by Tony Hawk
I was an eleven-year-old skateboard freak, and there was only one other skater at school. We would arrive half an hour early and skate a curb before classes. We didn’t look like the other students. I looked like a mummy who couldn’t afford all his wrappings. I was covered in scabs and always had Band-Aids stuck on me or Ace bandages wrapped around a sore wrist or knee.
DAD TO THE RESCUE
The one positive aspect of skateboarding losing popularity was that the community became closer. If there was a contest at Oasis, my dad would invite out-of-town skaters to stay at our house. One time he invited the team manager of Dogtown Skateboards to stay over. She saw me skate and passed the word on, and Dogtown gave me a free skateboard. A few months later the Dogtown crew saw me skate again and thought I had improved enough to be invited to join their team.
By this time skateboarding was so unpopular that the ASPO went out of business. My dad saw that amateur skaters, the few that were left, wouldn’t have a structured contest series anymore. Just like he had with my brothers and sisters, Dad decided to jump in and help out. He figured since he’d organized my brother Steve’s Little League, he could do the same for me. With four other people he started the California Amateur Skateboard League, better known as CASL, which still runs contests today. He even dragged my mom in and made her a scorekeeper and timer. It was a family affair that, even though I appreciated it, would create a lot of conflict between us as I grew older.
VIOLIN VERSUS SKATEBOARDING
The only thing I really loved outside of skateboarding was playing the violin. I had started playing it in band and loved the fact that it was so complicated, for me at least. It reminded me a lot of skating, because it was something I could do on my own. I must have been a weird-looking sight-imagine a bony kid, wrapped in Ace bandages and covered with scabs, playing the violin. I didn’t care. I loved it.
But in a fight over my spare time, the violin got its butt whipped. I was skating so much that all my free time was devoted to it. Even though I enjoyed playing the violin, I knew I had to make a choice. My violin teacher was angry when I told him I was quitting for skating. He tried to get my mom to make me change my mind. She knew better than that and always supported whatever I wanted to do, as long as it wasn’t harmful. She loved skating and all my colorful skate friends who would stay at the house, and they seemed to enjoy time with my parents, who knew more about skateboarding than a lot of skaters.
Now that I’m thirty-three years old, I’ve decided to give the violin a second chance. A friend recently gave me a violin, and I’m planning on taking lessons again.
Copyright © J. Grant Brittain.
OASIS DRIES UP
My parents had decided to move about forty minutes away from Oasis, but luckily one of the few remaining skateparks was only a few miles away. It was called Del Mar Skate Ranch. I had skated there a few times before, but I hated the place. The pool felt weird, because I was used to Oasis. But favorite parks or not, I liked skating with people, and Del Mar always had a few locals to skate with. I stopped going to Oasis and skated Del Mar every day.
Skateparks back then were a lot different than they are today. There were no “sessions” where you pay to skate for a few hours and then leave. I would buy a pass and skate all day long on the weekends or after school. I hung out there even if I wasn’t skating. Del Mar became a clubhouse for all the skaters who felt uncomfortable in the outside world. We could goof around playing skate tag or video games, or read skate magazines and argue about who was the best skater in the world. (I knew it was Steve Caballero.) There was a trailer park next to the skatepark, and we’d sneak in and use its pool. I figured out what school bus from my high school dropped kids off closest to Del Mar. I pretended I was being dropped off at my home, and then I would skate a mile to the park. I made new friends, who I’m still friends with today, and it became one of the most enjoyable times of my life.
MOST IMPROVED SKATER
By the end of the year I had skated well enough in most CASL contests to win the Most Improved Skater Award. I drove with my dad to the CASL awards banquet early, because he had to set up the tables and PA system. While he did that, I skated to the store with a friend to get a soda. I was so excited about the awards ceremony that I didn’t notice the massive crack in the sidewalk. My board jerked to a stop, but I continued to go forward. The next thing I remembered was waking up on an unknown lady’s porch with a headache. She lived in front of the monster crack and took care of me while my friend skated back to get my dad.
My dad had to run the CASL awards ceremony and couldn’t drive me home, so I waited in the car as he hurried through as fast as he could. Every once in a while, I would open the car door to throw up from my concussion. An hour later he ran out, handed me my trophy, congratulated me, and drove me home.
Copyright © J. Grant Brittain.
8: THE BONES BRIGADE
Stacy Peralta was the world champion skateboarder in 1977. He was famous all over the world and had one of the smoothest and most innovative styles around. After breaking both his wrists, he retired and started a skateboard company with George Powell, which was called Powell and Peralta. He recruited the best skaters to be on the Powell and Peralta team, and called it the Bones Brigade. It was one of the best teams in the history of skating. In the early ’80s, this was the team to be on. On it was one of my favorite skaters, Steve Caballero, the most inventive skater around.
I remember the first time Stacy came up and said hi to me at a contest. I couldn’t believe it! Stacy knew who I was! He asked how Dogtown was treating me.
“Fine, I guess,” I stammered back. I didn’t even really know how a sponsored skateboarder was supposed to be treated. They sporadically sent me free stuff, but that was it.
“Good. I like your skating.” He smiled and left.
I was so happy about being noticed and complimented from a legend like Stacy that I can’t remember the rest of the contest at all.
One night, at the end of the year, Stacy called me up at home.
“You know, Tony, Dogtown went out of business.” It was the first I had heard of it. Suddenly I was going to be back to square one and buying boards, I thought.
“If you could come up here to Marina, we could talk about sponsorship,” he said.
I went up and skated for him. Suddenly I was sponsored again. Stacy told me later that he’d already made up his mind after seeing me skating in a contest in Marina near his house. I had a good run, and I may even have won the contest (I can’t remember). I walked away from the contest angry with myself. He said I had a look of disgust on my face, like I was furious with myself, and he couldn’t understand why. He eventually figured out that I was rarely happy with my skating. He said it was my “fierce determination” that made him put me on the Bones Brigade.
But I had a problem. Another company had already asked me to skate for them and given me a huge box of free skate equipment. My dad sat me down and explained that it wasn’t right for me to take free skate equipment from one company while I was thinking about riding for another. I called up a guy from the first company and thanked him for offering me a place on their team, but told him I had decided to skate for Stacy. It was a decision that would affect my entire life in ways I couldn’t understand at the time.
Next to my parents, Stacy was my biggest supporter. He was one of the most positive influences on my life. He encouraged and helped direct my skating in ways I’d never thought possible.
ROOKIE HAZING
When I met Steve Caballero, I was awestruck. I had always looked up to him, and now we were on the same team. My first year on the Bones Brigade, I was nervous around him, because I thought he was so awesome. It was like meeting a superstar actor. The first time we spent time together was at Stacy’s apartment in Los Angeles. Mike McGill, another Bones Brigade skater whom I admired, and Steve were in the apartment complex’s hot tub. I wanted to make an impression on them, and make them like me in some way. Steve was che
wing gum and accidentally dropped it in the hot tub.
“What would you do if I ate that?” I blurted out, ready to do anything to make them remember me.
“What? If you just chewed the gum? I don’t know, maybe I’d clap,” Steve answered.
I knew I had to do something quick to let them know how special I was.
“No, I don’t mean ‘just out of the water.’ I mean—”
“Out from between my toes,” Steve said with a laugh.
“Yeah!” I exclaimed.
Steve wrapped the long string of gum around his toes like a spider’s web and waved his foot at me. I carefully picked the gum out as Steve and Mike winced. I chewed it and blew a bubble as they clapped. I couldn’t have been happier—they liked me!
SLOW START
Once I was on the Powell team, they started sending me to contests. While I had been doing well in local contests and winning my age division, now I was in a completely different league—the sponsored amateurs. This is one step below being a professional.
Stacy flew me and the rest of the Bones Brigade to a contest in Florida. I was thirteen years old, the youngest member of the Bones Brigade. I was so intimidated that I barely spoke to anybody. To make matters worse, there was a massive storm blowing once we got off the plane. I was used to wimpy California weather, but storms on the East Coast are very different. Fat lightning bolts zorched down, making the sky bright as day for a few seconds. Thunder boomed so loud that I thought I could feel myself shaking. The rain fell so hard, it was like standing in a shower. I was so scared I couldn’t sleep that night. I thought lightning was going to fry our hotel room.
The weather cleared up for the contest, but I wished it hadn’t. It was my first time competing as a Bones Brigade member and all I wanted was to impress everybody, but I failed. I skated horribly. I thought I let everyone down. I felt so crappy that I could barely look Stacy in the eyes. He knew I would skate poorly but wanted me to get a taste of how much I had to push myself to diversify my skills. It worked. I wanted to get as good as every skater at that contest, and I would try that much harder.
Copyright © J. Grant Brittain.
My friend and closest competitor during the ’80s, Christian Hosoi.
Copyright © J. Grant Brittain.
Copyright © J. Grant Brittain.
9: FACEPLANTS
As I improved my skating skills, I also improved my ability to slam—and I got pretty good at it. But bashing my face into concrete was the least of my problems. I would gladly have done that every day if it meant I didn’t have to go to school. It wasn’t the schoolwork or the teachers who stressed me out so much; it was my schoolmates.
I got picked on. I was less than five feet tall when I entered eighth grade, and weighed less than eighty pounds. I was so skinny that I resembled a set of toothpicks walking awkwardly down the hallway. Only my legs had a hint of muscle on them. If I flexed my bicep nothing would pop up—muscle or fat. And, I was short. If I had to be skinny, at least someone could have given me height. I was a seriously late bloomer and in school nothing is more noticeable than that. Leaving the comforts of elementary school and going to a huge high school kept me up at night worrying. At my old school, my teacher had let me teach the class about skateboarding by bringing in film that my dad had shot of me. I could tell nobody in my new school was going to be that encouraging. Serra High was a notoriously rough high school that admitted eighth and ninth graders. I was entering the lowest grade in a massive school, and I was more scared than I’d ever been. I looked as if I’d mistaken a high school for my elementary school.
Copyright © J. Grant Brittain.
Copyright © J. Grant Brittain.
