COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Dodge Skatepark in Franklinton is more than 7,600 miles away from the Olympic skatepark in Paris, but the two may be closer than you think.
"I mean that's where I started skating,” said Bill Minadeo, a Westerville native who is now the Vice President of California Skateparks. “The local skate community just grew up around Dodge."
Minadeo has been skating all his life, beginning here in central Ohio. He had no idea that a landscape architecture degree from Ohio State would eventually lead to skateboarding becoming his life.
"One day, a project came up that had a skatepark included in it,” Minadeo said, adding that he had to convince his bosses to let him take it on. They said it was something too small for them to jump on board with, but Minadeo could work on it as long as it didn’t interfere with his time.
“It started really slowly, just with passion projects, and it kind of grew overtime,” he said smiling.
Minadeo has now designed some of the most competitive skateparks in the world, including the parks for the 2020 Tokyo Games where skateboarding made its Olympics debut.
This year, he designed the park and street designs for the Paris Games.
"We've done all the competitive events up to the Olympics so starting with Dubai this year and then through the Olympic qualifying series in Shanghai and Budapest,” he said. “There’s been a progression of design that goes through each of those different courses both in street and park that will ultimately lead up to the courses we've designed for Paris and the Olympics.”
So much of skateboarding is balance, and that’s not just for the athletes. Minadeo said as a designer, he has to balance making the courses challenging for the best skaters in the world while maintaining the excitement.
“This is a continental competition so you have competitors from each different continent. You want every one of those competitors to perform their best which is one of the credos of the Olympics: everyone should have the opportunity to do their best,” Minadeo said.
Minadeo said the course is a surprise, but it includes a lot of familiar elements. He said this way skaters can put a creative spin on familiar course concepts.
"We try to incorporate a unique kind of iconic feature into each of the courses that’s a little bit different that you've got to focus on a little bit harder," he said.
While these are no longer just passion projects for Minadeo, his passion remains. He said he wants to use his parks to grow the sport, even if -- like in Paris -- they are not permanent.
"We're building them in such a way that we are able to take them apart and reuse them and repurpose them for permanent parks in a different location in the Paris and the surrounding in the next year or so,” he said. “There's always a purpose for these parks. You use that to create drive to create more permanent parks."
Minadeo's job has taken him to the forefront of the sport, but in the last year, it also brought him back to where it all began for him: Dodge Skatepark in Franklinton.
"That was just a huge honor to work on renovating and bringing that park back to life and see what that has done to spark and create more parks in Columbus,” he said.
Although he said the design process and construction can be challenging and take a toll, in the end, it’s all about one thing.
“The local kids who get to enjoy that space – it’s theirs,” he said. “These parks are yours. We are here a steward to put it down and get it built for you and then we’re gonna go do another one somewhere else but this is yours forever now, and you can turn this into your community and it can foster the growth of hundreds of other skaters throughout the years.”
