Tony Hawk: Skateboarding Gives People a Sense of Community

Well skateboarding too, it's almost like some people would think of it as a frivolous activity. Sure. You know, it's like glorious results of a misspent youth if you know how to flip around a skateboard. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it's funny, when I first started, I have a foundation for public skate parks. We've been going 20 years actually. How does that work? Really well. We basically give communities the resources to get a park going. If someone in the community has started a petition or fundraising or just raising awareness that they need a park, we sort of give them the roadmap to do that and funding to do it. Oh, that's amazing. And, you know, design help and things like that. So it's been great. We've helped to fund over 900 skate parks now, all 50 states. We've given away almost $10 million. That's incredible. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely my proudest work. That's so cool. When I started it, there was a point where we were trying to get funding and trying to raise awareness. And I'm doing visits to children's cancer wards and stuff like that. And at some point I was like, I'm trying to build skate parks. And I remember this conversation I had very vividly actually with Lance Armstrong when and this is when he was the face of cancer research. You know what I mean? It was all about his competitive career, but he did so much for cancer awareness and research. And I'm visiting Children's Hospital with Lance Armstrong. And when Lance Armstrong walks into a cancer ward back then, like the C's part, you know what I mean? It was just like this. It was like, oh, he's here. And I remember having lunch with him that day. And I was like, it's so weird to be with you. You're doing so much for cancer and cancer victims. And I'm just trying to build playgrounds. Yeah, like concrete waves. And he said, look, the number one cause of cancer or number two cause of cancer in the US is obesity. And by building those skate parks, you are preventing cancer. You're preventing obesity. And that was heavy for me. That is heavy. And it really gave me a lot of inspiration and a lot more motivation. Were you creating a potential place for joy? Right. And for people to like-minded people to hang out, to develop a community. When I was a kid, I felt like an outcast. I felt like I didn't belong in sports. I didn't belong in my school. And when I went to the skate park and there was this band of misfits listening to punk music and weird hairdos from all walks of life, I was like, this is it. This is my crew. And I want the same sense of community for, you know, we're not trying to build training grounds for Olympians. We're just trying to build a place for them to feel like they belong and feel like their community actually cares about them. Yeah. And it is a loved pursuit. Even though it's had these weird views, like people have had weird views about it. If you think about how many people love it and how it requires this sort of a place, like what you're creating to really do it right. And nowadays, it's way different now. The sort of perspective on skating or the attitude towards skating is that parents are doing it with their kids. Little girls are encouraged to try it. And that just wasn't the case when I was a kid. I think it's because of you in a lot of ways. Oh, well, thank you. I mean, I was always happy to at least advocate for skating and try to explain to people like this has a real positive impact on kids. You're too focused on the hairdos and the music and stuff. You got to really look at what it provides someone's mentality. Yeah. But that's always been the case with things that kids do that their parents didn't do. How many parents told their kids to stop playing video games and now kids are literally making millions of dollars playing video games and parents have to kind of make this adjustment like, okay. Yeah. Okay. So I think the generation of parents now grew up at a time when skating was starting to be cool. Yeah. Okay. And so either they're encouraging of their kids skating or they're actually skating with them. That's awesome. That's got to make you feel good. It is very cool. It has a real impact on the thing that you love. Yeah. I mean, the coolest part is for me is that I still get to participate and I get to bear witness to all this.