LOWELL — Brothers Robert and Andrew Fitzwater, 12 and 10, didn’t enter the youth skateboard competition that their dad, Gene Fitzwater, coordinated Saturday in Lowell. They were, however, an integral part of the inaugural RandA AM-JAM.
By the time skaters started to roll on the ramps at Lowell’s Freedom Park, the Fitzwaters had entered the next phase of the company’s development: hosting an event to gain exposure for their new bi-monthly magazine focusing on Robert and Andrew’s skateboarding adventures.
Volume 1, issue No. 1 of RandA Skate Life — billed as “a skateboard magazine for kids” — was marketed to the 16 youth skaters who registered for the extreme sport contest. Some of the participants and their friends and family members wondered if RandA was an acronym.
Not exactly, Robert explained.
“I got my first Xbox. My dad was hooking it up and he put my name for it as ‘R’ and ‘A’, and my father said it stood for Robert and Andrew,” Robert said.
Growing up in Lowell, Gene Fitzwater developed a keen interest in skateboarding. It would not become a career, however; he’s employed as a medical facilities construction manager.
Not unlike many parents, Gene thought about doing a little vicarious living. He could raise skaters with his wife, Brandi. It would be “no dice” though, as far as his stepson Alexander Hernandez, now 18, was concerned. Hernandez participated in track and took an interest in triathlons.
When he had time between work and family obligations, Gene purchased skateboards and accessories for wholesale and sold them on eBay. He had little time to ride his boards. Yet, there was still hope since he was raising two younger boys.
When Robert was about
6 years old, he wandered into his parents’ room.
“I saw a Wet Willy World Industries board in there,” Robert recalled about the time in 2005 before RandA Business Ventures, LLC. was founded. “I begged my dad, ‘Can I have this board?’ So he made me promise that I would skateboard every week and I took that promise.”
Robert’s long-time friendship with neighbor George Sgouroudis, a kid his age, blossomed in their common skateboarding interest. Andrew followed close behind, adding his friend Jacob Bergonia to the RandA crew.
“I’m the beginner of the group,” said Andrew, who laughed when asked if he always got along with his brother.
The brothers honed their skills and traveled with their father to numerous competitions where they met skate heroes Shaun White, Robert Dyrdek and Nilton Neves.
At Saturday’s RandA AM-JAM, Robert and Andrew greeted the competitors. They talked to the mainly pre-teen and younger teen skaters, many of whom they said “looked nervous” before the competition.
After rock-paper-scissors matches settled the running order, there were hardly any kids who looked nervous or got “sketchy” with their tricks. In the beginners and intermediate divisions, the first contestants up challenged the others to match them in single elimination rounds judged on a point system. Three total contestants in the advanced division showed off their latest tricks in a single elimination format.
Lowell’s Sgouroudis took first place in the beginners division, nailing tricks such as the 360 on the half pipe. Others had trouble with their drop-ins (a vertical transfer from the horizontal ramp coping).
“It takes a lot of practice,” Sgouroudis said.
With the help of local photographers and advertisers — as well as the love and support of a family — Gene Fitzwater hopes to grow the kid-friendly publication’s circulation through online services such as www.magazines.com and eventually go retail.
“(Robert and Andrew’s) job is basically to be skater kids and have fun, (while) being good influences for people,” Gene said. “Robert has also become kind of a director of photography. He’s always telling me where he wants me to stand, and what angle I should be shooting at.”
George Sgouroudis, center, stands with Robert, left, and Andrew Fitzwater far right, all of Lowell, after Sgouroudis placed first in the Beginners division of the RandA AM JAM skate competition on Saturday, July 30, 2011, at Freedom Park, in Lowell. The Fitzwater brothers held the competition as a way to boost the debut of their magazine, RandA Skate Life. | Scott R. Brandush~Sun-Times Media
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