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When 26 year old Michael Sterling brushes the dust off his original Xbox to play some Tony Hawk’s Underground, he takes a step back into his childhood.
“This was actually the first Tony Hawk game I ever played, and it was my introduction to skateboarding really,” Sterling said.
Tony Hawk’s Underground is where Sterling first developed his passion for the sport.
It’s a passion that didn’t stay confined to the virtual world.
“Any time my parents would go to town, even stopping to fill up the car for a minute, I would be on my board in the gas station parking lot,” Sterling said.
Those rides across the gas station pavement were only the beginning.
“I’ve been doing this since I’ve been 13, so 13 years now,” Sterling said.
These days Sterling travels the world to skate with some of the best, because he is one of the best.
“Freestyle in the United States, I’m ranked number six,” Sterling said.
As a freestyle skateboarder, Sterling performs tricks on flat ground.
“It actually is where skateboarding started in the 60’s and 70’s was freestyle,” said Sterling.
For Sterling, it was the perfect style for him to learn after growing up in Aldrich, Missouri with mostly grass and dirt roads to choose from.
“A town of about 75 people spread out,” Sterling joked.
Those days of kicking his board around his back porch are long gone.
“Cows were my only audience,” Sterling said with a laugh. “And now I skate in front of tens of thousands of people so that’s quite different.”
It’s so different that the skaters he used as video game characters are now his peers and friends.
“Meeting Tony Hawk was so surreal. He’s the man, he’s the Michael Jordan of skateboarding. He’s the Babe Ruth,” Sterling said.
It may seem surreal, but for Sterling, it’s a childhood dream turned reality.
His next competition will be next month at the United States nationals in Philadelphia.
