Happy Birthday Tony Hawk! 54 Years Of Career Highlights
This year has already been one to remember for the man who is reminded every single day “Hey has anyone ever told you, you look like Tony Hawk?” Already this year he has seen the release of a documentary about his life by HBO called ‘Tony Hawk: Until The Wheels Fall Off’, presented an award at the Oscars and all whilst managing to recover from a broken leg and was back skating within 3 weeks.
So with the Birdman celebrating his 54th Birthday on May 12th we are going to take a quick look back at some of his many impressive career highlights.
Tony Hawk started skateboarding at age 9 which his mom recognised as being a great way of burning through all the extra energy he had as a child, by 11 Tony was already entering into competitions. Tony became one of the founding team riders for the Bones Brigade managed by Stacy Peralta who recognised Tony’s talent from the early competitions.
After turning pro and experiencing financial success with the sales of his signature boards skateboarding began to wane in popularity in the early 90’s which led to many skateboarders branching out and setting up their own skate companies. Tony Hawk set up Birdhouse Skateboards with fellow Bones Brigade alumni Per Welinder in 1992 and the company struggled for the next few years until The X Games debuted in 1995 which reinvigorated skateboarding for a whole new generation.
It was during this time that Tony Hawk transitioned from a pro skateboarder to a skateboarding legend and provided Tony with a place to showcase his undeniable talent. Out of the 17 X Games Tony participated in he amassed 16 medals, ten of them being gold. The trick that truly cemented himself in the history books was landing the first “900” at the X Games in 1999. In September of 1999 another massive career highlight would happen for Tony Hawk with the release of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.
The game had a really quick turn around starting development in 1998 but by bringing on Tony Hawk he was able to influence the tricks and playable characters included in the game ensuring they all received royalties from the game and were able to choose their tricks and clothes captured in game. The game was released to critical acclaim and was a massive success. The gameplay was praised for being the best representation of skateboarding and the soundtrack is still lauded as being one of the best game soundtracks of all time.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater’s success led to a healthy franchise of sequels and made Tony Hawk a household name worldwide. During this time Tony also set up the Tony Hawk Foundation in 2002 in response to the lack of safe and legal skateparks in America and has helped to provide funding and assistance to 596 skatepark projects.
Tony Hawk truly has been one of the best ambassadors for skateboarding from being officially allowed to skate at the whitehouse when he met Barack Obama in 2009 to leading the charge for the skateboard emoji to look like a proper skateboard which is now modelled on his own board. Whilst Tony has officially “retired” from competitive skateboarding (even though he briefly suspended his retirement to compete in the 2021 X Games best Vert Trick competition) he still lives and breathes the sport and is a guiding hand and inspiration for future generations of skateboarding to come.