To make matters worse, I was a skateboard nut. I was the sole skater in Serra High. Nobody could figure out why I looked so ratty, with torn-up clothes and shoes. The fact that I was sponsored by the skateboard team of my dreams meant nothing to my classmates. I was considered a loser geek who still participated in a silly fad that everybody knew was “out.” I had no friends at school. But after a while it didn’t bother me too much. Sometimes the jocks on the football team would pick me up and spin me around if they saw me in the hallways, but I soon mastered the art of blending into the walls. I would arrive just as the last bell was ringing and be the first one out the door.
I got in trouble once because of my competitiveness. We were playing a game of flag football in gym class. As I understood the rules, that meant there was no physical contact. Instead of tackling a player, you are supposed to tear the flag off of them. I had the ball by some fluke, and I knew I could run fast enough to score a touchdown. I whipped around the largest kid in class, a hulking ogre who always bugged me. He gave chase, but I was too quick. I sprinted down the field and scored a touchdown. I turned around, happy finally to be involved in some sort of winning school activity. That’s when I saw this monster running full charge at me. He hit me square in the stomach, knocking me off my feet like I was a bug on his windshield. I landed on my back, gasping for air. The bully got up, swept the grass off his knees, and walked away. But even as I was wheezing I managed a little smile to myself—at least I had beat him and scored the touchdown.
10: CHECK THE BOX
I skated in a few more amateur contests and, with Stacy’s coaching, improved. Stacy told me he knew I had the talent; I just needed to learn how to skate contests better. He helped me plan my routines so that I started and ended with my best tricks and made a lasting impact on the judges.
Contests then weren’t the big deal they are now. In the early 1980s there were so few skaters and even fewer fans that contest crowds were made up mostly of relatives and friends. There were less than fifty professional skaters in the world, whereas now there are hundreds. A skater can win over $20,000 in a contest today, but back then you only made a hundred dollars, and that was if you placed in the top three. If you placed fourth, you didn’t win anything.
In 1982, a few months after my fourteenth birthday, I turned pro. Most of my friends with whom I skated in amateur contests had already turned pro, and Stacy felt that I was ready. It was at a contest in Whittier, California, that Stacy asked me casually if I’d like to turn pro.
I looked at him and said, “I don’t know. Should I?”
“I don’t want to tell you either way,” he replied. “It’s definitely up to you.”
I knew Stacy wouldn’t have asked me if he didn’t think I was ready. I hadn’t seriously considered turning pro until then. The goals I constantly set for myself in skating were always about improving, I didn’t have any other objectives. Being a pro skater wasn’t a career at that time. A skater could barely make enough to survive, because skating was dead. I was young, living at home, and got all the skateboarding equipment I wanted for free. What did I need cash for?
As I filled out my contest registration, I stared at the two boxes near the bottom of the sheet. One said “amateur” and the other said “professional.” I put an X in the pro box and that was that, I placed third in the contest, and when I told my parents that their youngest son was now a professional, they smiled and said, “That’s nice.”
SAN DIEGUITO JAIL
Nobody inside or outside skating seemed to take notice of my professional debut. I was miserable at school, and even though I never complained to my parents, they knew I was going through torture at Serra High. Luckily, we moved to Cardiff. I couldn’t have been happier—a new school.
I was in for a rude awakening. San Dieguito High included grades nine to twelve. Once again, I was at the bottom of the classes. Never mind that I still looked at least three years younger than everybody else. As depressing as Serra had been for me, San Dieguito was worse. It was known as one of the roughest schools in the area. Bullying jocks and wannabe gang members picked on me from the start. Sometimes I would walk down the hallways and they’d pick me up, spin me around, and put me back down again while other students laughed. The only thing good about San Dieguito was that Miki V
uckovich, the only other skater at the school, went there. Finally, at long last, I had a friend at school. We suffered and skated together.
Courtesy of Frank Hawk.
Courtesy of Tony Hawk.
11: CHEATING
I had other problems besides school. Because I ollied into my tricks, other skaters made fun of me. At Del Mar, when I was skating with my friends, we all had fun and nobody cared, but at a contest it was a different story. A lot of my fellow professionals laughed at me and my new style. There was nothing I could do about it. One skater whom I admired called me a cheater because I ollied into my airs and it made different grabs easier. Stacy told me not to worry what anybody thought. He said I was developing my own style of skating. Even back then he believed I had the potential to create tricks that nobody else could do.
Skating was changing and the emphasis was on tricks. Luckily, I had a lot of those. What I didn’t have was the aggressive style that most other skaters possessed. People started calling me a “robot,” and they didn’t mean it as a compliment. But, on the other hand, a lot of older skaters couldn’t learn enough of the new tricks to keep up with the changing style.
Robot or not, judges at contests appreciated the amount of tricks I could jam into a run, and I won the next pro contest. It took place at Del Mar, which I knew like the back of my hand. Ironically, one of the people I beat was the same pro who had spat at my feet years before. But winning the contest didn’t boost my popularity at school. A local news station did a small story on me, and a classmate who saw it and knew that I skated asked me if I “knew that Tony Hawk who skated at Del Mar.”