Freeport teen opens skate shop
FREEPORT — Brittan Chance knew local skateboarders needed help, so he opened a skate shop.
Chance, 19, is no stranger to riding the concrete. He’s been skateboarding for about three years, and whenever he broke a board he would have to bum a ride to Fort Walton Beach to buy a new one.
Chance opened Excalibur skate shop about two months ago, and said he hopes the store will be a positive outlet for Freeport teenagers. He worries that people get the wrong impression about skateboarders and tend to look down on them.
“People said skating leads them into drugs,” he said. “No. It’s people denying them to skate that leads them into drugs.”
Chance said he also wants the small shop on U.S. Highway 331 just north of State Road 20 to fill a vacuum for skaters. The shop, with its black and white walls and bench made out of broken skateboards, doubles as a hub for the local teenagers. Chance said everyone meets at the shop after school and then heads out and skate.
Chance’s partner, Robert Davenport, 43, said he backed the shop because his two kids skateboard and that Freeport’s skaters needed a place to call their own.
Unlike baseball, football and basketball, which kids sign up and play, no one knows how many skaterboarders are out there, Davenport said.
“I’ve seen a big need for it (a shop),” he said. Skateboarding is “a lot like golf. It’s a self-competition sport.”
Chance, who says surfing is his real passion, was introduced to skating by an older brother.
“When the waves are flat what else can you do?” he said.
But skating is so much more than just riding around and doing tricks, Chance said.
“Skating is only half the fun,” he said. “The rest is hanging out with friends, the camaraderie.”
Chance is the youngest of 10 children. And after being home schooled since the fifth grade, he graduated last year with an associate’s degree from Okaloosa-Walton College.
Chance is taking a year off from school before he decides whether to head to Florida State University or University of West Florida. He is thinking about studying anthropology.
Before the skate shop opened, Chance’s life revolved around the skateboarding culture in Freeport. He and his brothers would invite friends over to their house to skate on a halfpipe they built in their backyard from discarded lumber.
To help boost skateboarding in Freeport, Chance was scheduled to hold a skating competition Dec. 29 in the parking lot of the Freeport Community Center, but it was rained out. He said he has rescheduled the event for Jan. 12.
He went before the Freeport City Council to get the green light for the competition. He said council members were worried about someone getting hurt, which Chance said he hears a lot from local store owners who chase kids out of parking lots.
“Liability is the crutch they all use,” he said.
But Chance was not deterred. He drew up some liability waivers from the Internet and told council members that the city would not be held responsible if someone got hurt.
Chance recently watched two of his friends skateboard on Mullet Drive when Marcus Garcia, 19, broke his board when he landed after a jump off a ramp.
“That’s what sometimes happens,” Garcia said of his $50 board, which he bought three days earlier. “Better the board than my ankle.”
Garcia said he’s broken about 16 boards during his three years of skating. At least now he doesn’t have to drive to Fort Walton Beach to buy a new one.
“I’ll hook him up with a discount,” Chance said.