Richard Lawrence "Larry" Stevenson (December 22, 1930 – March 25, 2012) was the inventor of the

kicktail Kicktails are the upwards bent tips of a skateboard deck, today considered vital to a skateboard. The front kicktail is usually called the ''nose'' while the back kicktail is referred to as the ''tail''. Kicktails are nowadays key to maneuvering ...

, the bent-upwards end of a

skateboard A skateboard is a type of sports equipment used for skateboarding. They are usually made of a specially designed 7-8 ply maple plywood deck and polyurethane wheels attached to the underside by a pair of skateboarding trucks. The skateboarde ...

, which made most of today's

skateboarding trick A skateboarding trick, or simply a trick, is a maneuver performed by manipulating a skateboard, usually with one's feet, in a specific way to achieve the desired outcome – the trick. History Though skateboards emerged in the 1900s, skateboard ...

s possible and essentially revolutionized the sport.

Early life

Stevenson was born in 1930 in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

; his mother was Inez Kiem and his father was Leonard Stevenson. After high school Larry Stevenson joined the U.S. Navy as a fighter mechanic. He served for two years in the

Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...

. After that, he went on to

Santa Monica College Santa Monica College (SMC) is a Public university, public, community college in Santa Monica, California. Founded as a Junior college#United States, junior college in 1929, SMC enrolls over 30,000 students in more than 90 fields of study. Althoug ...

in California and became a swimmer. He played water polo and swam for Coach John Josephs. Stevenson won the all American award for fastest time for the breast stroke. The record was only recently broken, and he was given a lifetime allowance into any Santa Monica College event, if he wished to attend. After SMC, Stevenson went to USC, on a swimming scholarship, where he majored in business. During the middle to late part of the 1950s, Stevenson became a Venice Beach lifeguard for the city of Los Angeles. While sitting watching surfers he noticed they would skate on crude skateboards back in the parking lots at the beach. This was true especially when there was no surf. Stevenson, while visiting Hawaii en route to Korea, during the war noticed a great surfing beach called " Makaha". All those years later he remembered how much he liked the beach in Hawaii, but he also loved the name Makaha. After a short period of time, Stevenson started MAKAHA skateboards. He is credited with being the man who made the first high-quality skateboard. He patented the double kicktail in 1969, had the first skate team in 1963, and held the first skateboard contest in 1963. Stevenson also published ''Surfguide'' magazine during the 1960s, and ''

Poweredge The PowerEdge (PE) line is Dell's Server (computing), server computer product line. Most PowerEdge servers use the x86 architecture. The early exceptions to this, the PowerEdge 3250, PowerEdge 7150, and PowerEdge 7250, used Intel's Itanium pro ...

'' skateboarding magazine during the 1980s and 1990s. He was involved with Makaha and ''Poweredge''; both have been reborn with new editors.

Death

Stevenson died on March 25, 2012 from complications of pneumonia due to Parkinson's disease in his Santa Monica home. He died in the age of 81.

References

External links

Makaha Skateboards
- Larry Stevenson history & information 1930 births 2012 deaths American inventors Sports inventors and innovators Skateboarding equipment Neurological disease deaths in California Deaths from Parkinson's disease Deaths from pneumonia in California {{US-inventor-stub