Tony Hawk: To Air is Divine

NOW THAT HE'S ELEVATED SKATEBOARDING FROM RENEGADE TO RESPECTABLE, TONY "BIRDMAN" HAWK IS DEVOTED TO SPREADING THE SPORT'S GOOD WORD TO EVERY NEIGHBORHOOD.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROBYN TWOMEY

Tony "Birdman" Hawk flies from a pool rim

THE ORIGINS OF SKATEBOARDING as we know it date back to the late 1970s, when a historic drought befell Southern California. At the behest of the state, suburbanites were asked to sacrifice and, in the name of conservation, endure a scorching hot summer without the respite of private swimming pools. These cement lagoons went bone dry and, pretty soon, scores of suntanned teens found a new use for them. Like a jam session on polyurethane, concrete-bound surfers started trading fours in these once tranquil pleasure ponds. Skateboarding, quite literally, went vertical, and shortly thereafter it caught air.

More than 30 years later, drenched in the same Southern California sun that helped create the sport, Tony Hawk carves his own backyard pool, neatly tucked away in the hills north of San Diego. You might think Hawk, at 41 years old, would rather be lounging on a float, his feet dangling in the water, than soaring above dry and unforgiving cement on nothing more than four plastic wheels and a piece of wood. Well, the "Birdman" can take a swim too if he likes. Just a few steps away is another pool, this one filled with water. It's one of those haute design jobs meant to appear as if it formed naturally - something more akin to a grotto than a man-made swimming hole. Robin Leach would definitely approve. But Hawk couldn't care less about the usual trappings of the rich and famous. He would much rather show off his skate bowl.

After a frontside air and a couple of smith grinds, Hawk ollies out of a 2-foot vertical extension on the southwestern edge of the in-ground structure. Dressed in a teal-blue shirt, jeans and a matte black helmet atop ruffled blond hair, you wouldn't know he was closer to middle age than adolescence; the only thing showing his years is the fact that he's now using his skateboard as a cane, leaning over it and panting in an effort to catch his breath.

"You see this?" He points to a palm tree on his left. "The bowl was supposed to extend to here, but the neighbors said it would be an eyesore."

Hawk rolls his eyes dismissively at the house just beyond his ivy-covered border fence, and drops back in for another run. And just in case they missed the body language, he's mischievously named his Wi-Fi network "eat poo." After all the media-blown X Games events, the McDonald's Happy Meal toys and the billion-dollar video game franchise, it's nice to know the old skate credo from the Day-Glo '80s is alive and well in the Birdman's backyard: "Skateboarding," as the old bumper sticker declared, "Is Not a Crime."

Skateboarding has come a long way since its outsider days, when punk T-shirt-clad kids with bangs over their eyes were shooed from mini-mall and convenience store parking lots. Now, some of those same disaffected teens are competing on ESPN, starring in their own MTV reality shows, and getting sponsored by the likes of Reebok and Nike. And they all have Tony Hawk to thank. Hawk is the sport's most accomplished competitor, its top ambassador and, undoubtedly, its biggest name.

YOU DON'T NEED TO KNOW what a stale-fish grab is to know the name Tony Hawk. He has guest starred on "The Simpsons," skated the halls of the White House and has been named the third-most influential athlete by Forbes.com, behind only Tiger Woods and Lance Armstrong. Skew the metric to include only the coveted youth demographic, and Hawk leaves the others in the dust. Tony Hawk Inc., the company under which Hawk pursues his business ventures, generates an estimated $300 million annually on the strength of Hawk-branded items ranging from skateboards, shoes, apparel, cell phones and toys to his own line of bedding, vitamins and amusement park rides.

In a sport that doubles as a subculture proud of its nonconformist roots, his success is more than enough to elicit cries of, "Sellout!"

"That's just kids in a chat room," argues professional skate-boarder Jesse Fritsch, of people hating on Hawk. "Talk to most respected pros, even the core street dudes, and they know that skateboarding wouldn't be where it is today without Tony Hawk. Those pros know they might not have a job. Not to mention that he's a super big businessman, yet he still skates every single day. How could you not respect that?"

