Hawk: Occupation: Skateboarder
by Tony Hawk

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Book Reviews of Hawk: Occupation: Skateboarder

Book Review: Thanks, Tony . . .
Summary: 4 Stars

For 15 years I have admired Hawk, both as an amazing individual and as a link to my past. "Hawk - Occupation: Skateboarder" is a well written memoir that illustrates both the man and the when/where/how of his growth as both a person and a legend of his sport.

Hawk's involvement in the Big 80s boom of skateboarding cannot be understated - and the fact that he weathered the subsequent Great Depression of the sport and emerged a better skater *and* a better person for it illustrates his great character.

The book is lots of fun too, because it serves as an inadvertent time capsule of what life was like in the 80s for Tony and dozens of other skaters: bleached bangs hanging over their eyes while crashing into the popular conscience, riding the back bumper of the Hollywood-mobile and onto movie screens across America, and jet-setting across Europe & Japan - all the while sporting 2 Swatches on one arm and decked out in hot pink Jams shorts. Awesome!

But just as important as the movie sets, the demos in Tokyo and the goofing off in Switzerland is *the* picture of 80s California skate culture: the backyard ramp jams. Half a dozen friends hanging out in the hot sun, cooling off with cold Cokes and chowing on some good BBQ. At the age of 25, I will still admit to being very very jealous.

And hell, when those friends happen to all have their names on T-Shirts, their own signature skate decks and are mobbed at shopping malls . . well that makes for an interesting life and times. "Hawk - Occupation: Skateboarder" does a wonderful job of showing this life, as well as the bottoming out of that mentality and lifestyle in the early 90s - skating's Dark Ages.

Tony's - and skateboarding's - slow and wildly successful recovery from that period is every bit as interesting and meaningful as the Big Years (albeit with more lessons learned and hardships endured). All great heroes need to suffer a little to battle back, and Tony's reflections on his various personal and professional setbacks are honest and real.

Today, in the Here and Now, I have the great pleasure of watching my boyhood idol live a happy and successful life - at the top of his career and with the love of a beautiful family. Starting my own little family has given me the pleasure of sharing one more cool thing with my hero - marriage and fatherhood. "Hawk - Occupation: Skateboarder" is an intelligent, well done biography that will satisfy fans and enlighten those who may not realize that a Legend (aka: Cool, Normal Guy) walks among us - when he's not floating and spinning several feet above , that is.

Summary of Hawk: Occupation: Skateboarder

Growing up in Sierra Mesa, California, Tony was a hyperactive demon child with an I44 IQ. He threw tantrums, terrorized the nanny until she quit, exploded with rage whenever he lost a game; this was a kid who was expelled from "preschool," When his brother, Steve, gave him a blue plastic hand-me-down skateboard and his father built a skate ramp in the driveway, Tony finally found his outlet--while skating, he could be as hard on himself as he was on everyone around him.

But it wasn't an easy ride to the top of the skating game. Fellow skaters mocked his skating style and dubbed him a circus skater. He was so skinny he had to wear elbow pads on his knees, and so light he had to ollie just to catch air off a ramp. He was so desperate to be accepted by young skating legends like Steve Caballero, Mike McGill, and Christian Hosoi that he ate gum from between Steve's toes. But a few years of determination and hard work paid off in multiple professional wins, and the skaters who once had mocked him were now trying to learn histricks. Tony had created a new style of skating.

In "Hawk" Tony goes behind the scenes of competitions, demos, and movies and shares the less glamorous demands of being a skateboarder--from skating on Italian TV wearing see-through plastic shorts to doing a demo in Brazil after throwing up for five days straight from food poisoning. He's dealt with teammates who lit themselves and other subjects on fire, driving down a freeway as the dashboard of their van burned. He's gone through the unpredictable ride of the skateboard industry during which, in the span of a few years, his annual income shrank to what he had made in a single month and then rebounded into seven figures. But Tony's greatest difficulty was dealing with the loss of his number one fan and supporter--his dad, Frank Hawk.

With brutal honesty, Tony recalls the stories of love, loss, bad hairdos, embarrassing '80s clothes, and his determination that had shaped his life. As he takes a look back at his experiences with the skateboarding legends of the '70s, '80s, and '90s, including Stacy Peralta, Eddie Elguera, Lance Mountain, Mark Gonzalez, Bob Burnquist, and Colin Mckay, he tells the real history of skateboarding--and also what the future has in store for the sport and for him.

Biographies & Memoirs Books

• Subjects > Biographies & Memoirs
• Sports & Outdoors > Biographies
• Individual Sports > Skateboarding