15-year-old Mato Amos is a sophomore at Wind River High School, plays football and basketball, and every chance he gets you’ll find him at the skatepark practicing to become a pro scooter rider.
Riding down this career path in the middle of rural Wyoming comes with a set of challenges: the skateparks in Wyoming, at least in Riverton and Lander, are not set-up with things like airbags so he can practice big tricks and avoid getting hurt, the winter months can make it hard to get outside, and camps and competitions are generally far away.
He has also overcome some challenges in his personal life before becoming a local skatepark celebrity.
The home I was living in and everything and the fostering stuff, it didn’t really motivate me. I’m in a home now where I know that there’s somebody supporting me. It’s just made me like a lot more motivated. Before, nobody really supported what I wanted. -Mato Amos
Mato, who has been scootering since 4th grade, is determined to become a pro scooter rider and right now that means finding sponsorships so he can attend as many camps and competitions as possible.
Fortunately, he’s been able to get scholarships to attend camps, where he receives guidance to continue bettering himself and make progress in scootering.
His first competition was a World Championship in October 2022 held at Lake Havasu City, AZ. Though he didn’t make it past the qualifiers, he still finished 9th out of 25 in his heat.
After seeing how well he did on a global platform, his foster dad shared he knows Mato has what it takes to do this professionally.
You can follow his scootering journey on Instagram.
