The next part of the audition was dancing and "of course I had no routine," explains Kate, "so I used parts of the choreography from the eyeglass show and threw in some hip-hop moves." Funny thing is, the Team Rollerblade choreographer thought that was the shit and pulled Kate aside asking, "Where have you been?"

Needless to say, Kate made Team Rollerblade's east coast team, traveling around, competing, and dancing for a couple of years. But for Kate, dancing with the Rollerblade squad meant dealing with attitudes and fake identities. "I was intimidated and related more to the halfpipe skaters and stunt skaters like Angie Walton. It was more aggressive skating and the people who did it were more comfortable with themselves." So, she went back to Malaley Park in the Bronx.

When Team Rollerblade dropped their east coast team, Kate was over it anyway, "skating street, grinding, and launching and doing stair-rides." Without a sponsor, she waited tables at the NYC Hard Rock Café to make ends meet, crashing events that she wasn't really invited to, and competing wherever she could. Which lead to her next breakthrough at the Scrap Skate Park competition in Chicago.

"I came in first with a soul grind and some launches and a rail thing," she says. It was enough to get her pictures in many magazines and start the Kate Gengo In-Line Skating portfolio, which she touted around to various trade shows and events in hopes of sponsorship-just in time for the first Pro National In-Line Skate Series aired on ESPN. Kate, along with another buddy, competed on the weekends and did odd jobs to pay for food, which amounted to about $30 a week. But it was her tenacity to stay in the game that landed Kate "a legitimate sponsor"-meaning free wheels and bearings from Kryptonics, until Ultra Wheels came along the following summer with a European tour.

"The percentage of girls who skated was small and they didn't realize how much impact I could have in Europe," explains Kate about Ultra Wheels reluctance to send her abroad with the boys. But street in Europe was cool among girls. When she competed in La San for the Swatch International Roller Festival, she was among more than three dozen competitive girls. And during a lay-over in London, the local skate park, to her surprise, "was packed with little girls that looked and dressed like me, skated street, and had my signature two braids in their hair. It was exciting to be in Europe and London and see all of this acceptance."

Today, Kate skates professionally and teaches skating to kids in after-school programs. As for her sponsor Ultra Wheels, well, she's still not the highest paid skater, nor does she skate in a pair of skates that fit ("they still don't come in my size"). But thanks to events such as the X Games, in-line skating is gaining popularity and has become one of the fastest growing sports among women. Exposure for the sport, along with pioneers like Kate, is what it will take to bring more dollars to professional in-line skaters.

"I can see women some day making a living from it. I can get bitter about it in my own way, I mean, I just want to be a skater," says Kate about having to skate, be team manager,and teach skating in order to make ends meet. "But if this is how I have to do it, well, then this is how I have to do it."