OUTSIDE: So how does your relationship work?
WHITE: Well, I pretty much pull out the loofah and—
HAWK: We like to skate together, but there are also things in terms of Shaun's career that he isn't familiar with, where I can give him my opinions. Here's a perfect example. Recently, Six Flags came to me because they wanted to do a themed roller coaster. And we're doing it—it's going to be called the Big Spin. But I found out that they actually came to Shaun as well, saying, "We want to do the Flying Tomato roller coaster." For him, it just wouldn't be appropriate. He shouldn't be resting on his previous accolades already. I still skate, but I'm done with my competitive life. Shaun is still establishing himself. He could be competing for at least ten years to come and still be reaching his potential.
WHITE: Yeah, a roller coaster wouldn't have been the wisest move at this point.

OUR FOOD ARRIVES. In front of White is something resembling a denuded large pizza. He spirals a slab of butter across its surface from the center out, artfully spoons powdered sugar over that, squeezes a lemon wedge on top, then submerges it all in syrup,

WHITE: Corporate America doesn't really understand our world, so they have to come to us and ask, "How can we make this cool?"

to Hawk's disgust. "Dude, they leave the ingredients for you," White explains. "They pre-game you!"

It's about ten minutes later when White starts to hit me. Not punches, just quick, twitching backhands to my biceps, right before he speaks, that say, Dude, listen to this. Sugar is to blame, but so is Hawk, who, since finishing a cup of coffee, has been answering every question.

Shaun, how much do you really think about the business side of your career?
WHITE: I think about it a lot. It was really important after the Olympics for me not to just go, Boom—I'm on this, I'm on that. So we held back for a couple of months and let stuff settle and then really did the right deals—instead of right away I'm on cereal boxes and have my own line of dish towels.

How do you know what the right deals are?
WHITE: For me it's a function of, OK, do I like the product? Do I like the ads? Do I like the management I'm working with? And pretty much from day one, I don't do a contract unless I get final approval over ads.
HAWK: But you have to earn that right of approval. It's something I've got, too, and we didn't use to have it, because we didn't have the clout. Ten or 15 years ago, it was just, You're gonna put me in a commercial? OK. You want me to wear spandex? Whatever it takes.

MENTION THE TERM SELLOUT to Hawk and he'll deliver a variant of a practiced line that goes something like, "The only time people call you a sellout is when your stuff actually sells out." Hawk's stuff does sell out these days—Tony Hawk Inc., which licenses and markets skateboards, apparel, shoes, videos, and more, grosses $400 million annually—but he's suffered through lean times, too. In the late eighties and early nineties, when skating's popularity plummeted, he would travel the country doing demos in skate-shop parking lots, working out of a van loaded with five other skaters. They'd share a hotel room and take the double beds apart, with two guys to each mattress and two sleeping on the box springs. The rise of the X Games in 1995 changed all that.

If you could go back and advise the young Tony Hawk the way you do Shaun now, what would you tell him to do differently?
HAWK: There are endorsements I regret taking when I was younger and didn't know any better. But I didn't have options then. People weren't knocking on my door. I got lucky, though, and survived a second generation of skating's popularity. I learned what not to do, and now the stakes are so much higher. Had I not made those mistakes then, maybe I'd make them now and the consequences would be much worse. Today, marketing companies will send me something and I'll say, No, you can't put it out like that.
WHITE: It's so funny. Corporate America doesn't really understand our world, so they have to come to us. People from these huge corporations come to me and ask, "How can we make this cool?"
HAWK: Start by firing all of these guys.
WHITE: Right. Get these guys outta here, then do this. But I think companies are evolving and getting smarter.
HAWK: There's definitely a better appreciation for the people in our industries. The last three commercials I've done, the directors got their start doing skate videos. Now they each have their own production agency. The marketing companies are coming to them.