Larry Stevenson
Richard Lawrence "Larry" Stevenson (December 22, 1930 – March 25, 2012) was the inventor of the kicktail, the bent-upwards end of a skateboard, which made most of today's skateboarding tricks possible and essentially revolutionized the sport. Early life Stevenson was born in 1930 in Los Angeles, California; 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. After that, he went on to Santa Monica College 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