While overseeing social media management, events planning and community outreach, Julian Macdonald, Skateboarding and Action Sports Club president and founder, works to recruit a new generation of members.
“A lot of the original crew who helped me start this club, we are all third years now,” Macdonald said. “So it’s really important for us to be able to bring in the younger generation and find people who we are going to be able to pass the torch to.”
Going into his freshman year at SDSU, Macdonald learned the university previously had a skateboarding club, but it shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the active skateboarding culture on campus, no one brought the club back.
“I looked around and I saw all the people skateboarding to class, and I knew that San Diego is such a big community for skateboarding in general,” Macdonald said. “It was kind of a no-brainer for me to be able to create this organization.”
In fall 2024, Macdonald founded the Skate Club. By spring 2025, the club was officially recognized.
Macdonald began by posting flyers across campus, which had a QR code to an Instagram group chat. That group chat would then grow to have approximately 40 people within a few weeks.
“So the interest was immediately there, and I was ecstatic,” Macdonald said.
The club does not receive any funding from SDSU. Instead, the skateboarding community raises the funding they need themselves. The last fundraiser the club hosted was in December 2025, in collaboration with Slappy’s Garage, Sk8mafia and the City of San Diego.
“We’re really lucky that skateboarding is a relatively inexpensive sport,” Macdonald said. “Once you get your board, you’re pretty much good to go. All you need is a ground or a place to be.”
A skateboarder performs a rail-grind during the SDSU Skate Club meeting near the SDSU Transit Center, Wednesday Sept. 30, 2026 in San Diego, Calif. (Roman Fong)
Macdonald and the club’s eight other officers are enthusiastic about the influx of new members joining this year. Christopher Vasilakos, vice president, said he sees this new generation of members as its future.
“It’s really nice to see because a lot of us are either seniors or juniors, and our time at SDSU only goes for so long,” Vasilakos said. “So it gives me a lot of excitement to see new faces and just see where this club can go after we graduate.”
Macdonald said that membership isn’t confined to those who are experienced skateboarders. The “Action Sports” in its name includes scooters, bicycle motocross, rollerblading and other sports. Those who aren’t interested in doing sports themselves are also encouraged to join as content creators to contribute through filming and editing videos for social media or creating designs for merchandise and flyers.
“[The club] is a platform for students, all students who are involved in media in any way, to be able to get some experience, help out and make some really cool stuff,” Macdonald said.
In addition to attracting more members, one of the club’s main goals is to dispel negative stereotypes about skateboarders and gain the same level of representation as mainstream sports.
“Something that we’re trying to do is kind of change the way that people see skateboarding as a sport, and take it away from being something that’s frowned upon, degenerate, whatever, to something that is encouraged and exciting,” Macdonald said.
Macdonald and the Skate Club want to keep the spirit of skateboarding open to anyone seeking community.
“For someone who maybe doesn’t have the most positive home environment, [skateboarding] is the only way that they can get outside and enjoy themselves, and it allows them to do so easily and freely,” Macdonald said.