Text by MEENA NARAYANASWAMI and SOPHIE MATLOF
SCOOTERING TO THE SKY DELANEY BALL MAKES WORLD CUP, SOARS TO NEW HEIGHTS
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HE GRATING SOUND of a ed to represent the country,” Ball said. “It scooter scraping against a railing was a huge deal.” comes to a halt as Palo Alto High While COVID-19 restrictions preSchool sophomore Delaney Ball vented Ball from having a regular Scooter lifts her feet off the deck of her scooter, World Cup experience, she remained enbriefly revealing flashes of its bright yellow thusiastic about her achievement despite color. The deck rotates rapidly around be- the change to a virtual format. fore Ball plants her feet firmly on it once “Instead of going to Barcelona we had again and descends to the ground. She to submit an online video, so it was a lot crouches as the different, but it was wheels connect still a huge accomwith the concrete, I’ll film things and I’ll be plishment and I was then immediately really excited to be motivated to land tricks springs back up a part of that,” Ball to cruise around so that I can post them said. nonchalantly. Not only was on social media. I see the In the few Ball able to compete short seconds of positive comments and it in the Scootering the video, it beCup, but she just motivates me to keep World comes clear why also saw success at Ball has gained a riding.” the competition. — DELANEY BALL, sophomore reputation for her “It was a great talent and accomexperience for me plishments in scootering. and Team USA ended up placing first,” Ball After only four years of scootering said. and only having competed at a scootering tournament once before, she was chosen to Scootering to sponsorships represent Team USA in the Scooter World Social media has played a significant Cup. role throughout Ball’s scootering career. “It was a big accomplishment for me She first took an interest in the sport after to be able to join Team USA because only watching a YouTube video about it in 7th ten members from each country got select- grade and continued to use YouTube to cat-
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alog her progress. “I became friends with a freshman and an eighth-grader and we started a crew called The Casual Krew,” Ball said. “We filmed a bunch of YouTube videos, and it started getting to a point where I realized I could actually do something out of this.” Early on in her scootering career, Ball created an Instagram account dedicated to her scootering videos. Soon enough, her posts caught the attention of a prominent scootering company, Tilt. “I was super interested in being sponsored by Tilt, so I tagged them in a lot of
