A calming afternoon for Reese Nelson can embody perfecting a brand new model of a nostril seize 720 in San Diego sporting her favourite Eminem shirt. Maybe determining new methods to carry out a kickflip nostril slide to fakie. Possibly doing NBDs — “by no means been achieved” tips — that may assist her win X Video games Ventura 2024 this weekend.
All with Tony Hawk watching within the background. Sure, that Tony Hawk. It’s the situation when an 11-year-old skateboarding prodigy will get to coach with the game’s long-time GOAT.
Flip the script, and movie a demanding afternoon for Nelson. Enjoying dress-up along with her cat, Bloody Mary, could be hectic, significantly when Mary isn’t as cooperative as Nelson’s different cat, Freddy Krueger. Then there are these events when Nelson and her youthful sister quarrel whereas taking part in with their dolls. And let’s not neglect when that recreation of Minecraft has a awful ending.
Some would possibly surprise why the aforementioned examples aren’t flipped. Enjoying with dolls and pets needs to be a pleasure. Doing insane tips that require a skate lingo information for non-fans on a vert ramp standing almost 15 toes — tips the world’s greatest skate boarders try (efficiently and unsuccessfully) every day — needs to be the avoidable obstacles. For Nelson, the youngest-ever X Video games medalist after final 12 months’s effort in California, the more durable the trick, the extra decided she is to grasp it.
She is aware of her present way of life is difficult, however she places on a protecting helmet and pads daily to make private battles with a vert ramp appear to be light-weight work. Her greatness is supported by a generational expertise in Hawk, who has dominated the skateboarding scene since turning professional at 14 years previous. It’s her tenacity, fearlessness and relentlessness that reminds him of a youthful model of himself.
“She chooses the highest-level tips to be taught, and she or he follows via with them. Sooner or later, she began making up a few of her personal,” Hawk mentioned. “I’m speaking about tips that had by no means been thought of in our realm, and she or he was doing them for the primary time on the age of 10, 11.
“She is manner forward of anybody her age — or at any age, for essentially the most half. It’s like she skipped the entire foundational steps in skateboarding to get to a number of the most elite tips.”
Add that unbelievable skill with tons of humility and a captivating persona, and also you get Nelson, a happy-go-lucky skateboarder who received over followers globally at X Video games 2023, incomes a silver medal within the Pacifico Girls’s Skateboard Vert at 10 years and eight months previous. X Video games 2024 runs Friday via Sunday in Ventura, Calif., and Sunday afternoon, Nelson as soon as once more will compete within the occasion and be examined on her execution of management, originality and total use of the vert ramp.
Successful a gold medal Sunday can be an honor. Competing for the love of the game, nevertheless, is what organically places a smile on the face of the incoming seventh-grader who turns 12 in November. Some X Video games opponents are viewing this weekend as win or bust. To Nelson, that is nonetheless simply enjoyable and video games — and that’s OK.
Even when many skateboarding followers already contemplate her a wunderkind.
“In a short time, I might inform that she had one thing extraordinary,” Hawk mentioned.
Born in Calgary, Alberta, Nelson and her household moved to San Diego roughly three years in the past because of her dad’s occupation. Nelson’s family isn’t filled with skate boarders. No person inspired her to aim ramp tips. However as a 4-year-old, she realized to snowboard in the course of the Canadian winters, and when her household moved to California, she was launched to skateboarding and skate parks at 8.
With observe, she realized to regulate a skateboard, then she tried maneuvering on a vert ramp. That become a interest. Now, this interest has developed into one thing that’s given Nelson a highlight she by no means imagined.
“It kind of simply occurred,” Nelson mentioned. “I used to be simply skating for enjoyable, after which I began competing. I don’t know, all the things simply actually occurred without delay.”
“She’d already caught the skating bug in Canada however didn’t have quite a lot of amenities there that suited what she was keen on, which was extra vertical, half-pipe skating,” Hawk added. “Once they moved, they realized they had been within the epicenter of vert skating.”
Nelson first would be taught to carry out tips on small ramps. She then started working with one in every of Hawk’s associates, professional skater Lincoln Ueda, who additionally works with members of the Chinese language nationwide staff. Hawk took a cellphone name from Ueda that concluded with an emphatic message.
