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Tony Hawk Profile

  • A legendary skateboarder and the first to ever land a 900 in the X-Games.

  • Tony is the author of the bestselling book Hawk: Occupation: Skateboarder and How Did I Get Here?: The Ascent of an Unlikely CEO.

  • Tony founded The Skatepark Project (formerly the Tony Hawk Foundation), which aims to promote and help finance public skate parks in low-income areas.
  • The most recognized action sports figure in the world, Tony Hawk was just nine-years old when his brother changed his life by giving him a blue fiberglass Bahne skateboard. By 14 he’d turned pro, and by 16 he was widely considered the best skateboarder on earth. He was world champion 12 years in a row and is a 16-time X Games medalist. In 1999, he became the first skater to ever complete a 900, the holy grail of vert skating. Shortly thereafter, he teamed up with Activision to launch Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, now a billion dollar video game franchise. He has created a Tony Hawk brand that includes Birdhouse Skateboards, Hawk Clothing, and the Tony Hawk Signature Series sporting goods and toys. His speaking engagements draw huge crowds, inspiring everyone from media savvy millennials to corporate veterans.

    Tony served as a correspondent at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games for NBC when skateboarding became an Olympic sport for the first time. An intuitive marketer with social networking, Tony’s fan base numbers in the millions on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram. And he recently launched a new podcast co-hosted by Jason Ellis called Hawk vs. Wolf. Tony authored a New York Times bestseller, the bio HAWK—Occupation: Skateboarder, and his book How Did I Get Here? The Ascent of an Unlikely CEO, covers the business side of his career. And in 2022, a biographical documentary film titled Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off by award-winning director Sam Jones debuted on HBO, giving an in-depth look at Tony’s legendary career and personal life. Tony also oversees his own film, television and commercial production company, 900 Films. In 2002, Tony founded The Skatepark Project (formerly the Tony Hawk Foundation), which has given away over $10M to help fund over 650 public skatepark projects throughout the United States that serve over six million visitors a year.

    Tony Hawk Speaking Videos

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    Tony Hawk's Speech Descriptions

    The Benefits of Giving Back

    What happens when your financial success reaches heights you never thought possible from a sport like skateboarding? You give back to the people and the sport while making the world a better place. Listen to legendary skateboarder Tony Hawk discuss how his success on four wheels and his early life as a young skateboarder finding his place in the world became the impetus for the Tony Hawk Foundation and their mission around the world.

    Embracing Technology and Social Media

    Tony Hawk has always been known as a gadget geek, a social media pioneer, and an early adopter of technology. Some people still think he’s just a video game character. Find out how this legendary skateboarder embraced social media early on to great success and used the newest technology to take his brands and his charity work to new places.

    Authenticity Above All Else

    In the world of skateboarding, nothing is held in higher esteem than authenticity. So, how does the sport’s most famous face walk the fine line between authenticity and “selling out?” Legendary skateboarder Tony Hawk walks the walk every day as he continues to be the face of the sport he loves, while managing his successful business empire and award winning charitable foundation.

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    “The event was extremely successful and Tony was incredible. He was truly the highlight of the event and was a pleasure to work with.”
    – Humbleriot | The Infatuation

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    Books by Tony Hawk:

    How Did I Get Here?: The Ascent of an Unlikely CEO

    The most famous skateboarder ever shares the business secrets to his success!
    He’s the man who put skateboarding on the map. He’s the first to land a 900 (two and a half full rotations). He’s also among the richest pitchmen in any sport. And, in a sport that’s especially youth-oriented, Tony Hawk, a 40-something father of four, still connects with his audience by staying true to who he is.

    Moving easily between the ramp and the boardroom, Tony currently runs one of the most acclaimed action sports companies, a clothing line, and video game series bearing his name that has sold over $1 billion worldwide, making it the biggest selling action sports game franchise in game history. He has secured endorsement deals with major brands such as McDonalds, Intel, T-Mobile and Kohl’s; started the Boom Boom HuckJam action sports tour; and achieved worldwide acclaim from the ESPN X Games.

    Filled with Tony’s typical modesty and humor, How Did I Get Here? tells the amazing story behind Tony Hawk’s unprecedented success from skateboarder to CEO, and the secrets behind his lasting appeal. You’ll find out how authenticity has served him well in all his achievements. You’ll also understand how his story has shaped many of his fundamental values, including his huge desire to win and his strong sense of realism.




    Hawk: Occupation: Skateboarder

    For Tony Hawk, it wasn’t enough to skate for two decades, to invent more than eighty tricks, and to win more than twice as many professional contests as any other skater.It wasn’t enough to knock himself unconscious more than ten times, fracture several ribs, break his elbow, knock out his teeth twice, compress the vertebrae in his back, pop his bursa sack, get more than fifty stitches laced into his shins, rip apart the cartilage in his knee, bruise his tailbone, sprain his ankles, and tear his ligaments too many times to count.No.He had to land the 900. And after thirteen years of failed attempts, he nailed it. It had never been done before.

    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 his tricks. 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.

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