In 2019, my kids, Orion and GG, almost 11 and 9 at the time, found something special in skateboarding. It gave them a feeling of being free and expressive. We quickly found our way deep into that world, connecting with serious skaters. All of them obsessed with vert: riding a ramp with a vertical section at the top. No easing in, no radius to roll down. You go straight down or you don't go.

The Jones family were the ones that ushered us in. Joe Jones built the original ramps at Woodward, the Mecca of action sports, in 1990. We gave Joe's son JoJo, a year older than Orion, our first flow sponsorship: unlimited merch, but no money.

Another thing about vert is that it isn't where the money is. Street skating gets you the sponsorships. Vert is what you do because you love it, because, they say, there's nothing like flying up over the coping and hanging in the air for a second.

That summer we met the Joneses at Rye Airfield in New Hampshire. A fifty thousand square foot indoor skate park.

At that point, Orion had only been on a board for a couple of months. And, relative to these kids who skated every day, not even that often.

As Joe and I chatted, getting to know one another, JoJo and his brother JuJu wanted to show Orion the main attraction: a 14' vert ramp with two feet of vert. Minutes later, the brothers raced back. They were super excited, yelling to their dad, "Orion dropped in on the 14-footer!"

"No way," Joe said, "I gotta see this."

The four of us hustled over to the ramp.
Orion was up on top again. And, once again, he dropped in.
Joe, in complete seriousness, said, "No one does that that quickly. Your son is gonna be a pro."
I knew very little about the sport and was just there to watch that day.
But, of course, I was so proud of and excited for Orion.
Rye immediately became a special place for the two of us (and later my wife, Suzy, and GG).

Later that same summer, Orion and I went to the X Games in Minneapolis. It was the first trip the two of us had ever taken together without Suzy and GG (sidenote: of course I was distracted at the airport and we missed our departing flight).

It turned out to be a great trip. Orion met one of his heroes and he got to hang out in the athletes' lounge. We were also sponsoring the youngest X Games athlete ever, Gui Khury, who Orion quickly bonded with.

The day after a skater named Jimmy Wilkins won his third straight gold in vert, Joe set up a private session at the park under the overpass. Everybody there was a competitive skater, some of them professionals, other than Orion, who had never been in a competition in his life. He was having a blast, though. Riding the smaller ramps, hitting the other features, riding well, feeling good about himself.

Then he climbed up to the twelve-foot vert. There's a bench on the deck up there. He sat down on it. And he stayed on it, twenty minutes, probably more, watching every other kid drop in, one after another. He just couldn't make himself go. He also couldn't make himself walk back down the stairs. It was only weeks after he'd dropped in on the fourteen-footer without blinking. That's the thing nobody tells you about courage. It doesn't stack up neatly.

Jimmy Wilkins happened to walk in. I didn't know him at all, but I thought he could help. So I congratulated him on the gold and then I said, "Hey, you don't have to do this. But my son is up there, he's new to this, and he's frozen. Could you give him a couple words of encouragement?"

He was terrific about it. Climbed the stairs, sat down next to my kid on that bench, talked him up. Orion was lit up. But he still couldn't do it. I walked over, thanked Jimmy, and then went up there myself. Orion and I looked deep into each other's eyes. I felt his fear. I said, "Hey Bud, I know you're scared, I'm scared just standing here. We both know there are two ways down: drop in or take the stairs. Today might not be the day you do this, and that's okay. Or, if you want, you can walk your board up to that edge, set the board on the coping, and commit. One split second of fear. And then you'll pass through a portal into a different universe and you'll become a new person. That's a universe I'll never know. Because I am taking the stairs down. The decision is up to you."

He didn't hesitate, walked to the edge and he dropped in. The crowd erupted. I teared up. Orion raced back up and did it again, and again, and again.

When we got in the car to leave, he said, "Dad, thank you so much for making me do that."
I said, "I didn't make you do that. You did that on your own. And thank you for being so inspiring. I love watching you grow as a person."

Emerge, engage, evolve. Every one of them starts and ends with an E, pointing both directions at once, because you're always standing on some edge with two ways down. EyEs opEn.