When Skate Club members meet on Thursdays, they grab air and stick landings—with varying degrees of ease and expertise. The action takes place at their new skate park, a set of ramps, pipes, and rails on the roof deck of Maxwell Hall. Last year, founders Malik Terrab ’25 and Asher Lord ’25 nailed $5,000 in funding from the Dartmouth Outing Club to equip the park. The money also helps with helmets and boards, although many skaters have their own. The deck isn’t large, but “it skates,” Terrab says.

A dozen or more members hit the roof each week. “I like the camaraderie,” says Alexander Bakken ’28, who is from Pennsylvania and has skated since seventh grade. “Everybody’s just trying to make everyone else better.”

“The day I stop skateboarding is the day I get old.” -Randle Young ’27

Connor Kilkenny ’27, an engineering major from Ohio, enjoys the exercise. “I like it for the excuse to get outside for the cardio,” he says. Lord, an econ and cognitive science major from San Francisco, adds, “Once you put in hours of effort and commit yourself mentally, you realize you can do any trick with practice. It is truly rewarding.”

Nizhonie Denetsosie-Gomez ’25, a Native American and Indigenous studies major from Arizona, started skating three years ago and likes to skate to classes. As she attempts to drop into the half pipe, she falls. And laughs. Repeatedly. “I want to push myself more,” she says. “I know how to skate around, but I want to learn some tricks.” 

Terrab, a comp lit major from Wisconsin, embraces gravity and its effects. “I like falling,” he says. “You’ve got to learn how to fail, not be afraid of it so much. That can be applied to a lot of pursuits in life. You really don’t learn anything from your victories—I mean, they feel great, it feels amazing when you land a trick. But you learn most when you fail and you fall. Other than that, skateboarding is very cathartic. It’s a very burst kind of sport. It gets a lot of the anxious energy out.”

Skaters occasionally sprain a wrist or twist an ankle, but they rarely quit. “Other than wearing helmets,” says Terrab, “the only rule is to have fun.”               

Left side of photo (clockwise from top left): Sylvie Benson ’25, Malik Terrab ’25, Guillermo “GR” Ramirez IV ’28, Anushka Saxena ’27, Nick Lutzky ’28, Caroline Mahony ’25, Peiwei He ’26, Manoela Ferraz ’27

Right side of photo (clockwise from top left): Giselle Pineda ’28, Emily Masuda ’24, Zizhuang Miao, Adv’27, Zhuangzhuang Tan ’25, Alexander Bakken ’28, Connor Kilkenny ’27, Asher Lord ’25