “pretty much any flat ground trick”. Of course, if you take a look at his Instagram, you’ll see he’s gone way beyond flat laps. He even jumped over our ABC-7 photojournalist Shaun Felice…twice!
Of course, with any success in skateboarding, there are many failures first. Gavin shared this tip with ABC-7 on how to fall:
“Tuck and roll when you fall. You just go with it. So you’ll roll and you can just get back up and then you can get back up and go. And usually just your shirt or your clothes are going to get dirty and you might get a scratch or two.”
Ummm… yeah ok we’ll try that! Finally, on his journey to turning pro, Gavin talked about how important skateboarding work was to earning a living. This includes making a name for yourself and of course, time and effort.
“If you’re really trying to take it to the next level, you’re really going to have to put a lot of time and effort and hard work into it. You really have to put your mind to it. It takes a lot of energy and time, and you take a lot falls, but in the end, I think it’s really worth it.”
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