Tony Hawk: Skateboarding Legend
Anthony Frank Hawk or Tony Hawk as he is known the world over by fans is a skateboarding legend. Having started skating at a very young age, he went on to take over the world of a very nascent sport and has made himself very rich and very famous in the process.
When he started out in the sport he never thought he could make a career out of it but he has and he has managed to set up two businesses along with a charitable foundation as well. This fantastic skater has won numerous championships, gathered a legion of
fans and even ventured into video games. Even though he has stopped skating competitively, he still maintains a strong presence in the sport today.
Tony Hawk was a self proclaimed troubled child. He was hyperactive and unruly and had too much energy to spare. That all changed when he was given his first skateboard by his older brother. All his hyper-activeness disappeared when he first started to ride
that skateboard. Tony had a very competitive streak growing up and that helped him to achieve great things later in life. At the age of twelve the young skateboarding genius already had a sponsor; Dogtown Skateboards. By the time he was 14 years old he had
turned pro.
Most people do not even remember what they were doing at the age of 14, but at that young age Tony Hawk was already a professional skateboarder. During his early years, Tony’s dad really supported his son’s dreams. He drove him to every skating contest that
Tony entered and built him skating ramps and picked him up when he fell down. He was a major influence in Tony’s life and he even started two skating governing bodies because of a lack of them at the time. A lot of credit goes to Frank Hawk in helping Tony
become the skating legend that he is today.
Tony’s claim to fame in the early years was his ability to pull off even the most wild and insane tricks. He won many competitions because of his ability to perform the most unique and innovative tricks. When the young man started skating, he made a list
of ten tricks that he wanted to perform in his career. The list he made included tricks such as; the ollie 540, the kickflip 540, the varial 720 and the 900. He only retired from the sport in 1999 because he completed the last trick on his list; the 900. He
managed to do this trick at the 1999 X-Games and he was done. He has remained a major part of the sport since then but he stopped competing.
It has not all been smooth sailing for the man who pioneered jumping around on a board with wheels on it. Skateboarding when he first started out went through cycles of popularity. When he turned pro and the years after that, the sport peaked, it was everywhere
and Tony made so much money that he was able to buy two houses and set up his own company. But then the peak turned into a trough and the money dried up and the sport’s popularity waned. He had to sell one of his houses, and he and his wife lived on her salary
alone. Then the sport suddenly picked up again and Tony was back to making money and his company, Birdhouse Skateboards, flourished. Suddenly skateboarding was everywhere and Tony Hawk was leading the charge. That popularity seemed to remain buoyant and Tony
Hawk made a financial success out of skateboarding, which he himself did not think was possible. He also started a charitable foundation called The Tony Hawk Foundation that helps build skating ramps in the poorest neighbourhoods in America.
Video gaming came next for the prolific skater, when he released a game with the company Activision called Tony Hawk Pro Skater. The sales went through the roof and boosted his popularity and the sport’s even more. Tony also set up his own clothing company
called Hawk Clothing, specialising in children’s skateboarding wear which has been acquired by Quicksilver after doing phenomenally well. Even though he has officially retired, not competing anymore means nothing in skating and Tony still does exhibition events
and his children, three boys and a girl all look likely to follow in their father’s footsteps in the future.
There seems to be nothing left for this great athlete to do except sit back and bask in the glow of the legend that he has become. But he cannot sit still, he still skates everyday and can be seen promoting his latest video game or being featured in ads.
Skateboarding is in his blood and he looks all set to wow us in the future again with some new stunt.
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