Favorite historic sports moment: Tony Hawk’s 900

On 28 June 1999, I, and I expect everyone else watching the X-Games live from home, was standing up in his or her living room.  It’s pretty clear that everyone with functional legs in the stands was also on his or her feet.

It was the skateboard “Best Trick” competition.  Tony Hawk had already landed a Varial 720 with uncanny beauty, which was itself considered an impossible trick for a long time.

So, yeah, what now?  He’s nailed a crazy-hard trick in competition.  He has the last run.  Under X-Games rules, he gets three tries.  He drops in, builds up speed, and … wipes out.  But … “WTF?!” says everyone watching.  “Seriously, what was he going for?  He’s not actually trying to land a 900 degree turn, in competition, on live TV, is he?”  By this point, with intense work on the trick by the world’s best athletes for 10 years, many skaters and commentators were starting to believe it was literally impossible.

So the cheers start.  Second run.  Drops in, builds up speed, goes up, starts spinning, and … wipes.  Damn.

Everyone is standing.  Third and final run.  The world holds its breath.  This is the moment.  He will land it on his last try in a televised competition.  He drops in, goes way above the deck, spins forever, and…

Wipes out.  Hard.  We wonder if he’s broken a couple of ribs.

“God,” we thought in the audience.  “He was so close.  The X-Games will remember this forever.”

Tony stands to walk out of the ramp, a camera zoomed in on his face.  And he throws this determined glare up to where the producers are sitting.  I’ve talked to other friends, and we all report whistling and thinking “Oh, fuck!”  I don’t think there’s a possible read of that look other than “If you want to get me off this ramp, you will send in a team of horses to drag me off.”

So he walks back up to the deck.  The commentators are sort of flailing around.  One says something like, “Ohhhkay.  I guess he’s still skating.  Folks, we’re making this up as we go along here.”

Tries again, his fourth run.  When he misses, he misses in a way that the impact could have shattered his kneecaps even with his guards.  But he got the board under him.

The commentators are asking if they’re still on the air.  The broadcast has gone over time, and other ESPN programming is being bumped.  To my knowledge, this is the first time ESPN had given preference to an “extreme” sport over something else.

Fifth run … and the board slides out from under him.  Walking off the ramp, he looks pissed off.

Bucky Lasek, who had beaten him in vert the day before, starts tapping his skateboard against the edge of the pipe — the “applause” among skateboarders.  Andy Macdonald, Tony’s long-time doubles partner, starts slamming his against the edge.  Tony goes for it … and so close on his sixth!

Back up to the deck.  He’s pouring sweat and looks like he’s been in a fight.  He’s exhausted.  Andy goes over to him and talks quietly to him, looking supportive, looking determined, and making me wish I could read lips.

The audience starts chanting “Tony!  Tony!”  Then the commentators start chanting that on the air.  I’m chanting at home, for the utter lack of good that will do. 

Seventh run … oh, man, that was close.  And they’re still on the air!

He climbs up again, and the best skateboarders in the world lay their hands on him, as if in benediction.  Eighth run.  Goes above the deck and spins, and at full broadcast speed it looks like it’s in slow motion.

And Tony lands it.  Tony lands what was considered an impossible trick.  I’m shouting in my living room.  He’s dogpiled at the bottom.  Cheers from everyone, including screams from the commentators.  When the crowd gets off him, ESPN gets a camera and a mic in his face.  Tony points at the crowd and says “If it wasn’t for you people I would have never made that.  Thank you.  This is the best day of my life.”  Beyond humble.  Beyond awesome.

Here’s the bit that no one ever talks about:  The judges are in a weird place now.  Unless they rewrite the rules on-the-fly, the 900 cannot count towards his Best Trick attempt.  Are they really going to take Tony Hawk’s earlier 720 and compare it to everyone else’s tricks, ignoring the 9?  That would be correct, but obscene. 

So the judges are trying to figure out what to do.  The other competitors quickly huddle, talk to each other, and say they want to speak to the judges.  They say to the people scoring: “Nah, don’t bother.  The rest of us withdraw our runs.  Tony is the only one who skated today.”  Problem solved.  Gold medal to Tony Hawk, and no silver nor bronze medal awarded at all.

And that is the number one, but number one among many, reasons I prefer the culture of X-Games competitions to traditional, huge-salary sports.  The support, the humility, the sort of charming naïveté that still exists in the rules and judging.  It’s the visual grace of one-on-one performance events — Olympic-style stuff — plus the moral grace of a community of jam musicians, versus the crass venality one finds too often in more-traditional competition events.

Here’s the best YouTube video I could find, with someone else’s similar, but different, take on things.  And please forgive the overwrought prose — attribute it to my inability to otherwise express something with such great emotional impact on me.