Tony Hawk

He is doing a japan air

My hero is Tony Hawk and he has given me the inspiration to skateboarding but he skates vert. I would rather skate street.

He is in 7th Grade

Tony Hawk was nine years old when his brother changed his life by giving him a blue fiberglass banana board. Before skateboarding Hawk was a self-described nightmare. "Instead of the terrible twos, I was the terrible youth," he said. "I was a hyper, rail-thin geek on a sugar buzz. I think my mom summed it up best when she said, 'challenging.'" He was also pathologically determined. When Tony was six his mom took him to an Olympic size pool. "He decided that he had to swim the length of it without a breath. And then he was so frustrated when he didn't do it," his mom, Nancy, remembers. "He was so hard on himself and expected himself to do so many things." Another time Tony struck out in baseball and was so distraught that he hid in a ravine and had to be "physically coaxed out" by his father. His frustration with himself was so harsh that his parents had him psychologically evaluated at school. The results were that Tony was "gifted," and school advisors recommended placing him in advanced classes. The root of his frustrations was uncovered as well: "The psychologist said he had a 12-year old mind in an 8-year old body," his Mom recalls. "And his mind tells him he can do things his body can't do." Luckily, for those around, Tony's brother, Steve, supplied the answer to his sibling's brain/body problem-he gave him a skateboard. Tony started goofing around on the thin Bahne board, and his body finally caught up with his brain. "When he started getting good at skating it changed his personality. Finally he was doing something that he was satisfied with," Steve said. "He became a different guy; he was calm, he started thinking about other people and became more generous. He wasn't so worried about losing at other things-he wasn't as competitive at Pac Man as he had been." His mother agrees with a laugh, "I was just glad he was taking all his energy out on skateboarding and not on me." But Tony was still beating himself up. If he didn't skate his best in a contest-even if he won-he would be silent, and when he arrived home he'd take his trusty cat Zorro up to his room to be by himself. "If I don't do my best it kills me," he lamented.

Tony Hawk was born in Carlsbad,CA and his hometown is San Diego, he also married .

Tony Hawk was born on June 12,1986 and is alive now. Tony Hawk is 6'2" and 170 pounds.

He is important to me because he inspired me to start skateboarding but not vert. He also can inspire me to start and take care of my own family with a lovely wife. That is why I chose Tony Hawk to be my hero.