Pounding The Pavement

"Every male had sold drugs, been shot, been in jail, been on the path to destruction," Darren Harper recalls of his childhood neighborhood, in the Southeast quadrant of Washington, D.C. The story of his early surroundings are typical of many inner-city neighborhoods that care seemed to forget. Surroundings that pushed Harper to start selling drugs as young as 10 years old. "Go serve this to this dude," Harper recalls as his order that got him started in the game.

The twist in this story is that it's not the past of a druglord or even a rapper, but a professional skater.

Harper got his first taste of the sport after watching a movie called "Gleaming the Cube." He was instantly hooked by how the skaters seemed to defy gravity and make the complicated appear simple.

"I was fascinated by how they got the board off the ground," Harper said of their aerial acrobatics.

Harper and his friends strived to be the athletes they saw on TV. "We would act like the cats we saw," said Harper. "We couldn't skate a lick but we pretended." Harper's skater of choice to imitate was none other than Tony Hawk, no doubt foreshadowing his success to come.

As he grew in the craft over the years, Harper became known for his ollies, a trick he used to captivate audiences with big-air jumps, clearing objects like refrigerators to the amazement of spectators.

Unfortunately, Southeast D.C. isn't a nurturing environment for a blossoming skater. Influenced by the prevailing drug culture and quick money that it boasted, Harper quit skating and "got caught in the trap" as he put it. But skating wouldn't be gone from him for long.

In a conversation with the mother of his son, he began to reminisce about skateboarding, how the sport had gained popularity, and about how he should have stayed with it. "I think I could have made a career out of it," Harper remembers telling her. "These rappers are talking about SB Dunks and I knew about that way before them. That could have been me."

With that Harper got back into skateboarding, but he couldn't leave his "day job." "I would leave the block early and head downtown to skate. When I wasn't skating, I was on the block." Things went this way until Harper caught a charge . That was the inspiration he needed to put everything into skating.

Pit Crew Skate sponsored a video with wide-ranging distribution that featured Harper. Chris Hall decided to back Harper's career and sold his entire shoe collection to finance DVDs of Harper.

The two were pushing the DVDs at a trade show in San Diego when Harper's big break was sparked. Famous Stars & Straps creator Travis Barker received one of the DVDs and just happened to be looking for a skater to sponsor. Two weeks later, Harper became part of the FSAS Family and things took off from there.

A short time and a plethora of sponsors later, Darren Harper is well on his way to cementing himself as a household name. To Harper, it's prudent that he makes himself accessible to the kids who look up to him. "Coming up, my role models were all hustlers. I come from that culture. I want to show that you can get those things without selling drugs," Harper said. "I cater to the kids. I do what the other skaters don't do."

In response to his varied fan base, which includes skateboarding's traditional demographic of suburban white kids, Harper said, "It's a beautiful thing."