By Alyssa Harmon
Students at USF St. Petersburg get from class to class in many ways. Some walk. Others use longboards or skateboards. A students few bike, and others even ride Razor scooters.
Alex Strid, on the other hand, rollerblades everywhere.
On Mondays and Wednesdays, you can see Strid, a 21-year-old English major, skating alongside the waterfront to his classes in Harbor Hall.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, you can see him skating from the parking garage to his campus job at the bookstore. Or maybe you’ve seen him do a spin before he holds the door open for class.
Strid has been rollerblading for all four years he’s been in college.
“I (could) already skate, and I had a pair of rollerblades just collecting dust, so why not?” Strid said.
When Strid arrives at school, he throws his shoes into the trunk of his car, changes into his skates, and doesn’t take them off until he gets back to his car at the end of the day.
He uses his rollerblades to get around campus quickly, but he also wears them in the classroom. So far, his professors have never had a problem with him wearing them. One of his graphic design professors said she didn’t care how he got from place to place as long as he didn’t mess around and distract her class.
Some professors have even found it amusing.
Strid remembers a time during his freshman year when he rolled up to the front of the classroom to ask his statistics professor a question.
“He started giggling and pushing me around the room while I asked my question,” Strid said. “He wasn’t trying to mock me, but he just found it funny that I wear them to class and was fascinated.”
While professors and most people around campus don’t care, the library has recently taken an issue with it, despite years of silence on the matter.
Until recently, no one had complained when Strid cruised into the library. Even his managers at the bookstore didn’t care if he wore them inside, as long as he wasn’t on the clock. However, Strid said one day the librarians stopped him on his way out and told him that he wasn’t allowed to wear them inside anymore.
He didn’t argue with them, he just adapted and found other places to study, like the bookstore cafe, the Student Life Center lobby or an empty classroom in Harbor Hall.
But he refuses to take off his skates.
If you see him around campus, you may see him skating with ease, doing spins and making stops look surprisingly easy. He gained these skills from playing ice hockey for almost 10 years.
Unfortunately, he’s too busy to join a men’s league and lives too far away from his old ice rink in Brandon. Joining a men’s hockey league is too expensive for a college student who only works part time, so he gets his fix by rollerblading everywhere.
It’s not the same, though.
“I honestly feel at home on the ice,” Strid said. “The skating feels natural, and it’s an environment where I can watch my support work truly unfold right in front of me and where I can get knocked down hard and get right back up. It’s something I can do that makes me feel strong and capable, even though I’m far from the best.”
However, getting knocked down on concrete isn’t as forgiving as the ice.
Over the past four years, he has had a few scrapes and bruises. But these seem small in comparison to the time he broke his leg during his first semester of freshman year while on his way to class.
While he was skating, he accidentally stepped in the grass near the University Student Center. When he did that, his left foot slipped out from under him, and he fell the wrong way on his right leg, causing the bone to snap.
“I felt the bones fracture,” Strid recalled.
That accident put him in a wheelchair for half a semester. After three months, he had to wear a boot and undergo physical therapy. His foot took a while to heal, and it wasn’t until almost nine months later when he was able to skate again.
“I missed skating tremendously during that time period, and I felt much slower while my leg was healing,” Strid said.
Getting back on the skates wasn’t easy, though. Strid was unsure after his injury, so instead, he practiced on the ice where he felt more comfortable. Despite even that being a challenge, it helped him regain confidence in his skating.
Strid may be the only student so dedicated to rollerblading on campus, but he may not be for long.
He said that he has never been judged for skating around campus, and other students have expressed interest in joining him.
