Former Professional Gets Back Up After Failing
Anthony Frank Hawk, born on May 12, 1968, was an American professional skateboarder and is considered one of the greatest and most influential skateboarders in history. Throughout his life, he made countless mistakes but even though they were failures, he never gave up.
Even for the world’s best-known skaters, Hawk has fallen down and has made mistakes innumerable times regardless of his skill. One example to demonstrate this is landing the ‘900’. The ‘900’ is a skateboarding trick that is constructed by two and a half mid-air turns. This took Hawk many years to accomplish and required a lot of ability. When the pressure was on, he tried eleven times on a ramp before making his twelfth attempt. To skateboard, Hawk says, “you learn to fall by default,” which means you have to be willing to make a mistake.
Tony got his first even skateboard at nine years o,ld and at twelve, he was already engaging in amateur competitions all over California. When Hawk was only 14, he checked off a box saying ‘pro’ instead of ‘amateur’ on the Powell Peralta form which announced that he was a professional. When he was 16, he was already declared one of the best skaters in the world. And at 25 years old, he had competed in 103 professional contests. Throughout those 103 contests, he won 73 and placed second in 19. Lastly, he won the title of the National Skateboard Association World champion for 12 successive years.
On June 27, 1999, Tony Hawk landed the first-ever ‘900’, making history. Hawk said that the day he landed this trick was “the best day of my life.” That same year, he retired from professional skateboarding but still came to the X Games, a freestyle sports competition, until the year 2003, when he then retired from performing. Exactly 17 years later from landing the ‘900’, on June 27, 2016, at the age of 48, he landed what he said was his last ‘900’
One very memorable moment for Hawk was on June 2009 Father’s Day. Here, President Barack Obama invited Hawk to skate in the hallways of the Old Executive Office Building on White House grounds. This was the first time anyone had even ridden a skateboard on the White House grounds with permission from officials. He was then included in the Hall of Fame.
Overall, Anthony Frank Hawk was one of the best skateboarders, even with all of the failures he encountered along the way. So, if you are going to participate in skateboarding as well as other hobbies, you have to be willing to take risks and not let them stop you.