How Did I Get Here (17 page)

Five hours later we secure the van (the ACTUAL movie prop). That JUST happened thanks to Natalie at Fox. I love it when a plan comes together.

Dear media outlets and event organizers: I am not your link to Shaun White. He will not magically appear in my presence. Sincerely, Tony.

My 10-year-old’s review of an English park: “This is the sketchiest playground EVER! It’s AWESOME!” Lack of liability laws = fun for kids.

When asked what tattoo he would ever consider getting, my 10-year-old paused & said: “The words ‘Does this make me look fat?’ on my belly.”

Me to my ultra-finicky 11-yr-old: “What would it take to try new food?” Him: “What can I ask for?” Me: “Whatever.” Him: “Half of California.”

Waterboarding is so 2006. Getting kicked in the head by a squirming toddler all night is the new torture.

Kid at skatepark: “You met my grandma Karen one time! Do you remember her?” Me: “Not exactly, sorry.” Him: “Was she wearing a pink shirt?”

Don’t you hate it when a baby is loud & squirming an entire overseas flight? You could never be “those” people. We have become those people.

12

GIVING BACK

Family, friends, Regis, and a very smart fifth-grader help me build a charity

In 2001, I got invited to do a demo at the grand opening of a public skatepark near Chicago. The community that invited me was affluent—they could afford to fly in a celebrity skater from California as part of their opening-day fanfare. I arrived the day before the big event, and they asked if I wanted to ride the park that afternoon, alone. I jumped at the chance, figuring I’d give it a test run before I skated the place in front of a crowd.

The park, unfortunately, was a joke—a nonsensical arrangement of poorly constructed obstacles. There was no sense of flow: A set of stairs abutted a bank, so if you ollied down the stairs, you’d run into the bank, and if you rode down the bank, you’d slam into the stairs. The ledges were six inches high instead of the standard two feet. And there was a bizarre, narrow, winding sidewalk with tiny unrideable berms on either side. It felt like the park had been designed by someone who knew nothing about skateboarding, and had been built by whatever sidewalk contractor happened to make the lowest bid.

I rolled around the place for a while, blowing easy tricks, trying to find a zone where I could actually do some real skating. After a while, I just gave up.

Some of the parks-and-recreation officials approached and asked me how I liked their new facility. I didn’t to want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but I also didn’t want to lie. I said, “Honestly? It’s pretty bad.”

And they said: “You know what? That’s what all the local kids have been saying. But we told them, ‘Just wait until Tony Hawk gets here.
He’ll
show you how to ride it.’”

Because of my failed test flight, they decided to bring in a vert ramp to make sure I’d have something to skate for the big demo the next day. After I was finished, they carted away the ramp and gave the kids their crappy skatepark.

Back home, as I started telling this story to friends, it occurred to me that I was in a position to help stop such foolishness from recurring—to fix the ongoing disconnect between the people in positions to build public skateparks and the kids who ride them.

Skateboarding was going through an upswing in popularity at the time, and this one looked like it would stick. The X Games and my video game had introduced skating to a whole new market: spectators. People who’d never stepped foot on a skateboard were now stopping pros like Bob Burnquist and Andy Macdonald on the street, asking for autographs.

More significantly, young kids were buying skateboards like never before; there were more than 12 million skateboarders in the United States in 2001, but only about 2,000 skateparks. And a lot of those parks were bad—as I’d just learned firsthand outside Chicago.

I also knew that many communities were resistant to building any kind of skatepark. The impoverished ones couldn’t afford it. Others were worried about liability. And some feared a skatepark would attract too many punks.

But here’s the thing: Kids are going to skate whether or not civic leaders create a place for them to do it. So they end up skating in spots that city officials or school administrators or local business owners have deemed off-limits. That means youngsters who’d never before been in serious trouble suddenly find themselves getting ticketed or arrested or suspended—simply because they want to pursue a sport that they’re passionate about. And once a kid gets on the wrong side of the law, for whatever reason, his world can speed downhill.

Doing the Charitable Thing

At this point, my video game was doing very well, and I was making more money than I’d ever imagined. So I approached my family about the idea of starting a charity to help build public skateparks in low-income areas. Pat thought it was a great idea. My brother Steve agreed to do the paperwork to get it started, write the grant application, and then work part-time as executive director until it got off the ground. My name was more recognizable than ever at that point, so we decided to call it the Tony Hawk Foundation.

We put together a board that included the three of us, my other sister Lenore, and a trio of people with expertise we needed: Kim Novick, then development director for the Surfrider Foundation, who knew all about charitable fundraising and creating programs; Miki Vuckovich, an old friend and longtime skate-mag editor who had experience lobbying for municipal skateparks; and Pierce Flynn, former executive director of the Surfrider Foundation, who had actually run a nonprofit.

Our first order of business was to craft a mission statement. This was what we came up with: “The Tony Hawk Foundation seeks to foster lasting improvements in society, with an emphasis on helping children. Through grants and other charitable donations, the Foundation supports programs focusing on the creation of public skateboard parks, and other causes. The Foundation favors programs that clearly demonstrate that funds received will produce tangible, ongoing, positive results.”