Skateboarding. Not Just For Punks

For skateboarder Danny Way there may be no better view than from way up high, atop his skateboard mega ramp in the rugged deserts of Southern California.

"Out here, there's so much silence before you go, when you kind of get into a little bit of a peaceful mindset and you're like, 'OK. Wait. I got to snap into gear here," Way said.

"Here," at 31-years-old, is Danny Way's high octane world: racing down a ramp at a 60 degree angle, 45 miles per hour, with nothing but a board on wheels. This is what he calls "the ultimate release."

"And then once you're in the air, it all goes quiet again for a second, and then it's like, boom, the lights are back on and it's like here we go again," he shared. "But there is definitely a moment in space where you actually feel like it's so peaceful for a second.

"It's feats like this, along with the records he holds for flying 75 feet through the air and soaring 23 feet into the sky, that have made Danny Way one very hot--and cool--skateboarding star.

And it is at a California camp devoted solely to action sports, you get an idea how far his sport has come. The big hit this summer? Yes.

CBS News Correspondent Mika Brzezinski asked a few kids why they like to skateboard?

"You can skateboard all the time," said Patrick. "You don't need a baseball hoop like you do in basketball. You don't need a football field. You just need a board."

Favorite movie?

"Backside Air," said Joe.

Dreams of going pro?

"Yeah. Really bad. I want to go pro some day," said Brittany.

They may be the future of skateboarding, but the present is found from MTV to Madison Avenue, from the live screen to the silver screen, from dozens of edgy skate videos to hundreds of local skate parks. Skateboarding is on a roll as America's fastest growing sport.

And who better to help tell its story than the one called the "Ambassador of Skateboarding," a low-key, laid back, Southern California dad of three. Tony Hawk. After all, the 37-year-old is not just a household name, but also a super celebrity skateboarding legend.

What is skateboarding to Tony Hawk?

"To me it's my creative outlet," he offered. "It's my lifestyle. It's my art form. It's my sport. It's kind of all of those things."

And it's all on show in Hawk's 30-city, arena-size, Boom Boom Huck Jam, where brassy BMX riders and motor cross daredevils share center stage with criss-crossing, aerial flipping skaters. For hawk, it's a concept of good, clean, ramped-up, adrenalin-rush fun whose time has come.

"At some point in my life I hoped that more people would recognize skating for what it was, a healthy outlet for kids. And I feel like that perception has come around," said Hawk.

"I think it's just considered more of a legitimate sport or activity than it ever has been. It is popular. I mean there are more kids skating than playing little league. So when you look at the sheer numbers like that, we're here to stay."

Numbers that now help make up a $5-billion industry, and today's 14 million skaters aren't the only ones buying into the urban street sport.

It's a lifestyle youth market on which Tony Hawk has built his own sweet skateboarding empire. Sales of Tony Hawk merchandise are reported at $150 million a year and total sales of Tony Hawk video games are estimated at a staggering $1 billion. Tony Hawk has become so big, he now sells just about everything--skateboards, clothing, video games, DVDs, action figures, McDonald's.

What does make of his success?

"It's weird. It's really fun," he said. "It's very surreal, my life now, my lifestyle. I get to skate for a living still. Beyond all the sort of corporate success and video games and being known as some kind of celebrity, when I write down in an insurance form or on a customs form, occupation: skateboarder. That's it."

It began as a childhood obsession. As a ten-year-old, Tony Hawk from Encinitas, California, first discovered his older brother's skateboard and couldn't let it rest.

What did he like about it?

"I honestly liked I could do it at my own pace, that I didn't have to rely on my team for my own success. I was playing baseball and I was playing basketball, and it was more obligatory than something that was passionate. And every time I went skating, I was getting better at it. I could feel my improvement. I could sense it. I could see my confidence level getting higher."

He found fulfillment.

"I remember that my dad was driving me home for the skate park, and I told him, 'I think this was my best day at the skate park.' And he said, 'you know what, you say that almost every other time I pick you up.'"

That was a defining moment.

"I never felt like I have to go play baseball or I have to go play basketball. But at that time, I had to go skate."

By 14, Tony Hawk went pro, and while skateboarding teetered on the edge of some popularity, among his classmates it wasn't cool.

"At some point, I just distanced myself from them. And I just became sort of a ghost in high school.

What was he considered in school?

"Skinny, dorky," he admitted. "I played violin, too."

On the weekends, Tony Hawk was sweeping the competition at local, national and international contests. By 16, he'd win the first of 11 world champion titles. By high school graduation, he earned six figures. And you could say Tony Hawk has never looked back.

Over time, he has helped refine the street sport with his technical skill, inventing some 80 skating tricks with bizarre names that litter skateboarding.

"In those days, when you invented a trick, you got to name it," Hawk said. "That was the big thing. So that's why you hear all these silly names."

Some of his favorites?

The ones that have sort of stood the test of time would be stale fish and Madonna. The lingo may seems as foreign as the moves, but to skaters Lindsey Adams and Taylor Smith, regulars at the Encinitas YMCA, it's basic.

CBS's Mika Brzezinski watched them perform some moves.

"That was a nollie big spin over the pyramid," advised Lindsey.

Adam explained the kick flip.

"You do an ollie and then you crook your foot out. It makes your board spin. And then you land on your board, kick flip."

Skateboarding has become mainstream to kids.

"There are kids now that grow up dreaming of being a pro skater the way that we grew up dreaming of being a pro baseball player," said Tony Hawk.

Back at his mega ramp, Danny Way begins to contemplate his work ahead.

Ninety feet into the air, the big ramp has been called a human roller coaster, and it is the prototype for Way's next big jump--skating over the Great Wall of China on July 9..

"I have fun doing it, believe it or not, and I've been skateboarding my whole life, and I'm always looking for new challenges in skateboarding, new directions, and to keep innovative and progress," said Way. "That's what skateboarding's been all about. And that's what inspired me to skateboard when I was a kid. And here I am at 31-years-old and just doing all the things I dreamed of when I was a kid."