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A swarm of kids, some still in school uniforms and many carrying their skateboards, crowded around him, snapping pictures with their cellphones and calling out his name. Shouts of "Tony's here! Do you see Tony?" swelled through the crowd of hundreds already gathered around the skate bowl, eagerly waiting to catch a glimpse of the famed, 43-year-old, retired professional skateboarder.
"He's a beast on a skateboard," 14-year-old Carl Dixon said. Hawk and nine other skateboarders on the Birdhouse "MIA to NYC Tour" stopped in Bluffton to wow the crowd with tricks. Success earned the skateboarders surprised gasps from the crowd, while failed landings brought groans or cheers of encouragement.
Elementary school-aged kids clamored near the edges of the bowl and reached out to high-five Hawk and his crew as they passed. Returned high-fives were met with wide eyes and smiles that sometimes revealed missing front teeth.
"I only got to touch the tip of his finger," Hunter Jackson, 9, said after Hawk finished skating.
"I got his whole hand once," said nearby Austin Bauer, 8. "It was big."
Several kids said they hoped to see Hawk do a 900 -- that's two and a half revolutions in the air. It's a trick that's rarely accomplished. Hawk is said to be the first to complete it at the 1999 X Games, the Olympics of extreme sports.
He didn't perform the difficult trick Thursday, but Hawk left the crowd with plenty to ooh and ahh over.
"The backside 180 was the coolest," 7-year-old Colton Beine said, referring to a maneuver that requires a skateboarder to land blind after a 180-degree aerial turn.
Hawk and his crew skated for about 40 minutes before leaving the bowl. As he walked away, the sweat-drenched skater was followed by another swarm of fans hoping to get near their hero.
As they headed back to their car with their dad, 5-year-old Bode and 7-year-old Sepp Pearson agreed: Seeing Tony Hawk was the coolest thing they'd ever done.
Follow reporter Rachel Heaton at twitter.com/HomeroomBft.
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