By    T. Beckett F. Christensen

Imagine getting paid to travel around the world, doing the thing you love, with people who share your passion. Nate Sherwood, 12-year professional skateboarder, and current owner of Edu{skate}, located in Cedar Rapids, got to live this dream. Right after high school he entered a competition in Vancouver, after which he was approached by Vision Brands, and two months later was on tour.

To many students, doing the thing you love as a job may seem unrealistic, but in reality it’s not as impossible as you may think. You may love things such as music, biking, or even chess, and not see a future in any of these activities, but then again, neither did Sherwood.

Growing up in Portland, Oregon, Sherwood started skating when his sister started to date a skater. He recalls him doing tricks down the hill they lived on, in an attempt to impress her. Ever since, he was fasciskated, and for his next birthday, he was turning 13, his family pooled together enough money to buy him a board.

“I met a lot of neighbors that skated, and it helped to keep me inspired,” Sherwood said, “When I found skaters, I found my tribe.”

Coming in to high school, you may not know where you belong. Many freshmen will change friends, due to being able to spend time with people in other grades. Whether by taking art classes, playing sports, or taking music classes, you may find your group of friends evolving. But some people will never find this group in school, and, like Sherwood, need an outside activity to bring them together.

Like some students, in school Sherwood had to deal with bullying. He didn’t have the easiest time in school, Dyslexia was just one issue he had to deal with, but once school was over, he could go to his neighborhood board shop and be with his people. He described it as his oasis, away from all his issues.

“They were the kind of people who would cheer you on for every little thing. Hey look! Noodle (His childhood nickname) is going to tear it up!”
Sherwood now owns his own store that he based off the one her remembers so fondly. He keeps quiet jazz playing in the background, and is usually busy behind the counter helping customers. His wife, Lindsey, runs the other half of the store, and has from the beginning. You can most commonly see her running the register, working their clothing press in the back, or talking with the customers. Although they have been co-owning the store for many years, they were married the day before I interviewed them!

Not everything was smooth sailing, and they almost weren’t able to reach the place they are now. Just like some students may waste an evening studying the wrong things for their upcoming test, Sherwood and his wife made a few mistakes in the start. The first year they were open, they thought selling snowboards would bring in a winter profit. However, they sold almost none of them, and the investment gone wrong nearly lead them to bankruptcy. On top of this, close to four months after they opened, two thieves threw rocks through the big front window in the middle of the night, and stole thousands of dollars of merchandise.

But even though they faced hardship, they managed to pull through.

“The second year was still shaky, but by the third year we had stuff figured out,” Sherwood recalled, “It was scary, probably the scariest thing I’ve ever done.”

They have been in business for four years, and everything runs smoothly, but if you talk to Sherwood, you’ll get a feel that he misses his old life. Talking about his professional career, his speech slows and he gets a far away look in his eye.

After touring with Vision Brands for a handful of months, Sherwood started to hop from sponsor to sponsor, making great memories along the way. He remembers when they were touring in a van when the drive belt broke. Luckily, they were carrying shoes to sell, so they took laces off of the shoes, and tied them together to make a replacement. On another occasion, when shooting in Arizona, the sound of the camera shutter attracted a rattlesnake. They were skating a long ditch in the middle of the desert, and the snake just kept following them. Sherwood and his friends were slightly nervous about it, but the camera man shrugged it off and just kept shooting.

After ten years on tour, Sherwood’s sponsors started paying him less and less. It was harder to make a living for himself, and Lindsey. New skaters were becoming popular, with new styles of tricks, and doing even crazier things than Sherwood and his era. Sherwood realized only about 5 percent of his co-workers made enough money to retire, which meant that 95 percent were looking for a very specialized type of job all at one time. Instead of trying to compete with his friends for skating jobs, Sherwood tried to work a nine to five job, but he couldn’t do it. That’s when he made the decision to open his store.
“When I was touring, I met a veteran, and he said to me ‘The only thing I regret in life, is that I didn’t take enough risks,’ and that stuck with me.”

And if he never met that man, he may never of come to Cedar Rapids. His one hope for the store is that one day, when he is older, someone will come to him, and tell him how his store, and his positive attitude helped them succeed in life.

He will do his best to “eduskate” (When talking to Sherwood, he slips the word skate into normal words) people not only in skateboarding, but in life in general, whenever they come into “His Place of Enlightenment.”