"Every professional skateboarder has a debt of gratitude for the doors that Tony Hawk has opened," adds Andy McDonald, who's won six gold medals with Hawk in X Games doubles competitions. "Without Tony, it would be harder for professional skateboarders to make a living."

Ask Hawk himself how he reconciles all the endorsement deals with skateboarding's rebel roots, and the answer is simple:

"I was always out to spread the word," he says. "It was never my creed to keep skateboarding this underground activity that no one understood. I loved the culture that came with it - the punk rock, the hairdos, and the graphics and stuff - but I always thought there was something more to skating that people weren't seeing. I wanted people to appreciate how great the physical aspect of skating is, and not just disregard it for its eccentricities. "

In November, Hawk takes that mission one step further with the release of Tony Hawk: Ride, his 12th video game title in a decade. A bona fide bestseller, the Hawk video game series has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide and is largely credited with skate-boarding's popularity boom in the 21st century.

Says McDonald, "[Hawk's video games] really did a lot to establish this base of skateboard fans, where now there are people into skateboarding who don't necessarily skateboard themselves."

Ride aims to further bridge the gap between casual fan and skater, revolutionizing the game play by taking the controls out of the player's hands, and placing them under the feet, in the form of a wireless skateboard controller. No doubt, Ride will do for the casual skateboard fan what Guitar Hero did for the casual rock fan.

"It's what Tony had in mind when we started working together more than 10 years ago," says Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision, the video game company that publishes the Hawk series. "Through it all, he's always gotten people thinking about how to deliver a more authentic skateboarding experience."

Hawk's efforts to "spread the word" aren't limited to his apparent mastery of the free market system. Since 2002, Hawk has spent the majority of his time on the Tony Hawk Foundation, which raises funds for high-quality public skateparks throughout the US with a focus on low-income neighborhoods. Most recently, Hawk helped open a skatepark in the middle of Compton, the gang-infested Los Angeles neighborhood better known for its Crips and Bloods than kickflips and railslides. To date, the foundation has helped open 450 skateparks across the country, and next month, Hawk will host his annual charity event, Stand Up for Skateparks, at business magnate Ron Burkle's estate in Beverly Hills, with an additional event in Las Vegas.

Earlier in the day, while at Tony Hawk Inc. HQ, 20 minutes east of his home, the Birdman tirelessly brainstorms ways to raise money for the foundation. In between posing for an ESPN magazine photo shoot and scrutinizing the graphics on a new line of skateboards ("Looks kind of cheese," a vice president for Hawk's Birdhouse Skateboards inputs), Hawk busies himself on his cell phone trying to drum up support for a new fundraising idea. His plan is to auction off "fantasy experiences" to the highest bidder.

"Here's an idea," Hawk says. "I'll pick the person up at LAX in my souped-up 600-horsepower Jeep, then we'll go to the X Games, and they can sit in the booth while I commentate. Then, it's off to dinner at one of those paparazzi restaurants like Koi or Ivy. I already got [comedian and movie star] Tom Green to agree to go to dinner with us."

The person on the other end of the phone is Rodney Mullen, the skateboarding guru who invented the ollie, the basis for most skateboarding maneuvers today. Mullen appeared in the cult-classic skater film The Search for Animal Chin with Hawk back in 1987. Another one of Hawk's "fantasy experiences" involves reuniting the cast from Chin. The auction winner would get to spend a day skateboarding with the original Bones Brigade.

"Mike McGill, Lance Mountain and Steve Caballero are down," Hawk says. "How much do you think people would pay for that?"

AS EASY AS HAWK IS with his celebrity, he knows it's valuable and is not going to let it go to waste. He truly appreciates his fame - and even remembers the moment he realized he had become a celebrity: "Someone told me that a local barber shop had a sign out front that said 'Tony Hawk Haircuts' (otherwise known as 'skater bangs')," he says. "That was somewhere around '86 or '87. Back then it just seemed novelty. It didn't seem like something that would outlast that time and place."

For Hawk, the skateboarding experience is a transcendent thing, not to be hoarded by a minority of ramp-heads in suburban California. If he can trade on his star status to raise money for his cause, why not?