Frank Hawk founded the California Amateur Skateboard League in 1980 and the National Skateboarding Association (NSA) in 1983. His father was a regular part of Hawk's skateboarding life, driving Tony all over California to various skateboard competitions, and building countless skate ramps over the years. He was sponsored by the Dogtown skateboard company at age twelve, placing second overall in his first contest, and continuing to compete respectably.īoth of Hawk's parents were supportive of their son's athletic passion. Even if he won, he would banish himself to his room with his cat, Zorro, if he felt he had not skated his best. ![]() Still, his perfectionist nature plagued him once he started competing in 1980. Finding something he was good at calmed him down, which his mother appreciated. He became obsessed with his narrow Bahne board, and quickly became proficient riding it. Hawk found an outlet for his hyperactivity in a skateboard that his brother gave him when he was nine years old. He once had to be coaxed out of a forest by his father after striking out in baseball. While Hawk's parents had aged into a relaxed style of childrearing, their youngest child was a self-described, high-strung "demon boy." He also was a gifted child who was pathologically determined and hard on himself when he could not achieve what he set out to do. Frank Hawk was a veteran of World War II and the Korean War, and Nancy Hawk took classes at night, eventually earning her doctorate. Hawk's two sisters were already in college when he was born and his brother was a teenager. Hawk was an accident his parents were both in their mid-forties when he came into the world on May 12, 1968, in San Diego, California. He quit competing in 1999 after landing the first-ever "900" -which is two-and-a-half mid-air spins on the board. In seventeen years as a professional skateboarder, Hawk has invented more than eighty tricks and competed in an estimated 103 contests, winning seventy-three and placing second in nineteen. ![]() The California native was instrumental in the evolution of skateboarding from the preppy recreation of the 1960s to the daring and extreme test of physical limits and mental creativity it has become. From his first turns on a board at age nine, Hawk has consistently challenged physics, gravity, and his own body by accomplishing astonishing acts on a piece of wood attached to four wheels. Tony Hawk is considered one of the greatest skateboarders in the history of the sport.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |