Tom Schaar Is (Still) Flying High
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Tom Schaar—the American skateboarder who nabbed an Olympic silver medal in the Men's Park event—was at the opening ceremony, and everyone wanted one of his skateboarding pins. At the Olympics, pin are a hotter commodity than those chocolate muffins, and the athletes trade them like kids swap Mickey Mouse pins at Disney World.
"The skate ones were in high demand," Schaar told me over coffee at Esquire's headquarters last week. "Random people during the opening ceremony were coming up to me, like, 'Are you the skateboard pin guy?!' I was like, 'Yeah, that's me.'" It's how the 24-year-old Schaar met the likes of LeBron James, Steph Curry, and Anthony Edwards, so life as the Skateboard Pin Guy wan't all that bad. "All the basketball players were not coming up to me," he says. "I was going up to them, like, 'Hey, do you want a skate pin?'"
If you were just introduced to Schaar at the Paris Games, you should know that he's been around for quite a while. When the native Californian was just 12, he landed the first-ever 1080 on a mega ramp. (That's three full turns in the air!) Since then, Schaar has racked up eleven X Games medals, including gold in the ultra-scary Vert event at the 2024 Games. (That competition involves speeding across a U-shaped ramp that's 15 feet high on either end!) Now, Schaar is taking victory lap for his triumph in Paris, where he nailed his final run at the Park competition. (My final skating-for-dummies moment: Park sees skaters dip into a massive concrete bowl filled with obstacles. Best assortment of tricks wins.)
Schaar is so humble that he kept his medal in his pocket during our chat. And in the cheery aftermath of his big win, he let his buddies bite it. I respectfully told the man that he needs to find some sanitizer. "Yeah, it's got bite marks everywhere on it," he says. "I gotta get it polished or something. It kinda looks like shit. I'm not gonna lie."
Besides medal maintenance, I talked to Schaar about his silver medal run, his plans for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, and his celebratory lobster dinner with Tony Hawk.
ESQUIRE: My favorite Olympian was the Chocolate Muffin Guy, so I have to ask: In the Olympic Village, what was your chocolate muffin equivalent?
TOM SCHAAR: I mean, the chocolate muffins were that good. As soon as my event was over, I went back at one in the morning and had three or four muffins. Food coma. Passed out.
So this actually was a thing.
They really were that good.
Take me back to your silver medal run. Do you get nervous at all?
I was really nervous. I still get nervous. It's just kind of a part of it, really. If you don't, that's kind of weird.
I had a track coach who always said something to the effect of: “If you’re not nervous before a race, you don’t give a shit.”
Someone asked Tiger Woods if he still got nervous after forty years of competing. He was like, “Yeah, the day I don't get nervous is when I'll stop doing it.”
But it all went away because I barely qualified anyway, so I wasn't really supposed to be there. So I was just trying to do the best I could do and show the rest of the world what skateboarding is supposed to be. That's why it's important that skating is at the Olympics. There's no Tonya Harding in skateboarding. No one hates anyone. It's a big family.
Why is that?
It’s just our life. I've heard people try and tell me that it looks like we're too friendly [with each other]—to where we're not actually competitors. If anything, the fact that we're such good friends and family makes us compete better. We skate together outside of competitions, so we’re always evolving each other.
You wear AirPods when you skate. What’s the song you queue just before you drop in?
It's all over the place. It goes from heavy rock, metal, to a lot of raps in there. There's definitely some EDM in there. And then all of a sudden, Stevie Wonder will be there.
It doesn’t mess with your tempo?
No, not really. Honestly, as soon as I drop in, I can't hear any of it. My brain turns off.
When you finished, did you feel like you had a medal-winning run?
I landed the run that I wanted to, so I was just happy to do what I went there to achieve. But yeah, people kept falling—and it just kept getting closer to the end of the competition. I just stayed in that second position spot pretty much the whole time.
And Snoop Dogg was there when you finished.
I landed my run, and the first person I saw when I looked up was him, just walking right in front of me. He waved me over, gave me a hug, and he was like, “Good shit, good shit!”
This is probably a stupid question, but why does skateboarding only have two Olympic events? Where’s the Vert competition?
That's a great question. Realistically, Street and Park is what most people skate. There's not that many Vert ramps around the world. If there is, say, a million street skaters in the world, there's probably 10,000 Vert skaters in the world.
But that’s what makes you elite, right? You’re really strong in this niche, scary event.
Well, that is the other part of it. I don't know how many people really want to do it. But I would love it if they added that. It'd be cool. It's a very fun event to watch. That's what Tony [Hawk] has been pushing hard—trying to get [Vert into the Olympics].
You’ve been famous in the skateboarding world for over a decade. How does your silver medal compare to pulling off the first-ever 1080 when you were a teenager?
It’s hard for me to remember all that stuff because I was 12 [years old]. But it feels like a new chapter, because that was just such a different time in skating, too. And just the way that I skated back then is so much different than now. I sucked at skating park when I was younger, and I've really focused on that a lot since I've gotten older.
For someone who just watched skateboarding in the Olympics and wants to keep following it—what’s the most important story in the sport right now?
I mean, skating is cool now, which is great. When I was growing up, I always thought it was cool, but I had teachers who'd always tell me that what I was doing is stupid.
Even growing up in California?
Yeah, definitely in California. It wasn’t looked down upon or anything, but I definitely had teachers that would mess with me about it. But if you're getting back into skating now, just do it because you like it. Don't do it because it is cool. If you go and have fun doing it, that's what you should be doing. I mean, I go to the skate park and I see more people now. If you go, just don't get intimidated. Because there will always be some little kid who’s better than you. Just have fun with it.
Will you try to qualify for the 2028 Olympics?
Yeah. I grew up in LA, so that'd be a pretty crazy one to be a part of. But I’m the old guy now, so I just gotta try and stay as healthy as I can because I'll be 28 when that happens. But all these little kids will probably be killing it by that time. So it's like gymnastics. I'm gonna try my best.
What have you learned from the elder statesmen of your sport? Guys like Tony Hawk.
They've told me a lot of times to plan for the future, because you never really know with skating. You could get hurt and that could be it for you. So just always have a backup plan is what they've told me—which I don't. I should figure that out.
Anything I missed?
It’s still pretty hard to put into words. It's been a crazy week of my life, though.
Is it like: I did the thing. What’s next?
That's kind of what I've been thinking. I go back home, I'm working, and filming a lot of projects that'll come out by the end of this year. So I am still going to be very busy, but then after that, it’s like, now what? Maybe that's when I'll work on my backup plan to go to school or something.
Last question: Have you had your big celebration dinner yet?
Yeah, I did it as soon as it was done. My family, Tony Hawk, and I went to dinner in Paris.
What did you have?
Lobster. It was pretty good.
And Tony was there?
I skate for Tony's board company, so he put it on the business card. [Laughs.]
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