Skateboarders grow long in tooth

CARSON, Calif. – Skateboarding is all grown up.

Long synonymous with youth, many of the sport’s top practitioners and biggest stars are husbands and fathers.

Long associated with delinquency, skateboarding is now downright respectable.

One-time teen sensation Tony Hawk is older than 40, retired from competition and acting the elder statesman as he does commentary for ESPN’s X Games coverage.

The sport has been around long enough to have its version of an oldtimers’ game – an exhibition called Legends of Vert, featuring 1980s skate idols such as Hawk, Christian Hosoi and Mike McGill, will be held this morning.

Compared to the newer and more youth-oriented variations of sports the X Games churns out every year, today’s signature event Skateboard Vert is almost like baseball, storied and classic.

All of the returning medalists in the event are at least 30: Defending champ Sandro Dias is 32, silver medalist Bob Burnquist is 30 and bronze winner Bucky Lasek is 34.

Lasek, who won gold in Vert in 2003 and 2004 and won Best Trick last year, has been married for 10 years. He has kids 9 and 7 and a third on the way.

The three thirtysomethings will still get a serious challenge from youth.

Shaun White, 20, has hoarded gold medals in the Winter X Games and Winter Olympics but has never won a gold in skateboarding.

Brown makes appearance

Skateboarder Jake Brown made an appearance at the X Games Saturday night, two days after a terrifying fall that made watchers gasp and left him with a bruised lung and liver and a pair of broken bones.

Fresh from the hospital and walking with a cane, Brown appeared briefly between motorcycle races at the Home Depot Center.

“I’m doing great, I’m still walking, that’s more than I can ask for,” Brown told the crowd. “I can’t wait to come back.”