Flying in the air for a split second. Board spinning around. Feet slamming back down on top of the board. Crowed clapping and cheering. Tierra Cobb just landed the perfect “Nollie Flip”.
Tierra Cobb is a twenty-three-year-old African-American girl skateboarder. She is an inspiration for many young girls who inspire to skate.
“I have often been told that skateboarding is only for guys, and that girls should not skateboard,” said Cobb. “When I skate with guys it pushes my skill level and makes me strive to be better than them at skateboarding.”
As a young girl Cobb hung out around many skate parks, just watching all the guys skate. After seeing how much fun the guys were having she got her own board. She instantly fell in love with the sport.
Cobb practiced for hours on end with both guys and other girls. She prefers to ride with girls because “it motivates me even more [to skate with girls],” said Cobb. “There are so many tricks that have never been done by female skateboarders.”
Cobb has often runs into challenges within herself. Such as “overcoming the fear of trying a trick on a new obstacle and being confident in my abilities enough to let go and just go for it.”
They don’t see skateboarding as a career for a 23-year- old woman.
I get stereotyped as someone that’s not doing anything with my life and I get told to get a “real” job,” Cobb said. “It is most important to note that most of these stereotypes I have encountered don’t come from within the skateboarding community. Most of them are from people who don’t know anything about the sport.”
On the other hand skateboarding can help many other people the way it has help Cobb.
“Skateboarding has kept me from engaging in a lot of the negative activities (gangs, sex, drugs, violence, partying) my peers engage in,” said Cobb.
As a skateboarder, Cobb just wants to have fun doing what she loves to do and inspire more girls to start skating.
