LeBron James just kicked off his brand-new YouTube series The Main Thing, and skateboarding's fearless leader, Tony Hawk broke in the hot seat as the first guest.
These two absolute legends might stem from completely different worlds, but their stories actually overlap in ways you might not expect. Take a look:
I love when worlds collide like this. From The Birdman's early days of breaking into skateboarding to the struggles of finding legitimacy in what was once a completely misunderstood culture, LeBron does a proper job digging in and getting Tony to talk about coming up in the skate world, his influences, and what it's really taken to stay relevant all these years (decades).
Towards the end, Hawk and LeBron also join forces on a mock "marketing plan" to launch King Hawk Fuel 900—"a co-branded line to help regular dads become cool dads," which just FYI, is completely fake. But I still love that these two are just chopping it up and having fun from start to finish.
Jokes aside, longevity is definitely the theme here. LeBron has it on the court. Tony has it on his board. And hearing them both talk about the ups and downs and what it genuinely means to keep pushing is pretty inspiring stuff, to say the least. The chemistry is real.
Skateboarding has come a long way and Tony has been there through almost all of it. Different eras. Different trends. Different terrain. And he's continued to influence generation after generation, both on and off the board.
From The Skatepark Project to the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater video game series and countless other contributions, Tony's much more than the greatest skateboarder ever. The dude is an absolute advocate for the sport and the culture, and I truly don't know what skateboarding would be like without him.
I know the episode is long, but if I were you, I'd carve out some time and listen to the entire conversation. Legends will be legends.
