Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater Renames Trick To Honor Creator

Cunning is a word that can get me into a lot of bother, that and shouting the word “Country.” I mean, I do often use what people assume I’m either about to say or what I am playing with to make it sound like… that. Though, that’s not my point, it is another C-word that needs to be used to explain that: Contrived. Alexx recently had an article on, as he put it, “cunning Linguistics” which seems like a weird thing to talk about when it comes to games, entertainment, or current affairs. Nonetheless, it is about language and language we use on ourselves and those around us.

Some would argue, “it’s PC culture gone mad!” while they themselves want to revert back to living in a straw house, eating gruel, and dying at the ripe old age of 25. How dare someone look at another human being, ask what is wrong, and then proceed to antagonize that person with something they might not like at all. Clearly, it is the person that is upset that is the problem… Or so it is often the case. I really hope the sarcasm on these words comes through, otherwise, I look like an insensitive anal polyp. Don’t be an anal polyp.

Anyway, skateboarding, it has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. It is a beautiful and open community filled with people of every background, not just those able-bodied slim skaters with hair dipped in more hair products than a pig in a Max-Factor factory. It is a community first and foremost with people of all different backgrounds, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone to know there are disabled skaters. One disabled skater is Chriss Weddle, a deaf skater who in the early 1980s skated alongside some around the time of the creation of the “indy” air.

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For nearly 40 years, we’ve shamelessly referred to this trick as the “mute” air/grab. Here is the backstory: around 1981, a deaf skater and Colton skatepark local named Chris Weddle was a prominent amateur on the competition circuit. The “Indy” air had just been created & named so somebody proposed that grabbing with the front hand should be known as the “Tracker” air. Others countered that Chris was the first to do, so it should be named after him. They referred to him as the “quiet, mute guy.” So it became known as the mute air, and we all went along with it in our naive youth. In recent years a few people have reached out to Chris (who still skates) about this trick and the name it was given. He has been very gracious in his response but it is obvious that a different name would have honored his legacy, as he is deaf but not lacking speech. I asked him last year as I was diving into trick origins and he said he would have rather named it the “deaf” or “Weddle” grab if given the choice. His exact quote to me was “I am deaf, not mute.” So as we embark on the upcoming @tonyhawkthegame demo release, some of you might notice a trick name change: The Weddle Grab. It’s going to be challenging to break the habit of saying the old name but I think Chris deserves the recognition. Thanks to @darrick_delao for being a great advocate to the deaf community in action sports, and for being the catalyst in this renaming process. I told Chris tecently and his reply was “I’m so stoked!” And then he shot this photo in celebration yesterday. 📷: @yousta_storytellers_club

A post shared by Tony Hawk (@tonyhawk) on Aug 12, 2020 at 8:40am PDT

As some skater you probably haven’t heard of talked about, “They referred to him as the ‘quiet, mute guy.’ So it became known as the mute air, and we all went along with it in our naive youth.” Well, this Tony Hawk lad that won’t take off in the world of skating has a point, we’re naive in our youth. Not once have I thought of the trick being named “mute” because of a deaf skater. Hawk’s lengthy post on Instagram recounts that Weddle was asked about this name, and while he understood why such a naive name would be given, it still didn’t feel right. Knowing the origin now, I can see why.

After a bit of digging into the origins of trick names, Hawk thought it best to ask Weddle what he would prefer the trick be named, as he is the stick origin in many eyes. “Deaf” or “Weddle” is what he came back with. For a man that more than 50% of the skating world probably didn’t know of last week, going forward the trick will be known as the “Weddle Grab” and will honor the creator how he should be honored, by name.