This story is part of a new series covering the rising skate culture in Mansfield, produced in partnership with Skate Ohio.
It's a quiet Tuesday morning inside Crossroads Church — a converted warehouse located on a busy street in Mansfield — where Mason Wicker is already on the move.
As the facility services coordinator for the church, his job is to make sure the space feels as sacred as the purpose it serves.
“When they walk into the lobby here, I want them to feel, ‘Oh wow, this is a real environment, so if they take care of the building, surely they're gonna take care of us,'" he said.
But lately, between restocking supplies and prepping rooms, Wicker has taken on a more personal mission—learning to skateboard.
At 31, Wicker is finally chasing a dream he shelved as a child.
When he was young, he developed an interest in skateboarding watching a TV program called the "X Games," which highlighted action sports like snowboarding, dirt biking and skateboarding.
But between North Central Ohio's Mansfield and the rural Amish community of Shenandoah, Wicker said there weren’t many sidewalks, let alone skateparks.
“I didn’t have anywhere to skate," he said. "So I could only imagine it—me, on a skateboard.”
His dream faded as he focused his attention on school, work and adult responsibilities. But it came rushing back on his very first day at Crossroads, when he saw someone skateboarding down the church hallway.
“I was like, ‘Wait, we can do that here?’” Wicker laughed.
The skateboarder turned out to be his new boss, B.J. Price, who not only encouraged the idea but surprised Wicker with his first skateboard.
“It was like Christmas Day,” Wicker said. “It had blue and silver with black paint in this crazy drip pattern. It had stickers plastered all over the bottom.”
Besides running the facilities at Crossroads Church, Price is also the president of SkateOhio, a nonprofit dedicated to making skateboarding more accessible. SkateOhio is Ideastream's partner on the latest "Sound of Us" series.
A veteran of the 1990s skate scene, Price remembers when new skaters were often unwelcome.
“I’d been spit on multiple times at different skateparks because that’s just what the culture was,” he said. “Now it’s a complete shift. We love being more accepting, because that just grows the sport.”
"We love to be more accepting and have better experiences for people who are learning, because that just advances our sport."B.J. Price
Falling forward
Wicker felt that shift during his first big challenge: dropping in on a quarter pipe ramp, a type of skateboard ramp shaped like a quarter of cylinder, at an indoor skatepark in Butler.
“I was nervous,” he said. “Everybody’s like, ‘You have to fall forward.’ But I’ve never had to fall forward.”
Wicker did—but he didn't stay on his board and landed hard. Then he tried again. And again. Twenty, maybe 30 times, he estimated.
“I was bruised, limping. But I was like, ‘Let’s keep doing this. Let’s keep doing this,'" he said with a smile.
Wicker brought home his already-forming bruises—and a beat-up board that he now calls his trophy.
“You look at all those chips, and paint rub off, and you can see the effort that you put behind achieving a goal," he said. "It’s like a personal accolade you get to carry with you every day.”
Wicker's friends and family tell him they worry about him injuring himself. He's already suffered a sprained wrist, but he said the reward outweighs the risk for him.
“When I’m getting my gear ready, all I’m thinking about is, I can’t wait to get those wheels on the ground, just get on the board and go," he said.
