It’s hard to overstate Tony Alva’s influence on skate and surfing culture. He’s often thought of as the godfather of modern-day skateboarding, and it’s for good reason: Alva almost single-handedly set the stage for how skate culture would be defined.
Now, Tony Alva is 63 years old, the oldest pro skateboarder in the world. But back in the 1970s, when skateboarding was an entirely different beast, Alva brought his own brand of aggression to the table. He was born in Santa Monica in 1957, and took up skateboarding and surfing a decade later. The late sixties were a time of great societal change, and Alva was on the crest of the wave. Surfing was taking on a newer, more aggressive form, and Alva began to incorporate it into his skating and surfing. By 1970, it was clear that he was leading the way into a bright future.
In 1972, he hooked up with the Zephyr Skateboard team. He was joined by Jay Adams and Stacy Peralta. The Z-Boys turned skateboarding on its head, seamlessly moving between surfing and skating. They were among the first to skate the empty pools in the area which paved the way for just about everything we see in skateboarding today.
Vans recently released an hour-long documentary chronicling his life, from his childhood in Santa Monica to his Z-Boys days, the dark side of his drug use, and finally, his emergence into his position as a living legend. It’s an hour well-spent.
