Skateboarding - Tony Hawk

Tony Hawk is arguably the greatest and most successful skateboarder of all time. A true athlete, pioneer and business mogul , skateboarding tips Hawk is the embodiment of skateboarding success. Hawk has pushed the boundaries of skateboarding to visionary new levels. Thrilling fans for over two decades and doing what skateboarding tips thought impossible on a skateboard.

Born in San Deigo in 1968 Tony showed some serious skills and determination from as young as five years old. It was due to Hawks over the top dedication and almost too intense focus on his projects at hand that led his parents to have him talk to the schools psychologist at the age of eight. His findings concluded that Tony was in fact, gifted and a number of years ahead of the other kids his age. This was one of the first signs that Tony Hawk was headed for something neither he nor his family ever thought of...

The Start Of It All...Dogs And Bones At nine years old his older brother gave Tony his first skateboard. A small,thin, blue banana board, which Hawk took to right away and changed his life forever. Tony Hawk got his first sponsor deal at age twelve from legendary company, Dog Town Skateboards. By age seventeen he had entered about 103 pro contests and won 73 of them. In 1981, at age eleven, Tony joined up with Powell Perlta becoming one of their youngest professional skaters. From this he became a member of "The Bones Brigade" Powell Perlta's elite group of their top pro skaters and young up and comers. Hawk had some legendary team mates including, Steve Caballero, Tommy Guerrero, Mike McGill and lance Mountain.

The Search For...The team made a couple of Bones Brigade skate movies that did fairly well but it was in 1986 when they really hit it big with their third skate movie entitled "The Search For Animal Chin" This was one of the most well received skateboarding movies ever! The plot follows around the five pro skaters and their search for the legendary skater "Won Ton Animal Chin" and their skateboarding adventures that follow. In essence "animal Chin" is just a metaphor for the fun that skateboarding brings.

So their search is for skating fun.

Dark Years From the skating glory days of Powell Perlta and the bones brigade in the mid 80's things began to take a turn for the worse in the early to mid 90's. Skateboarding fell out of favor with most people and reverted back to being somewhat underground. At this time Tony was barley able to earn a living from skateboarding and his new company "Bird House Projects" started in 1992, was not doing nearly as good as he had hoped. Forced to sell his home and car the next few years were a dark time for Tony Hawk as well as the entire skateboard industry. Family turmoil and finical troubles had Tony thinking perhaps another career option was needed.

As always it's darkest before the dawn...and this was no exception in skating. By 1996 things took a turn for the better and skateboarding began to grow favor with the public again. Now was the time for Tony Hawk to take off and never look back! Birdhouse projects was doing well and Tony had decided to start up a kids clothing like named "Hawk Clothing" which was a instant success. In 1999 came one of Hawk's biggest success stories ever. Teamed up with video game giants "Activision" Tony put out the first in his line of Tony Hawk Pro Skater video games. It was an over night hit with sales far out reaching the hopes of its creators. THPS was followed up with a number of great video game hits in the pro skater series. It was also in this same year that Tony Hawk pulled off the mind blowing 900, a trick never done before, at the newly formed "X-Games" contest.

Top Of The Game Tony Hawk has kept the ball rolling for the skate industry, putting together some really cool tours and contests. In 2002 he launched the "Boom Boom Huckjam" a 30 city extreme sports tour featuring the top skateboarders, bmx and motocross pros. The tour has done amazing success with it being sold out each and every year since it started and was even featured as a Macdonald's happy meal. Boom Boom Huckjam is held at Six Flags amusement parks which ties into the new Tony Hawk Roller coaster! The "Big Spin Roller" a coaster with a skateboarding and Tony Hawk theme to it. Currently the coaster can be ridden at Six Flags San Antonio and St Louis locations but plans to install the coaster in more locations are in effect.

At age 31 Tony Hawk retired from professional skateboarding. With a staggering number of gold medals, skateboarding firsts and world records Tony had put his efforts into supporting the sport of skateboarding as well as branching into other ventures. Some of which include working with companies like Jeep, Sirius Satellite radio and T mobile, who has even put out a "Tony Hawk side kick". He currently spends a lot of time working with his charity organization "The Tony Hawk Foundation" a group set up to help out inner city kids and help build skate parks in low income areas to help the kids. The Tony Hawk Foundation has currently distributed over 2 million dollars to non profit organizations.

Geoff Wheeler has been involved in skateboarding for the past 20 years and writes about skate shoes including Ipath skate shoes.