If you've ever wanted to know what it's like to be a pro, read this book. I don't mean how to get a board with your name on it, but what it really takes to earn the title. There was a time when turning pro was much harder than today, when skateboarding was virtually invisible outside the skate parks. Only a handful of of top skaters held the title. Hawk was one of them. "I can't remember being super hyped that day and jumping around with a massive smile stuck on my face. When I told my parents I turned pro, they said, `that's nice.`"..................................... He's also the only pro from the 1980s to continually skate pro, and is oneof te sports primary innovators. He's lived the life for almost 2 decades, and has seen everything that has happened to skateboarding from that unique advantage of his. No one in the sport has lived quite the life he has experienced as much, from competing, to running a company, to raising a family.......................... In Hawk: Occupation: Skateboarder, he delve into all of it from the high points ( The best part of [Tony Hawk's Pro Skater] was getting to sit in front of the tv playing video games and I was working.) To the downright dregs to the death of his father, or the time he was to sick to skate a demo in Brazil. The place was packed with over 4000 fans who turned into an angry mob. They started chanting (Son of a b***h at me in Portuguese while I attemped to explain my situation. (Commented Hawk) Ah, the perks of a pro skater.......................................... One of Hawk's personal and professional highlights, he writes, was the night he pulled off the 900. The book's beginning descibes that fateful night last year at the X-Games in San Francisco, as do the final chapters. Everyone else had stopped skating, "I began thinking, since the time limit was up, I wasn't going to win the best trick with a 9 score, but it wasn't about the contest anymore."............................................. If your sick of hearing about it, just read the middle. You'll learn just how unlikely an athlete he was, and how a love for skateboarding that pushed him to overcome his skinniess. "My arms and legs poked out of my safety pads, I continue to wear elbo pads as knee pads like malnourished twigs. I was so weak at the time, I couldn't do a handstand."........................................... Hawk: Occupation Skateboader is a story of how a kid became a champion, an icon, and a mainstream media superstar-----all in pursuit of fun. Written with longtime friend Sean Mortimer, the book reads like a confession and testimonial in which hawk admits his shortcomings. " Even though I'd made an effort to adapt to different terrain, I would always be known as a circus skater, with the robot style, who could only win at Del-Mar." An gives credit where he feels i's do: "Rodney Mullen fiured out how to ollie on ground, an street skating wouldn't exist without the ollie. Every time you ollie, You should get on your knees and thak Rodney or take him out to eat if you see him skating in LA............................................... Wherever possible, Hawk seems to steer the narrative way away from himself to discuss his family and community of skateboarding friends, the things they did, the places they hang out, and the sport they love. Some day maybe another pro will have a chance to write a memoir about all the significant things they did in the lives and careers, but I can't imagine a personal history more relevant than Hawk's. He's probably stating somewhere right now, doing something extreme, setting some milestone that's as relevant as any of his accompishments chronicled in Hawk................................................. I just hope he's taking notes for part 2.
