NY Times
article

In a sport skewing younger every year, Ryan Sheckler was one of
the youngest professional skateboarders ever. By eighth grade, he had defeated
competitors twice his age and won several contests, including the 2003 X Games
skateboard park event on national television.


Immortalized as a character in a best-selling video game franchise and in
movies, Sheckler wanted a role that many teenage skateboarding stars repudiate:
that of a regular student, in his case, at San Clemente (Calif.) High School.


“I wanted to see what high school was all about,” Sheckler said in an e-mail
message. “I wanted to be with my friends and go to the dances and football
games.”


Two years ago this month, he began his freshman year. He wrestled in the
103-pound weight class, and hung out with friends in the cafeteria. But after
returning from a skateboarding trip to Australia in February 2005, he realized
that as he sat in history class, his future was inexorably rolling away.


“It was a good experience, but it was a disaster,” his mother and manager,
Gretchen Sheckler, said of high school. “He was out of circulation for six
months, out of the magazines. It hurt his career.”

Video clips at http://777skateboards.com/, and more.