Tony Hawk Read online

  TONY HAWK

  PROFESSIONAL SKATEBOARDER

  TONY HAWK

  WITH SEAN MORTIMER

  TO MY FAMILY:

  THANK YOU FOR ALL OF THE LOVE,

  LAUGHTER, AND SUPPORT

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Intro

  1 Maniac Kid

  2 Spaz, That’s Me!

  3 The Beginning

  4 Joining the Ants

  5 No More Tears

  6 The Basics

  7 Out of Style

  8 The Bones Brigade

  9 Faceplants

  10 Check the Box

  11 Cheating

  12 The Parent Trap

  13 Cool School

  14 Balancing Act

  15 Dad Slams

  16 Future Primitive

  17 Winning Contests Is Not Always Fun

  18 Fun Again?

  19 Trouble!

  20 The Sky Is Falling!

  21 A New Low

  22 Cancer Stinks

  23 More Changes

  24 The End

  25 1999, the Year of the 9

  26 Tne Good Life

  Appendix:

  Tony’s Top Tens

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Tony Hawk

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  INTRO

  It wasn’t always cool to be a skateboarder. Today, if you wear skate shoes and baggy pants, you look like most of the youth population. It’s the “in” look. People of every age all over the world play skateboarding video games and know the name of complex skate tricks. If you turn on the TV there’s a good chance you’ll see skateboarding in a commercial or a contest. But back in the late ’70s, when I started, skating was on its way out.

  By the time I was obsessed with skateboarding, it was a geeky fad that only weirdos and nerds continued to do—at least that’s what my schoolmates told me. I was used to hearing their taunts, though. I was twelve years old, and I was the only skater in my school. I didn’t look like anybody else. Scabs covered my knees and elbows, and my clothes were ripped because I was always falling while trying new tricks. Everybody else in school had Nikes or Adidas, and I had blue high-top Vans or Converse Chuck Taylors with gray duct tape crisscrossing the toe. I had to tape them together because they were falling apart from kneesliding. My days at school were spent keeping my head down, doing my schoolwork, and counting the seconds until the final bell rang, signifying freedom. That bell allowed me to go to the local skatepark, Del Mar Skate Ranch, and skate until closing.

  The days and nights spent at the skatepark saved me. All my problems—my lack of skate friends who lived close by, my tiny size, the fact that I was a walking scab collection—evaporated once I walked through the entrance door to the skatepark. I worked out any problem by skating.

  Skating also taught me the meaning of focus and perseverance. One time at Del Mar when I was trying to learn a new trick, I set it up with an easy trick called a 50-50. It was simple; I just needed to grind both my trucks on the edge of the concrete bowl. I had done it thousands of times before. I could do it in my sleep. This time, though, I got stuck on the edge and started to fall. I put my hands in front of my face to protect it, but unfortunately, it was too late. My face bounced off the concrete. My mouth was full of blood.

  Dazed, I stood up, and walked to the manager’s office. My legs wobbled, and I couldn’t walk in a straight line due to my semiconscious state. My mouth felt weird, and when I ran my tongue against my front teeth, a bolt of pain blasted through my head. I wanted to start crying—the pain was that bad. I had broken my front teeth in half. Both were now nubs, half their original height, and sensitive, exposed nerves dangled from the end of each. My parents, who had grown used to the occasional skatepark emergency calls, picked me up and drove me to a dentist, who capped my teeth. A few months later I was goofing around in a mellow part of Del Mar, and I slammed on my face again. This time I knocked my front teeth out entirely. Like the old saying goes, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

  Copyright © J. Grant Brittain.

  Slamming didn’t bother me, because I knew that was the price I had to sometimes pay to learn a new trick. And when I finally landed it, I knew it was all worth it. Afterward, I’d immediately push myself to learn a harder trick. My time spent on a skateboard built up my confidence. It didn’t bother me that I didn’t have a girlfriend or wasn’t the popular guy at school. All I cared about was rolling around with other skaters at the park and having fun. And as far as skating goes, not much has changed since then.

  1: MANIAC KID

  I was an accident. My mom laughs and shakes her head no whenever I say that, but it’s the truth. She prefers to say I was a surprise. My parents, who were both in their forties when I came along, thought they’d finished raising kids. When my mom had me, she was in the middle of completing her college education and my dad worked as a salesman. My oldest sister, Lenore, was off at college, my other sister, Patricia, had just graduated from high school, and Steve, my brother, was twelve years old when I, the screaming baby wrapped in a blue blanket, came home.

  I was an absolute nightmare for the first decade of my life. I began committing offenses when I was still in my crib and barely able to walk, but I never felt anything but love from my family.

  Because my dad worked full-time and my mom was at school, they hired an elderly, sweet nanny to watch me. I knew she loved me, but I didn’t like the fact that she had control over when I ate, slept, and played. One of my earliest memories is of trying to score a direct hit on her using any toy within my hand’s reach. I’d often wake up in my crib just in time to spot her peering in on me. Whenever I saw her head of willowy white, I’d grab the nearest toy and launch it at her. I rarely succeeded in hitting her, but my trying was enough to make her quit.