“He mentioned, ‘You’ve obtained to see this little lady,’” Hawk mentioned.
After viewing a few of Nelson’s efficiency movies, Hawk obtained contact data for Nelson’s mom, Lindsey Bedier, and despatched her a direct message via social media. He invited the household to his warehouse, the place Nelson showcased her expertise in individual.
“It was loopy. I mentioned to my husband, ‘Tony Hawk simply DMed me,’” Bedier mentioned. “Everybody thinks we moved to California for skateboarding, however we’re simply not that hardcore. It was so loopy when he DMed.”
Nelson placed on a present throughout their first encounter, and Hawk in the end prolonged Nelson membership to his Birdhouse Skateboards staff. Since then, the 2 have turn out to be fairly shut. It’s a businesslike mentor-mentee relationship some days, two associates performing goofy on others.
There are additionally these days when Nelson forgets Tony Hawk is the Tony Hawk. He has a prolonged record of accomplishments, which incorporates being the first to efficiently full a recorded 900 (2 1/2 full revolutions) in 1999. Nelson’s preliminary ideas of the skateboarding legend are barely completely different from these older than her, anticipated contemplating she wasn’t born when Hawk, now 56, was the face of the game within the Nineties and 2000s.
Nelson typically is reminded of how well-known her mentor is. Whether or not it’s a meals run to P.F. Chang’s (rooster fried rice is her favourite) or an occasion at a skate park, if she is with Hawk, she sees how excited his fan base will get. It doesn’t imply she understands the hype. Blame timing, as Nelson was born in 2012.
“I all the time suppose it’s bizarre how individuals simply come up and wish footage,” Nelson mentioned of Hawk.
“Once we first went (to the warehouse), she was similar to, ‘Oh, cool … like, let’s skate,’” Bedier added, laughing. “She had no concept.”
Hawk has a funnier interpretation of their relationship. As arguably essentially the most well-known skateboarding mentor, Hawk can solely shake his head when Nelson chooses in opposition to taking his recommendation. It’s as if his a long time of expertise are upstaged by the robust will of a preteen.
However in lots of types, Hawk appreciates Nelson’s psychological method to the game. She is aware of what she needs, and whereas she’s targeted on every day enchancment, she isn’t afraid to say no — not even to him.
“She is fiercely decided and devoted, nearly to a fault by way of she won’t hand over,” Hawk mentioned. “There are occasions when I attempt to inform her issues, fundamental trick solutions: Hey, possibly you must attempt to be taught … ‘I don’t like them.’ This could possibly be one thing you go to as a backup. In the event you lose pace, you … ‘Yeah, I don’t wish to try this.’
“However I’ve helped her be taught a few tips. I’ll take credit score for that.”
@reese__nelson 🌪️ #padup #187killerpads pic.twitter.com/oUEcYRL45X
— 187KILLERPADS (@187KILLERPADS) Might 28, 2024
The center little one of three, Nelson brings a various persona to the desk. She loves Eminem and can vibe to his tracks when she tries to get right into a zone. When she’s watching tv, she loves the Netflix actuality sequence “Nailed It!” in addition to different baking reveals.
Nelson has been homeschooled in earlier years however is happy about in-person seventh grade within the fall. It’ll be the primary time in years that she returns to education with different college students.
When requested what’s extra nerve-racking between beginning center faculty or touchdown 540s and 720s, she didn’t hesitate to reply.
“Going to center faculty,” she mentioned. “I imply, like, I’m nervous.”
When she arrives at her new faculty, she’ll have tons of tales to inform. Nelson lives a cool-yet-unorthodox life that some might imagine is as difficult as one in every of her gravity-defying makes an attempt at a skate park. Even her mom calls her life “unusual,” however that’s removed from a diss. If something, it’s the final word praise.
How many individuals can say they know Hawk? What number of can name or textual content the skateboarding icon at any hour? And what number of, no matter age, can say they’ve skated with Hawk and Beastie Boys member Advert-Rock on the identical day — and deal with it as “simply one other day?”
