By Stephen Laroche
Every sport has its share of talents who bravely paved the way for future generations of athletes. Skateboarding certainly has plenty of them and the names of the iconic Tony Hawk and his idol, Stacy Peralta, are spoken of in reverent tones by fans and skateboarders throughout the world.
Hawk is regarded as the greatest driving force in the growth of skateboarding for over 40 years and his impact on the sport and beyond has been tremendous. As skateboarding evolved from a pastime to sport to cultural phenomenon, both Hawk and Peralta were at the forefront as kids everywhere watched videos and pored over magazines featuring these then-young heroes.
In the early 1970s, Peralta began competitively skating with the legendary Z-Boys squad and became the world’s top-ranked skater in 1976 at the age of 19. With a smart head for business, he partnered up to create Powell Peralta and revolutionized the sport by sending it into the mainstream.
The relationship between Peralta and Hawk goes back to the early 1980s as the latter rose to prominence as part of the Bones Brigade team, which was sponsored by Peralta’s company. In the age before social media and viral videos, youth wanting to learn skateboarding tricks often had to rely upon word of mouth, read about it in skateboard magazines, or track down a home video produced by Powell Peralta. These videos, along with outstanding finishes in competitions, allowed Hawk’s popularity to surge alongside that of the sport.
By the mid-1990s, the arrival of the X Games made Hawk a household name as he ultimately captured 10 gold medals. A true innovator, he also developed dozens of tricks which influenced generations of young athletes – not to mention the tremendous impact of a series of video games bearing his name that arrived near the turn of the century.
Once skateboarding began to rise meteorically to even greater global and cultural prominence in the late 1980s, the trading card market also experienced an historic upswing with the arrival of Upper Deck in 1989, which was founded in North County San Diego. Upper Deck recently announced an all-new line of signed memorabilia featuring the skateboard legends that are available now.
View the collection on Upper Deck Store.
