Sports Roundup by Various Sports Writers

By Tim Sullivan

VISTA, Calif. — Tony Hawk reached the top of the ramp before his skateboard went airborne. He lingered there just long enough to flout gravity, then reached down and planted himself upside down at the precipice.

Three times in jaw-slackening succession Wednesday, the world's oldest adolescent executed a one-handed "eggplant" handstand without losing his balance or his board.

Kid stuff, he claimed.

"That's a very old trick," Hawk said, "but some of the new guys haven't tried to learn it. I've been doing it for 30 years. For me, it's second nature."

Ten years since his crowning competitive achievement — a revolutionary 21Ú2-rotation leap known as a "900" — Tony Hawk has learned to dare in different ways. Now 41, the Sultan of Shredding commands a corporate empire built on video games, skateboard equipment and apparel, a signature line of roller coasters, and the Boom Boom Huckjam action sports tour.

His personal risks, consequently, have grown more calculated.

"I don't try to land something brand new unless I know I have all of the pieces in place," he said. "When I get hurt, it takes me a little longer to get over it. I can't shake it off and go back out there."

His repertoire Wednesday, then, was not designed to push extreme envelopes so much as it was to reprise his catalog of greatest hits. Tony Hawk knows his limits and his audience and he knows that he need not overreach in order to hold people in the palm of his hand.

Though he no longer competes professionally, Hawk has become so successful, so synonymous with his sport and so familiar a face that he was invited to skateboard at the White House last week and appears (on the drums) in the current "Guitar Hero World Tour" video game commercial with Kobe Bryant, Alex Rodriguez and Michael Phelps.

Wednesday's show was staged at the request of the Make-A-Wish Foundation and ESPN as a cross-country dream fulfillment for the family of 12-year-old Jamarkus Poole, a Floridian afflicted with cystic fibrosis. Hawk invited several prominent skateboarders to his corporate headquarters/skatepark for a combination performance/pizza party.

Later, Hawk enlisted Poole to make a test run of a forthcoming video game in his office adjoining his recording studio.

"Can you do that?" the guest asked his host upon completing a complex maneuver from atop a skateboard simulator.

"Yes, I can," Hawk admitted.

"Not as good as me?" the boy persisted.

"No way," Hawk said, smiling.

For Tony Hawk, that which can't be done is a moving target.

Skateboard moves he once regarded as "impossible" have since been accomplished. But as the degree of difficulty increases, so does the danger.

A partial inventory of Hawk's medical issues would include numerous concussions, a cracked skull, a fractured pelvis, two knee surgeries and a pair of screws in his elbow. Though he dislikes performing "half-assed," he was recently compromised by a separated shoulder.

"The real adrenaline for me is doing something you've never done before," he said during ESPN's shoot. "That's kind of the high I'm always chasing when I'm skating . .

"To be a successful skateboarder, you have to have determination, but also a drive to continue progressing. If you don't keep getting better and keep challenging yourself, you're going to fade away."

That Tony Hawk's skateboarding remains viable in flesh-and-blood as well as computer-animated video speaks to the condition he maintains and the joy he derives. Few athletes are sufficiently spry in their 40s to attempt the same kind of moves they made in their 20s. Still, despite their sport's youthful demographic, elite skateboarders can age with relative grace.

"I've been skateboarding for 23 years," said 35-year-old Andy Macdonald, an eight-time World Cup champion who performed with Hawk on Wednesday. "It takes that long to get to the level these guys are at. I feel like I'm better than I have ever been, that my skateboarding is still progressing. As long as my body holds up, I'll still be doing it."

Few skateboard stars walk away wealthy. Most of them, Macdonald said, don't even have health insurance. Tony Hawk would be the spectacular exception.

In its February ranking of action sports stars, Forbes magazine placed Hawk first worldwide with $12 million in estimated earnings for 2008. Shaun White, snowboarding's "Flying Tomato," was second at $9 million.

The beauty of kid stuff is that there's always a new audience for old tricks.

Tim Sullivan is a sports columnist for The San Diego Union-Tribune. Contact him at tim.sullivan@uniontrib.com.

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