Chin Lives
August 2001, XGames - Philadelphia, PA
It was the biggest contest of the year-- or so ESPN would like everyone to think. It was Saturday night and the First Union Center, home of the Philadelphia Flyers and 76ers, was almost filled to capacity with 49,000 skateboard fans. Most of the people with good seats had been sitting in them since early in the day in order to guarantee a view of the XGames Vert Doubles finals. They had already been watching us practice for two hours and the anticipation was mounting.

About ten minutes before the contest was to start, someone in the audience started clapping. Then someone else joined in. The next thing you know, a whole section of spectators was clapping...slowly, rhythmically. The tempo increased as more sections joined in. Then the stomping started and the tempo quickened again. Before long, all 49,000 people in the arena were clapping, stomping and screaming as loud and fast as they could. Camera and sound technicians were scrambling for their equipment. But it was all unprompted by TV. All the skaters stopped skating and looked up in amazement at the crowd. There was no NBA finals going on. Nobody had just won the Stanley Cup. There wasn't even an organ player sounding the charge. The excitement was from 49,000 people just wanting to see skateboarding! It was one of the more intense moments in my career. I started to get nervous.

A few minutes later, the lights in the arena were dimmed and there was another thunderous round of cheering from the grandstands. After the "teams" were announced, the lights came back up and I held my fist out to my partner. Tony Hawk and I had won the doubles competition for the past four years straight. He put his knuckles to mine and said, "Get busy time." He was referring to the song that we skated to in a Gap Khakis commercial a few years ago. The song had stuck in our heads for about a year afterward and had become a catch phrase for moments of anticipation like this. We dropped in for one last practice run but I fell somewhere in the middle of it.

As I made my way through the crowd of ESPN cameramen and Philadelphia news reporters on my way back to the stairs, something caught my eye. It was a little square piece of paper fluttering quietly down from somewhere high in the grandstands. I put my left hand up, not expecting to catch it because of its line of flight. To my surprise, I did catch it. I looked into my hand and couldn't believe what I saw. There looking back at me was a familiar face: Won Ton Animal Chin and the immortal question "HAVE YOU SEEN HIM?" I didn't even know that my sponsor Powell had started making these stickers again! It was like something that might happen in a cheesy after school movie. I brought it up to the deck with me and stuck it on the ramp where it belonged. It was a reminder to me and everyone else that no matter how big our sport gets, no matter how many people are watching, no matter how much fame or fortune it may bring us, we are all doing it because it's fun. We should all still be searching for Animal Chin.

Everyone in the contest seemed to be having a good time. Matt Dove and Bucky Lasek wore their helmets backwards the whole time and, being from Baltimore, called themselves the "Baltimorons". Mike Frazier and Neal Hendrix were smashing themselves trying to pass boards and getting up laughing hysterically. My doubles partner was a member of the original Bones Brigade-- the original Chin search party. He knows what it means to have fun on your skateboard. I myself have been searching since I was about twelve years old and I wasn't about to let Tony down. We dropped in and did everything we planned to do. The crowd was amazing. We won the doubles contest for the fifth year in a row, but more importantly we had a great time doing it. I thought it was very fitting that Chin showed up when he did. In the words of the legendary Johnny Rad, "As long as you're still searching for Chin, you've already found him."