Tony Hawk has long been an idol to many a skateboarder.
For two decades he was at the peak of the profession, inventing
more than 80 tricks and winning twice as many contests as any
other skater. I'm not a skateboarder, but reading Tony Hawk's
autobiography almost makes me wish I had been at some point
in my life. I say "almost," because the accounts of
his injuries certainly give me pause. Regardless of whether
you're a skateboarding fan or as ignorant as I was about the
sport, this is a fun book to read.
Unlike many celebrities, who tend to blame their
troubles on bad parenting, Tony begins his autobiography by
confessing that he was a "demon boy" to his parents,
a "hyper, rail-thin geek on a sugar buzz" who knew
exactly how to push his dad's buttons. His high energy was matched
by a high IQ (144 - "gifted"), which led one teacher
to comment that he had the brain of a 12-year-old in an 8-year-old
body. As a result, he was bored and fidgety in class, that is,
until he was moved to advanced classes with older kids and saw
the teacher whack another misbehaving student on the head. Then
he quickly repented of his disruptive ways and went back to
his earlier teacher, ready to behave. Despite his early bad-boy
antics, this book is in many ways a tribute to his parents,
who admired Tony's tenacity and made sacrifices so that he could
reach his goals.
One of the things that makes a good autobiography
is a willingness to tell the unvarnished truth, describing one's
failures as well as one's successes. Readers over the age of
12 may wonder at the author's decision to include descriptions
of some "fart" incidents and other practical jokes
the skaters played on each other, but overall, he's done an
admirable job. In his introduction, he gives his account of
the high point of his career, landing a 900 (the most difficult
of skateboarding tricks) at the 1999 X Games. He then goes on
to relate the events that preceded this, many of them discouraging:
being a social outcast in high school, the inadequacy he felt
when he joined his first skate team, his disappointment at winning
contests at a time when the public no longer cared about skateboarding,
and the break-up of his first marriage.
Tony's career ebbed and flowed with the ups and
downs of skateboarding's popularity, but he showed a remarkable
ability to adapt, financially and emotionally, to circumstances
so that he could stick with the sport he loved. At a time when
professional athletes whine about multimillion dollar contracts
and threaten to sit out games if their coach says something
they don't like, Tony's attitude and example are indeed refreshing.
Buy Hawk
: Occupation : Skateboarder at Amazon.com
