When Josh Matthews first started skateboarding, he had no intentions of going pro. He just enjoyed it.
“I think he played baseball, like tee ball, but that was about it,” said his sister Kelly Matthews. “Skateboarding was really his first and only love.”
Matthews grew up in a big family made up of six siblings plus his parents. It was a stable home life, but they were, as Matthews puts it, “broke, always.”
One year, Matthews recalls, in the middle of the night a candle fell onto a bed and the family rushed out of the house and into the street where they proceed to watch their house burn. After that the family moved into an apartment temporarily, and it was in that apartment where Matthew’s got his first board one Christmas.
As the baby of the family, he was always a bit of a daredevil living his life out there on the edge and in turn he took to skateboarding really early. Around the age of 7 he would tag along and skate regularly with his brother, Billy. The rest is history in the making.
Take a trip with Matthews back to his hometown of Springfield, Ore., where he says he will inevitably end up back at but for now it simply rains too much.
— Skyler Wilder