“Tony was like, ‘Hey, you wish to come skate with Advert-Rock from the Beastie Boys?’” mentioned Bedier, a fan of the Beasties. “Reese was like, ‘OK.’ And I’m like … ‘What?!’
When Nelson isn’t skateboarding, she’s learning her private favorites: Tom Schaar, the first to land a recorded 1080 (three revolutions), and Colin McKay, a fellow Canadian.
Nothing private in opposition to Hawk, proper?
“Tony is sweet, however I actually like Tom Schaar’s skating. He’s robust and aggressive,” Nelson mentioned. “Colin’s like that, too. Tony does good tips, although.”
Nelson additionally retains a watch on one other youth skateboarder making information as of late. Arisa Trew, a 14-year-old from Australia, final month turned the first-ever feminine skateboarder to efficiently land a recorded 900. Trew is ranked the No. 2 feminine park skateboarder on the earth, based on World Skate, and her 900 got here 25 years after Hawk landed the trick at X Video games V in San Francisco.
“She works onerous. She’s good,” Nelson mentioned of Trew. “I haven’t actually considered making an attempt (the 900).”
ICYMI … The legacy of the 900 continues!
Historical past has been made once more and the similarities are uncanny.
First @tonyhawk landed the World’s First 900 at X Video games 1999, now Arisa Trew has turn out to be the primary girl to land a 900 on a skateboard.
The torch has been handed. pic.twitter.com/0NqYlB9kAH
— X Video games (@XGames) Might 31, 2024
Nelson continues to be about having enjoyable with skateboarding moderately than constructing the legacy her followers would possibly push for. Hawk continually reminds Nelson that at this stage in her life, successful isn’t all the things. Although successful a gold medal can be a monumental X Video games achievement, merely competing within the prestigious occasion needs to be valued.
Holding her expectations tempered arguably is Hawk’s hardest job as mentor. Notably when it pertains to a competitor who enjoys exhibiting off her aggressive model and making an attempt strikes that include the very best levels of problem. Many occasions, these strikes are profitable. Typically, they miss — and Nelson is her worst critic.
“She’s very onerous on herself, (however) I need her to nonetheless have enjoyable with it,” he mentioned. “Her dedication and her fierceness is sort of an impenetrable wall.”
“I really feel stress, however not as a result of different individuals put it on me,” Nelson added. “I put quite a lot of stress on myself to be good and to be taught all the things each time. And generally, it doesn’t work, which is annoying.”
Having Hawk as a mentor helps to maintain Nelson’s life balanced, Bedier mentioned. Hawk has 4 kids, so he understands the pressures Nelson goes via as a younger competitor, in addition to the curler coaster of feelings Bedier offers with.
Hawk’s wisest phrases could persistently go to Bedier extra typically than Nelson, primarily due to the evolution of her daughter and what’s to come back if she continues excelling within the sport.
“It’s been over three years. … He’s actually turn out to be any individual I can depend on for recommendation and help, not only for Reese’s skating, however by way of my position as a father or mother, like, what I can do to help her,” Bedier mentioned. “His recommendation has been invaluable. It’s not nearly tips; it’s serving to us navigate the world of skateboarding.”
Sunday might be Nelson’s time to shine, and she or he’s prepared for the highlight. However remodeling into her personal model of a superhero nonetheless is extra for the recollections and fewer for the celebrity and fortune.
X Video games will get one other probability to see the innocence of a rising star. And on the identical time, Nelson may have one other shot at exhibiting why individuals ought to listen.
“I’m one of many older guys, however we’re speaking about 20-, 30-year-old veterans of vert skating watching her, and so they’re fully blown away,” Hawk mentioned. “It’s not a novelty. It’s not, ‘Oh, she’s good for her age.’ She’s simply that good.”
“It’s been a wild experience the final three years, and we didn’t search any of this out,” Bedier added. “Reese has a very good group of individuals round her. We undoubtedly hit the jackpot.”
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; pictures: Ric Tapia / Icon Sportswire through Getty Photos, Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Instances through Getty Photos and Sean M. Haffey / Getty Photos)