  I tortured a list of nannies and treated some better than others. But I treated my parents worst of all. My mom has dozens of embarrassing stories of me and my spastic temper. Once, when she told me I was old enough to sleep in my own bed, in my own room, I thought differently and decided to take matters into my own hands. When I thought my parents were asleep, I began the first stage of my special operations mission. I got on my hands and knees and crawled below my parents’ line of sight, or so I thought. I slinked down the hallway like a worm. Slowly and somewhat quietly, I pushed open the door to their room. Staying low, I silently crept to the edge of the bed, ready to crawl up quietly and sneak in under the covers. When I looked up to start my climb, Mom was there staring me down. I shook my fists at her, knowing my plan had been foiled. As I crawled back to my room, I swore in my mind to extract revenge at a later date.

  Another time soon after, my parents sent me to bed early—probably so that they could get some well-deserved, relaxing time to themselves. I was so annoyed that I had to go to sleep while they were still up having fun, that I yanked all the sheets, pillows, and blankets off my bed. Carrying everything down the hall, I sat on the stairs and one by one threw everything at them. A shower of bedding rained down on them while they watched TV and just pretended not to notice.

  My parents had to stop having guests over, because they couldn’t predict how I would act. One time when I was about five years old, they thought I’d mellowed enough to invite some friends over. I ended up crawling on the table and upsetting the place settings, not to mention my parents. Needless to say, after that they didn’t have any guests over for years.

  No matter what I did, my parents still showered me with love. They were incapable of being disappointed with me. One of my parents’ friends summed it up best when she told my mom she thought I was spoiled rotten.

  “He’s not spoiled rotten,” my mom replied, “he’s loved.”

/>   “Well, then he’s loved rotten,” the friend said.

  THE GREAT ESCAPE

  From the time I was two, I knew I had my parents wrapped around my finger. There weren’t a lot of problems I couldn’t solve with a massive temper tantrum. After a while, my parents always caved in to my demands. Naturally, I thought the whole world would be as easy to manipulate.

  Cold hard reality smacked me in the face moments after my dad dropped me off at Christopher Robin Preschool. I was three and short for my age. I stared up at the tall chain-link fences that surrounded the school. They seemed as high as skyscrapers—impossible to climb over to escape. I couldn’t believe my parents would leave me in such a horrible place! The first day was the worst of my young life. Every day we had to run through a fire drill. We’d file outside and silently wait for instructions from the teachers. At lunchtime we were forced to sit with our head in our hands and keep silent for a minute before we ate. At that point, I don’t think I’d ever maintained a full minute of silence.

  The absolute worst torture the school inflicted on me was the forced nap time. I was hyper, to say the least, and I had to be running around, tapping my feet, or deeply involved in an activity or else I went bananas from boredom. I still have nightmares about trying to stay still on my sleep mat, squeezing my eyes shut as the teacher walked around checking on us. I never once fell asleep.

  My terror of preschool became so great that one time my sister Lenore visited me at school and I grabbed her leg like a drowning person and wouldn’t let go. I had to be pried off.

  I knew I needed to get away from there, so after a few months I became obsessed with escaping. I devised a plan. I would cry. It wasn’t rocket science or anything, but it worked with my parents, so I figured it would work with my teachers, too.

  The next day, after my dad dropped me off, I ran to the fence and locked my fingers onto it as tightly as I could. I shook the fence and started bawling. I’m not talking little weepy tears; snot was bubbling out of my nose, my eyes turned red, and my head whipped from side to side to ward off any teacher who tried to get close. Eventually, a few teachers would pull me away, but the next day I repeated the process.

  After a few weeks of this, my dad was called into the office. Half an hour later he picked me up from class, and we drove home. I had done it! I had beaten the dreaded preschool in a test of wills. They had informed Dad that I was formally expelled. My dad thought it was funny. Instead of punishing me, he bought me an electric red toy car that I could sit in and drive, even though we couldn’t really afford it. My mom says she watched me from the kitchen, zooming around, smacking into furniture with the biggest smile on my face. She commented to my dad, “Just what the world needs, another dropout with a slick car.”

  Copyright © J. Grant Brittain.

  2: SPAZ, THAT’S ME!

  When I think back on all the terrible things I did to my parents, I don’t know why they put up with me. One time when my mom couldn’t find a baby-sitter and had to register for college classes, she was forced to take me along with her. We had to wait in line for half an hour. My mom refused to let me run around and pillage the college campus on my own. She held my hand tight, so I couldn’t escape. I became so mad that I began kicking her in the shins. I didn’t stop until we had left. She was forced to register later.

  I’m not proud of my attitude as a child. Now, I understand that part of my problem was my diet. My parents usually let me eat what I wanted. They had little choice—I would throw a temper tantrum if I didn’t get it. Not a little angry fit; these were atomic bombs of tantrums. I freaked out so much that my mom finally let me have my own shopping cart when we went to the grocery store. I filled it with junk food. I ate sugar-coated cereals and ice cream every day. I drank more Coke than water. All the sugar and caffeine cranked me up into a frenzy, and once it mixed with my overachieving determination, I could barely control myself.

