If you’ve walked around the University of Maine during the warm parts of the year — basically late April to Halloween — then you’ve probably seen numerous students on long boards or bicycles commuting to and from classes.
Lots of students ride solely for transportation, but many do it for fun.
If you were to ask these folks if constantly attempting to “have fun” on flat ground and pavement got boring, they would probably say “Yes.” This is where SQUAD comes in.
SQUAD, which stands for Student Quest for Underground Athletic Development, is a group recognized by UMSG, Inc. whose main goal is to help UMaine become the first university in the U.S. to have an unfenced, concrete-poured, on campus skatepark.
Fourth-year new media student and SQUAD President Arthur “A.J.” Olsen says the goal is to create a hub for action sports on campus so riders have a place to hang out, practice and teach each other.
Despite the fact that many of its members are skateboarders, SQUAD’s objective is to provide a place for all extreme sports to perform recreationally, such as rollerblading, BMX, snowboarding, skiing and even scooter riding.
The estimated cost of the proposed campus skatepark is $200,000, but Olsen is confident the group will be able to find the money if they put the effort and motivation in.
“[University officials] need to see fundraising,” Olsen said. “Money from the Tony Hawk Foundation is possible, as are other avenues, but what it comes down to is visibility — whether we’re getting the word out and actually doing things.”
In May, SQUAD held a deck art auction in downtown Bangor that earned $3,300. Artists from around the state were asked to design their own deck art and donate it to the auction.
“It was very successful,” Olsen said. “One hundred forty people showed up for the gallery, we got our name out there and so did all the artists who generously contributed their art.”
Paul Van Steenberghe, a mathematics and statistics professor, has been SQUAD’s faculty advisor since May. He says the best bet for SQUAD is to pursue funding from New Balance.
“The biggest possibility for sponsorship, at the moment, is New Balance,” Steenberghe said. “They’re already very involved with the university in a number of promotional ways, and this would just be icing on the cake for them.”
The Brighton, Mass.-based athletic apparel company first gifted the university $5 million in 2011 to rename the campus’ $25 million recreation center the New Balance Student Recreation Center, and then was awarded the renaming rights to the school’s field house.
Construction is underway on the New Balance Field House and Memorial Gym right now, and New Balance retains renaming rights on the two buildings for the next 18 years.
Just this year, New Balance has also launched a skateboarding shoe brand called “New Balance Numeric,” which will be distributed in a partnership effort through professional skateboarder Jamie Thomas’ company Black Box Distribution.
“What a perfect opportunity for [New Balance] to throw their logo on a 500-foot wall and promote their newest products,” Steenberghe said.
Steenberghe also says there’s a possibility that Cross Insurance owes the Greater Bangor Area a new skate park after removing Bangor’s in fall 2012 to make way for the company’s $65 million arena that replaced Bangor Auditorium.
According to Olsen and Steenberghe, the towns of Orono and Old Town are already willing to put money toward the building of a skate park, as long as it’s completely open to the community and usable 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year.
Orono has earmarked around $15,000 while Old Town has tagged $38,000.
Earlier this year, the proposed area for construction of the skate park was split into two option lots in between Mahaney Dome and Kessock Field, but now, the park’s newest proposed location is adjacent to the New Balance Student Recreation Center and alongside the Hilltop parking lot.
If constructed in that area, it would force the removal of several trails used by the university’s varsity cross country teams and also a ropes course maintained and run by Campus Recreation.
Two fourth-year civil engineering students, Matt Donovan and Mike Fagone, have jumped aboard the project to aid in the planning process. Donovan, Fagone and three of their roommates will be using the project as a way to complete their senior capstone assignments.
“I’m really excited to get things going,” Donovan said. “This is going to be fun.”
The newest proposed area for construction is about two acres of land.
Steenberghe had similar ambitions for a place to perform his own recreational activity before he was even aware SQUAD existed.
The expert in environmental mathematics can often be found riding his bike around campus, performing a discipline of mountain biking called “trials,” which has one simple rule: the rider must pass through an obstacle course without setting a foot to the ground.
Steenberghe has been riding bikes ever since he was introduced to a YouTube video of professional trial cyclists Danny MacAskill and Ryan Leech. For the past five years, he’s taught himself.
“It’s incredibly difficult, but as you learn, it becomes easier and easier,” Steenberghe says. “Then, you realize that you were working against yourself through most of the learning process.”
One night in October, Steenberghe was — in his words: “doing my usual bicycling around campus and jumping on things” — around Hitchner Hall, when a custodian came out of the building and told him to “leave the area” because he was “not allowed to jump on the benches and steps of the building.”
He threatened to call the University of Maine Police Department, and Steenberghe welcomed the idea, hoping the officer would be able to clarify what he was legally able ride his bike on.
The officer came, Steenberghe was told where he could ride and then the officer said, according to Steenberghe: “It would be really nice if you guys had a park to work in instead of pissing off janitors and so forth.”
Steenberghe asked the officer if he had a solution in mind, and the officer said: “Well, you ought talk to the students who might be interested and tell them to write a note to [Dean of Students] Robert Dana, because he’s the guy who should respond to what students’ needs are.”
A week later, Steenberghe walked into Dana’s office, and asked whether he had heard from students about a skate park. Dana told Steenberghe he had received a number of emails, but he didn’t know how the school could afford it. He had already called the manager of the [New Balance Student Recreation Center] and asked him about the possibility of constructing one.
This isn’t the first time the construction of a skate park has been proposed to the university, according to Steenberghe, who says it’s happened about four times now. Last year, the Class of 2013 contemplated using the skate park as its class gift.
“How many times do we have to say we want to do this,” Steenberghe said. “Until the kids who originally wanted it are 50 years old?”
Olsen faces a hard decision before next semester, as he’ll have to find someone to take over the reins as president.
“I’m going to be really busy next year, so I’m going to have to hand it off … it’s going to be difficult,” Olsen said. “Coming into this year, I knew that I needed to make the group sustainable by giving it a solid base so that it can continue to grow after I leave, and I think I’ve done that effectively.”
For the typical American, Maine doesn’t exactly scream “extreme sports.”
There’s no doubt that the state provides challenging, mountainous terrain and excellent snow conditions for a well-respected ski and snowboard community, as well as a coast that delivers fairly good surfing — just as long as remember your wet suit — however, states like California, Colorado and even Rhode Island seem to offer the perfect combination of premier landscape with driven, thrill-seeking residents to serve as host to events such as the X Games every single year.
This doesn’t mean the state is without support for these sports — despite what many might think, the population of underground riders, across a wide array of recreations extreme sports encompasses, in Maine is fairly high.
Undeniably, the biggest hindrance these populations face is the ability to assemble in order to solve a problem, work matters out or try to accomplish a goal — the essence of the sports is very individualistic and self-sufficient, leaving no reason for congregation in the first place.
“The whole nature of this group is to be a disorganized group of fellow [students] … that’s the kind of people they are, so it’s really hard to get them to together to get jobs done,” Steenberghe said. “But, they all certainly have the ambition and desire.”
“What people need to realize is that it’s really not about the money aspect, like [Associate Dean of Students Kenda] Scheele said that it was, because money for this kind of thing comes from all over the place,” Olsen said. “The real difficulty is getting everyone that supports it — cause there’s a lot of them — to show up and actually commit to doing something for the group.”
“I’m just trying to make this a community effort. … I’m trying to bring in a community of people with similar interests so that we can all enjoy the things we love to do in one place, together.”
SQUAD meets weekly on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. in 227 Neville Hall.