It’s almost impossible to get 13-year-old Mac Koziarz of Western Springs to sit down and play a video game. Vegging out in front of the television is not his thing. And spending hours on MySpace or Facebook? Well, forget it.

While many of his peers are exasperating their parents by spending countless hours indoors consumed with mindless drivel, Mac is confounding and sometimes terrifying his parents with his apparent ability to defy gravity.

Mac is a passionate skateboarder and spends most of his days honing his skills, which often include stairs, railings and curbs. Earlier this summer, he placed second in a competition at Lake Owen skateboarding camp in Wisconsin. Once bitten by the competition bug, Mac is now looking forward to entering additional contests.
Mac started skateboarding about five years ago when his older brother, Cameron, showed an interest.

“It took me a few years to get good ... about three years. I did it through practicing — lots of practicing. I started skateboarding every day,” Mac said.

Mac said he can travel as many as two miles on his skateboard and spends many happy afternoons with his friends at area skate parks.

The abundance of great parks in the area, he said, helps to keep kids out of area business districts where they’re not welcome.

He and his friends favor the skate parks in Countryside, Hinsdale and Brookfield. Mac also has a half-pipe in his backyard, which he built with his grandfather.

“It’s like a u-shaped ramp and you go back and forth and do tricks on each wall,” he said. “We hang out there and do stuff and have music playing.”

Mac said that his camp experience several weeks ago was amazing.

“It was for a week and was like living on a huge skate park. It was like a billion skate parks in one facility. It was really fun.”

In order to place second in the competition, he explained, he was ranked on a series of tricks.

“Each skateboarder had a run and was judged on how his tricks were done and how hard the tricks were,” he said.

Some of his friends don’t like competing.

“Some want the laid-back part of the sport. But I like the aggressive part of it,” he said.

Mac said that he loves to seek out skate parks when he’s on family trips. While with his parents recently in Louisville, Ky., he visited one of the biggest parks in the country.

“Everything was super-sized. All of the obstacles were really big. There are bunches of skate parks in the major cities that you can find if you look.”

Mac said that many skateboarders are actively involved in recording their escapades.

“We film each other doing tricks and share the videos with each other. We put a lot of them on YouTube and stuff. We all have pretty good cameras,” he said.

“Skateboarding has one of the most influences on lifestyles. Next to music, it’s the biggest. It determines how you dress, talk, the music you listen to, the activities you do.”

Mac said that skateboarders often get a bad and unfair rap.

“Skateboarding got me into a lot of creative stuff. Skateboarding is the most creative sport. In soccer, you just run back and forth over and over again. With skateboarding, there’s always something new. A new staircase, a new rail, a new curb. You’ve gotta think of something out of the ordinary to skate,” he said.

Furthermore, he said that skateboarding has gotten him involved in related creative pursuits, including filming and developing graphics. Skateboarding is also great exercise.

“At the end of the day, you’re always tired. Instead of playing video games, I’m outside skateboarding,” Mac said. “People often get the wrong idea about skateboarders. They think we’re punk and everything. But skateboarders are usually creative people trying to express themselves in different ways.”