The Best American Sports Writing 2011

by Jane Leavy

  At 36, Way resembles Clint Eastwood—if Eastwood were young, blond, and dressed like a skate rat. He's wearing a Plan B Skateboards shirt, DC shoes and baggy shorts, and full protective gear: heavy plastic-capped knee and elbow pads, a helmet. On the Mega he looks like a gladiator—one who's losing.

  Here at the world's only permanent MegaRamp, built on a 12-acre swath of land owned by fellow professional skateboarder Bob Burnquist, a film crew is shooting footage for an upcoming documentary about Danny's 20-plus-year career as a pro, and he's intent on finally landing a trick he's been attempting obsessively for months. We're going on eight hours, and for most of that time, Danny's been wrecking himself. Technically, what he's after is a switch backflip revert. In English, switch means he's doing it backward, with his right foot forward instead of his left (think switch-hitting in baseball); backflip means an honest-to-God backflip, grabbing his board with his left hand and soaring upside down over a gap the length of two school buses parked end to end; and revert (pronounced RE-vert) means that at the absolute last moment, he will twist himself around 180 degrees so that he lands riding forward. It's ridiculous.

  Now, without looking at me, he says, "Sometimes it can just go sideways, you know?"

  I think he's talking about his hopes for this filming session or maybe about how he's been landing, the revert not coming around a full 180 degrees. And maybe that's all he's saying, but maybe not. Earlier this morning, before giving a motivational talk at an elementary school, Way mentioned how there's no television in his house, how his two sons go to a Waldorf school, how his infant daughter will too, and how he and his wife allow very few plastic toys and maintain an all-organic diet. He described, in other words, the exact opposite of his own childhood. Tricks can go sideways, but so can childhoods, so can whole lives, unless you work tirelessly, ruthlessly, to keep them on track.

  Absolutely, I say, it can all go sideways.

  "But it's good to sweat. It's like there're vaults in your nervous system, where you store whatever pain and stress and bad memories you have," he says. "My theory is to fight fire with fire. You have to dive back into that trauma, go back and do the same tricks that hurt you, in the same place. If you don't process it out, those traumas will find homes in your body, hold you back."

  "Whenever you're ready, D," Jacob Rosenberg, the director of the documentary, shouts from the Mega's landing pad.

  "Okay," Way says, adjusting his pads and helmet. "Okay. Okay."

  And then, seconds later, he's riding away from the trick so cleanly that it looks like he's coasting along on a wave as it peters out. The kinetic beauty, the velocity and power and precision and sweep of it, is magnificent—imagine the sound of a basket swooshed from half-court, the arch of a ball before it becomes a hole-in-one, the muscular symmetry of a horse storming to the Triple Crown. But beauty isn't even the most interesting thing about what Way has just done. More interesting is how, in watching him land a trick that's never been landed before, a trick that until he nailed it no one even knew was possible, you can see the full arc of his career. What is genius or art or excellence if not the ability to transcend time, the capacity to encompass the past, present, and future in a singular and fluid movement?

  But, finally, what's most interesting about him riding away from another trick chased straight from his imagination into reality is that once he's done it, once the cameramen have confirmed that they shot a winner, Way doesn't celebrate or review the video or do anything except limp toward the golf cart. The switch backflip revert is behind him now, perfect and perfectly useless, an artifact of air. He tells the cart driver to go faster, tells the cameramen to keep rolling. He's got an idea for a new trick. He thinks there's still a little light left.

  Then, He Disappeared

  That session on the MegaRamp was two years ago, and what followed was actually one of the darkest, most complicated stretches in an already exceedingly complicated life. A few weeks after the session at Burnquist's, he crashed on a botched warm-up air, knocked himself unconscious, and had to be rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. A month later, at X Games 14, live on ESPN in 2008, he suffered what is widely considered one of the worst slams in skateboarding history (more on this later), losing the gold medal to Burnquist. That September, at a MegaRamp contest in Brazil, he came up short on a jump and fractured two vertebrae, taking himself out of the competition; Burnquist won again. Over the next year, Way's marriage dissolved. Then, at X Games 15, he decided against trying to reclaim his Big Air title, focusing instead on a new Mega competition he helped create, the Rail Jam, wherein the skaters launch themselves over the gap and slide or grind on a rainbow-shaped steel rail before dropping onto the bank ramp. He won the contest, but broke his ankle in the process. The injury took him out of commission for months, and then, for all practical purposes, he disappeared.

