United Skateboarding Association (USA)

The United Skateboarding Association is a grassroots amateur skateboard organization that promotes the activity of skateboarding through demonstrations and performances, seminars and workshops, skate-park planning and construction consultation, and last but not least our summer tour and competition series.

Contact the USA

United Skateboarding Association
PO Box 986
New Brunswick, NJ
08903
732-432-5400
ext. 2168 & 2169

Formed in February of 1998, The USA was originally conceived as a skater run organization that would give East Coast skateboarding a summer competition series, which would in turn serve as a focal point in creating a stronger East Coast skate scene. We began our mission in six states: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Vermont. The contests and events were held at indoor and outdoor skate parks, with the support of skate park owners who understood the importance of organized activities for the local kids. Since 1998 we have grown to include more states, events, park planning, charity and civic work, etc. And in the near future we plan on utilizing the organizations infrastructure to facilitate broader cross-marketing techniques that identify the relevant factors, which influence the new youth of today.

THE MISSION

We all know that carving out one's sense of individuality has always been a part of growing up. To say "I am my own personÑI'm not just a mindless replica of my teachers, my parents, my peers, Fred Durst, DMX, Britney Spears, or Carson Daly" is a necessary stage of everyone's development. However, nowadays it seems there are fewer and fewer places for young people to turn to create healthy senses of self. In the off-chance kids do find a way to express themselves, they are commonly met with ridicule, laughter, contempt, or indifference (by both their peers and adults). Hence, with limited options, young people increasingly feel forced into expressing themselves in less than productive waysÑor worse, they don't express themselves at all.

At the USA, we are aware that it's not easy to find modes of expression that both foster healthy senses of individuality and are at the same time not considered corny, played, or just plain bugged out. Skateboarding, however, is one of those rare exceptions. First of all, it's an independently initiated activity (in other words, it's highly unlikely parents, coaches, principals, priests, rabbis, or telemarketers are going to pressure you into skating). Since you choose skating, rather than someone choosing it for you, when you skate you feel that it is something you can call your own. And since it's steeped in a Do-It-Yourself philosophy, skating remains a breeding ground for creative self-expression. Furthermore, even with the most bored, cynical or anti-social of youth, skateboarding continues to grow in popularity. Through the USA's competitions and events, we offer an organized program that encourages, nurtures, and recognizes young people for their accomplishments in an activity that they actually care about. And by receiving acknowledgment for something that they themselves initiated, by their own volition, there is no surer way that the kids involved are going to feel an authentic sense of meaning, purpose and self-worth in their lives. Needless to say, we feel that this is the type of exchange the world could always use more of.