A Waterloo teen who has inherited a family passion for skateboarding is garnering much attention thanks to a unique style which harkens back to the old school pros.

Rex Gallagher, 14, has been skateboarding for the last three years.

He recalled getting a gift from his grandfather – a skateboard with his middle name printed on it – though his interest in the sport really came about in the sixth grade.

“I just had a weird feeling that I was getting somewhere one day with it,” Rex said. “Whenever I was around 11 years old, I got on the skateboard and started trying stuff. I was really passionate about it, and to this day I’m very into it.”

Rex described how he didn’t feel quite right getting into team sports. For someone eager to showcase his own talent and succeed or fail on his own merit, skateboarding is a far better hobby.

His uncle, local restaurateur James Gallagher, shares Rex’s passion for skateboarding. He noted that skating is an ideal sport for a kid like Rex who doesn’t always like to be told what to do.

“Whenever I went into other sports, I just felt wrong,” Rex said. “It always felt off to go into a sport and blame it on a team if they didn’t win, but on a skateboard, it’s not like that. You can just go and do what you want to do. You don’t have to listen or anything. It’s just whatever you wanna do and how you wanna do it. It’s self expression.”

Rex further waxed poetic about skating, describing the feeling of freedom and the lack of barriers in the sport.

He also explained some of the rougher parts of skateboarding, from the dirty, grungy stereotypes he said are sometimes valid but often “dumb” to the regular hurdle of getting scraped up falling off his board.

“Every given moment of skateboarding, you will always fall,” Rex said. “You have to accept failure in skateboarding. If you fall, you gotta get back up.”

He’s been able to hone his skills over the years thanks to plenty of practice at both the Waterloo skate park at 316 N. Library Street and a small setup at his uncle’s house.

As for flaunting his talent, Rex has participated at a number of competitions, one of the larger local ones being the September Slam in Poplar Bluff, Mo. – an event that sees some big names in skateboarding in attendance each year.

His standout performance in these competitions has earned him a number of trophies that he’s largely uninterested in, some decent cash prizes that he’s far more enthusiastic about and a substantial following on Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube.

He’s also garnered the attention of several skateboard companies, earning sponsorships or partnerships with Infinity Skateshop in St. Louis, Skank Skates International in Springfield and Powell-Peralta Skateboards, a renowned skateboarding manufacturer.

While Rex didn’t get too detailed in describing his personal style, James spoke about it with great respect.

“There are skateboard legends, I mean severe legends, that will like and comment on his videos,” James said. “The reason for that is because his style really caters toward that throwback, whale tail, surfboardy, mid-80s, like, what you saw in the mid-80s on TV. If it was the biggest, craziest Tony Hawk stuff, Rex could do all that no problem with a really original style that people really like.”

Looking to the future, Rex is sure to continue skateboarding and enjoying his sponsorships for some time.

More immediately, he and his uncle are keen to build the skateboarding scene in Waterloo, with a competition at the skate park potentially on the horizon.

“There’s not really that many skaters around here, and I think that we need something big to spike this, like a competition,” Rex said.