  There were rumors: He'd retreated to Hawaii to build an ultra-private skate compound. He was strung out, addicted to morphine lollipops, and retired from skateboarding. He was reinventing himself as a street skater, riding alone and exclusively at night. He was on TMZ partying at a club. He was spotted in Las Vegas doing reconnaissance at the Luxor hotel, figuring whether he could skate down the side of the onyx pyramid and launch over the Strip. He was in Germany undergoing an experimental surgery not approved in the States. He was flyi ng around the world in Tommy Lee's private jet.

  No one knew anything for sure except that Way had dropped out of sight. The documentary went into hibernation. He missed interviews. Photo shoots were scheduled and rescheduled. When I called to check in, his voice mail was full and wouldn't accept new messages. On those few occasions when I could leave a message, he never called back.

  And then, in early May, Way finally started returning my calls. He asked if I was going to make it to X Games 16 in July. When I told him I didn't know, he said, "You should definitely try. I'm working on something big. Like, huge."

  "What?"

  "Oh, man," he said.

  "Tell me."

  "I don't want to, you know, ruin the surprise. But remember the tricks we filmed at Bob's a couple years ago? The switch back revert? And everything else? Those were nothing compared to this."

  "Those were pretty heavy," I said. "No one else has done them since."

  "They were nothing," he said. "I was just clearing my throat."

  A Short but Telling Incident from Earlier That Day Two Years Ago

  Danny Way was tardy for his motivational speech at the elementary school. He'd hit traffic on the drive from his home in Encinitas to Carlsbad, California, and then the parking lot was full. After circling twice, he said, "Fuck it," and steered his BMW M3 into a faculty-only slot.

  Inside, the principal cleared his desk so Way could unload the skateboards he'd brought; they were autographed for two students battling cancer. The inscriptions read FEAR is AN ILLUSION and MAKE YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE. Way's signature is spiky, like the logo of a heavy metal band.

  "Very cool," the principal said. Then he inhaled sharply and asked, "Have you ever done drugs?"

  A bewildered expression crossed Way's face, as if he'd misheard the question. "Well," he replied, "I mean, I've tried—"

  "We had a pro skater visit last year," the principal interrupted, "and when a student asked if he'd done drugs, he said yes. Our parents were none too pleased."

  "Not a problem," Way said.

  "These kids need role models. Tell them you've made positive choices and you've followed the golden rule. Tell them you can't get where you are by doing drugs."

  "I've got good things to say. I grew up in a pretty dysfunctional home," Way said matter-of-factly. If he elaborated, if he laid out exactly how dysfunctional his childhood was, the principal would likely cancel the speech.

  "Very cool," the principal said again. Then he noticed I was holding a skateboard and asked if it was mine.

  "No," Way answered sheepishly. "That's the board I used to jump the Great Wall of China."

  The p
rincipal studied the board, possibly expecting Way to admit he was joking. He wasn't. If nonskaters know of Danny Way, it's because of this: in 2005 Way became the first person to jump the Great Wall on a nonmotorized vehicle, soaring across a 60-foot gap, and he did it with a fractured ankle from a previous crash. (The last person to try used a bicycle. He died.) Way has never courted the celebrity that Tony Hawk or MTV reality star Ryan Sheckler enjoy, but after images of him spinning a backside-360 over the wall appeared everywhere from the South China Morning Post to The Daily Show, the door to mainstream culture swung wide open. And yet he promptly and politely closed it. Had he walked through that door, the stunt might have defined him. It might even have controlled him, relegated him to a world of daredevil sideshows, and the progression of skateboarding—which for Danny carries the weight of religion—would have been waylaid, if not completely thwarted. The religion thing is apt. He wants neither a pulpit nor a stage; he wants a monastery. He wants neither an audience nor disciples; he wants fellow believers. Jumping the Great Wall of China doesn't define Danny Way. The days alone on his MegaRamp do.