  It didn’t get much better when we would eat in a restaurant, which due to my behavior wasn’t often. I’d order the largest meal and milk shake on the menu. My dad would lean over and warn me that if I drank the entire milk shake, I’d be too full to eat a balanced meal. I’d throw a tantrum, get the milk shake, and suck it down before our food came—and always, without fail, I’d be too full to eat anything. It got so bad that my mom stopped ordering and ate my leftovers. She always had a complete meal.

  DETERMINATION

  Ihad an overactive sense of determination, which exploded whenever I was involved in anything competitive. If I was playing a video game like Pac-Man with my brother and lost, I would throw a spaz. If I thought I was losing at checkers, I’d flip the board up, spraying checkers all over the room. If somebody had something I wanted, such as a Frisbee, I’d have to have it. If there were three or four people with Frisbees, it wasn’t enough that they shared one with me—I had to have them all! I was a brat of Godzilla proportions.

  When I was five, my mom thought it would be a neat idea to teach me to play tennis. She explained the rules and gently lobbed a fuzzy green ball over the net to me. I charged forward, wound my arm up like a slingshot, and hammered the hall as hard as I could directly at her. The ball blasted from my racquet and scored a direct hit on her. She laughed and told me to calm down. (She later told me that watching me run as fast as my little legs could propel me almost gave her a laughing fit.) But without fail, every ball I smacked shot over the net like a missile and either ricocheted off my mom or missed her by a mile. She stopped after a few hits and called me over.

  “Now, Tony,” she said with a smile, “I think you’re trying to hit me on purpose.”

  I was so hyper that I jumped back and forth on my feet like a tap dancer.

  “If you don’t want to play nice, I’ll stop playing and go home,” she said.

  I stopped thinking about blasting more balls. I didn’t even really want to play anymore. What was the point of playing a game if you didn’t try to demolish your opponent?

  My mom says she and my dad put up with all my cruddy attitude because they felt sorry for me. She realized I was a lot harder on myself than I was on them. She saw all the goals I set and my days spent trying to meet them. My parents were smart enough to realize that if they tried to interfere, it would frustrate me more. If my parents hadn’t supported my determination, I doubt I would ever have been a sponsored skateboarder, never mind a successful professional.

  GIFTED?

  Even though I was a preschool bad boy, I actually enjoyed school once I was free of nap time. By second grade, I wanted to be a math teacher. Like most of my other obsessions, it had to happen right away! I couldn’t wait twenty years until I finished school.

  I recruited my friends from the neighborhood to meet at my house after school, I spent half an hour setting up the patio furniture in the backyard. I lined all the chairs up next to the tables and put a piece of paper with a pencil on each chair. When my “students” came, I conducted math class. I showed them how to solve problems and then walked chair-to-chair helping them if they needed it. It only lasted a few days. They didn’t seem to enjoy class as much as the instructor did.

  In elementary school, I learned how far to push the limits without being annoying. I was pretty mellow—almost shy. But I couldn’t control my boredom and constant need to fidget. The teacher would give a lesson and I’d tap my feet, flip my pencil around on the desk, look out the window—anything to keep myself amused. The weird part was that I got high grades and understood what the teacher was saying, but every day seconds stretched into minutes and minutes seemed like hours.

  My mom knew I was a hyper kid but couldn’t understand why I had trouble paying attention in class. She knew I wasn’t dumb. I had learned to read, write, and count before I started school from watching Sesame Street. She thought my problem might be that I was understimulated.

  She arranged for an IQ test, and when the results came back, we found out that I had scored a 144. This was higher than the average score and it p
ut me in the “gifted” category. The person who administered the test explained that the cause of my frustration was that my brain was constantly telling my body to do things it couldn’t physically do. Because of this, I burned myself out trying to accomplish my goals and was usually disappointed with myself when I didn’t meet them. So I took out my frustration on my family.

  My parents had a few options. They could bump me up a grade, but they figured that starting a class with kids a year older would make me even more of a nightmare. Or, they could wait until I entered third grade and bump me up to fourth-grade reading and math.

  Any ideas I had about continuing my fidgeting in the fourthgrade class were demolished my first day in reading class. The teacher whacked a smart-alecky student over the head with a pile of papers. In my third-grade mind, I figured that this was the punishment you received if you read incorrectly. When I saw it happen, I froze, my eyes bugged out, and I was scared to move and make the teacher notice me. I was positive she would give me a thrashing for being too much of a spaz.

  I convinced my parents and third-grade teacher that I wasn’t ready for anything as “advanced” as fourth-grade classes, and went back to trying to stay still in third-grade reading and math.

  Copyright © J. Grant Brittain.

  Copyright © Jeff Taylor.

  3: THE BEGINNING

  By the time I was nine years old my brother and sisters had all moved out. I was especially close to my brother, Steve, who took my temper tantrums and spaz-outs in stride. When he hung out with his older buddies, he included me in a lot of their activities. We shared the same absurd sense of humor. He’d drop his towel and moon me in the hallway. He was my best friend, and when he moved to a college that was a four-hour drive away, I was devastated. But at least he’d visit once a month.