Ron Copeland – K2 skater

About Ron Copeland (source : K2skates.com – 2005)

Born: September 11, 1981 Massillon, Ohio
Resides: Massillon, Ohio but moving to California soon
Years rolling: Nine

Ron Copeland looks to be following the footsteps of former Ohio skaters Omar Wysong and Mike Opalic with an upcoming move to sunny Southern California. Ron can skate real street and park with the best skaters in the world and no-one, other then video game characters, can transfer rails and ledges like Ron Copeland. Ron is in the final rehab stages of a torn ACL and this “Mack Truck” will be back killing it on skates this February. Ron skates for K2, Nine Millimeter Wheels, and Vertigo Skate Park.

K2: You have recently gone through a pretty big knee surgery…Can you tell us a little about what you had to go through…The whole process from injury to recovery?

RC: I hurt my knee doing a royale on a rail to gap over a set of like 9 steps. I am not exactly sure how but I twisted it cause I was all weird in the air. I know there was something wrong cause my knee felt like it was not connected the bottom of my leg to the top, and I was in a lot of pain. I could not stand, walk or move my leg or bend my knee. After I drove my self to my girlfriends house and went home to change I could no longer bend my leg and I was unable to bend my leg because all the muscles where flexed tight, and my calf muscle had dropped down around my ankle..

I went to the ER they gave me a bunch of pain meds and took x-rays and a MRI. That showed that I had fractured my femur, tore cartilage on my femur, tore my ACL and had 4 tears in my cartilage in my knee. I went to physical therapy a few days after the injury to get it strong again for to prepare for surgery. I was in therapy for about 3 weeks and I had decided that I was going to try to get back into shape to skate the rest of the summer with the injury, wearing a brace. This was about the same time that I started to be able to walk again. The doctor and physical therapist told me that I was not going to be able to do it because of the severity of the injuries, but I could try if I wanted to. I went out and skated a few times but if I used my right leg at all I could feel my knee twisting around side to side. Because of that and going to some parties and walking around too much I realized I was actually hurting my knee worse by not getting it fixed..

So I get the surgery and spent another 3 weeks in bed dying of pain and screwed up on vicoden, percocet and darviset. Then I started to do therapy all over again. After another month or so passed I started walking again. Now I am getting to the point 3 months after surgery where I can jog, and swim.

I have only rolled one time now in about 4 months and it felt great. I was a little weak and it kind of hurt but I can tell that it is getting better!

I was thinking that this injury might bother my mentally because I fell doing something that I should not have gotten hurt on.. I’ll be fine just like last summer when I almost died from a head injury. I came back from that just fine! I hope to be skating close to 100% some where around the time of Bitter Cold Showdown.

K2: What made you want to roll K2’s?

RC: The advantages of rolling K2 are the amazing comfort, the huge soul area, and the and I like the flexibility of the cuff and the quick buckle design.

K2 : Tell us the craziest situation you have ever been in…rolling or not .

RC: I rolled across this wall ride and souled a vert wall that is like 20 feet tall with ’bout 10 feet vert…I was falling straight down about 10 feet ’till I hit the transition, then I did it again to film it!

K2 :Any final thoughts or quoted to live by Ron?

RC:I don’t know what I’ve been told, you never slow down you never grow old. Tired of screwing up, tired of going down.

K2: thanks for your time Ron. It was great to see you rolling around again. It’s even cooler to see all the tricks you are learning switch because of your injury. I can’t wait to see what you bring to the game in January when you are 100%