  Early on, Way used the MegaRamp to set world records for height and distance, records he still holds. It served as the canvas for his impossibly progressive part in the landmark DC-sponsored skateboarding video. (In 1993 Danny's older brother, Damon Way, cofounded DC shoes. In 2004, a year after The DC Video debuted, Quiksilver bought the brand for $87 million.) Within a year, the X Games had adopted the MegaRamp into its competition schedule, and like that, the landscape of skateboarding was, literally and symbolically, forever transformed. Today, among vert pros, there are two groups of skaters: those who ride the Mega and those who don't. The first group is much, much smaller.

  "Tell the kids that if they make positive choices, they'll be able to fly too," the principal told Way.

  "We're all good," Way said. Then the bell rang.

  Dysfunction: Part One

  I first met Danny Way in the early '90s, when his skating career was just taking off and my own was both beginning and ending. At 19, I was a decent skateboarder, good enough to tour the country with a very low-level professional skate team for about half a minute. I'd been scheduled to skate in a demonstration with Way, but an injury kept me sidelined. I made a show of acting despondent and pissed, when really I felt spared. He was an undersized towheaded kid with a concave chest and braces, and he scared the bejesus out of me. He had inhuman focus when he dropped in on a ramp, a kind of desperate and almost violent grace. He skated with an authority and poise and aggression that reminded me of a young Mike Tyson—how he would charge across the ring just as the first bell sounded, gloves tucked under his chin and eyes locked on his poor, unsuspecting opponent. Watching Way skate, I sensed that, like Tyson, he had more at stake than everyone else. Which he did.

  When Danny was eight months old, his father was arrested for failing to pay child support to his previous wife, and after just nine days in jail, he was found hanged in his cell. (It was ruled a suicide but the Way family remains skeptical.) After her husband's death, Way's mother, Mary, plunged into heavy drug use. Coke. Meth. You name it. With the drugs came a long string of boyfriends who physically and emotionally abused her and her two sons, cruel men who bolted once the mirrors were snorted clean. After a couple of chaotic and traumatic years, however, a good and stable man named Tim O'Dea came along. He introduced Danny and his brother, Damon, to surfing and skateboarding, buying them boards and safety gear and memberships at the world-renowned Del Mar Skate Ranch, near their home in San Diego. (At six years old, Danny was too young to skate the facility, but O'Dea lied about his age.) O'Dea married the boys' mother, but within a few years the marriage went bust. Danny and Damon were devastated. The only reliable thing left in their world was skateboarding—in many ways, their stepfather's legacy. "I felt this connection with my board that I've never felt with anything else in my life," Danny says. "Skateboarding is like therapy for me."

  "I remember him as this tiny, tiny kid rolling into these huge bowls at Del Mar," recalls Damon Way, now 38. "The rest of us were scared, but he'd just go for it. That's the blueprint for who he became."

  By age eight, Danny's innate talent and obsession with skateboarding became a source of friction. He'd gotten so good so quickly that he intimidated everyone, including famous pros. Older skaters ridiculed him, ostracized him; one soon-to-be-famous pro actually beat him up. At 13, he trounced Tony Hawk in a skater version of the game Horse. (Even in the mid-'80s, Hawk was considered unbeatable, the Michael Jordan of skateboarding, but Way's repertoire—executing complex street tricks while soaring above the ramp, spinning and flipping his board in ways no one else had yet conceived—blew everyone's mind, including Hawk's.) Danny always wanted to be the first to try a trick, even if it meant getting hurt, and he was starting to develop an edge in his personality, a cockiness born of youth and loneliness and physical ability. When older skaters taunted him, Danny refused to back down. "I had to stand up for myself," he says, "because I didn't feel like there was anyone around to do that for me." Even Damon started bullying Danny when he could no longer keep up with his younger brother's rapid progression. "[Damon] was always taking swings at me," Danny says. "It was just typical older-brother stuff, but my only weapon against the physical and mental abuse was to be better than him at what he loved: skateboarding."

  At a time when Way felt "lost, confused, sad, unloved," he entered his first two contests on the same day—and won both. Industry sponsors immediately glommed on, offering endorsement deals and a version of the acceptance he'd long craved from his family. He signed with Powell Peralta, which was then something of a corporate empire and, not coincidentally, Tony Hawk's sponsor.

  Meanwhile, his brother had started skating with a rougher crew. When Damon was 15, during a scuffle in the school parking lot, he was sucker-punched in the temple, leaving him with a career-ending hematoma, and the family had to file lawsuits against his assailants and the school district to cover his medical expenses. Eventually a settlement came through and Damon bought the Rainbow, California, home that he, Danny, and their mother were living in. But Mary's habit threw the household back into chaos. "My mother had so many boyfriends," Danny recalls, "dealers who'd beat the shit out of her and my brother and me." By the time his mother finally moved out, Danny himself had begun drinking and experimenting with drugs. (Mary has been clean for the past two years.) He was also starting to make real money and was able to buy dirt bikes and four-wheelers and guns—pistols, rifles, shotguns—that he and Damon would shoot when they hosted parties. And they hosted a lot of parties. "My friends at the time were on a pretty destructive path, and I was a sponge," Danny says. "The easiest thing to do was to emulate the things that were going on around me. I stepped out of my own skin because I didn't have anywhere else to step." Although inherently shy, Danny noticed that the more recklessly he behaved, the more attention people paid him. He'd jump from the second-story roof and land on the trampoline. He'd ride a motorcycle on his backyard halfpipe, full tilt. One afternoon, with nothing more exciting to do, he yanked his braces off with a pair of pliers.

  Something Revelatory Danny Way Said After Suffering What's Widely Considered One of the Worst Slams in Skateboarding History

  After boosting a 540-degree rotation 20 feet over the 27-foot-tall MegaRamp at the X Games two years ago, Danny clipped his shins on the deck upon reentry, did a front flip, and rag-dolled onto his back-head-neck at the bottom of the ramp. His eyes rolled back in their sockets. He lay motionless. It looked career- (if not life-) ending, and is nauseating to watch on YouTube. The on-site doctor called the ambulance and banned Danny from returning to competition. While no one was looking, though, Danny hobbled through the bowels of the Staples Center and made his way back to the top of the ramp in time for his next run. He nailed the trick he'd slammed on earlier.

  As Danny awaited the judges' score at the bottom of the ramp, an ESPN reporter asked if he'd be able to take his next few runs
, given the fall.

  "I'm taking every run," Danny said. His voice was slurred and his eyes were glazed and he couldn't really stand up straight because inside his shoe his foot was swelling to the size of a football.

  Then he said: "It's about how much abuse the body can take and come back from."

  He thought he was talking about skateboarding.

  A Brief Interlude About Fear

  Although I'd been hiding the fact that I still skated, I'd long entertained delusions of skating the Mega. But once I was there, I saw the sheer absurdity of my thinking. It wasn't the scale of the ramp that intimidated me. It was Danny. Failing to land even the most basic aerial would've been an insult, like he'd offered me a gift and I chucked it into the trash, bow and all, right in front of him. I was afraid to let him down.

  And yet he's a man who strives to put you at ease. In his car he asks if you're getting enough air, if you like the radio station. In restaurants he asks about your food allergies—he has many—and then suggests dishes. He gives extremely thorough driving directions, spells out the street names, and then repeats the spellings, and you get the sense that he'd take your getting lost personally. Which is how I felt on the Mega—afraid not of embarrassing myself so much, but of embarrassing Danny.

  All of which got me thinking about fear, so after his next attempt—where he barely made the full flip and kind of landed on his spine and all of the cameramen nervously looked to each other—I asked if the Mega in any way scared him.

  "I was more scared talking to those students this morning," he said.

  He did look uncomfortable giving his speech, like an awkward groomsman making a toast.

  "It's weird," he said. "Onstage I can't get hurt, but here, where I could get maimed or killed, I feel totally relaxed. I have a lot of things in my memory that I can dig into and unlock to propel my motivation. Skateboarding is my tool for processing emotion and energy. I try to use it that way. It's easier said than done."