The Big Time
At the age of 17, Ty signed with Bill Riordan, an international sports promoter. In just a few short years, Ty was earning over $100,000 a year on the skateboarding circuit. In the 1970s, skateboarding was the fastest growing sport in the country as evidenced by the 40 million skateboards sold and the multimillion-dollar support industry of protective gear and equipment that emerged. Of the 200 professional skateboarders, only a few had that kind of success; he was a true superstar. In addition to prize money from competitions, Ty had major endorsement deals. Ty was paid $1 for every Ty Page Professional Skateboard that was sold, and he was paid for appearances, commercials, movie appearances, and to test new model boards. By the time he was 19 years old, he had an oceanfront apartment and a new Alfa Romeo Spider.
In 1976, Ty performed in New York, and his exhibition attracted the kind of media coverage usually reserved for Muhammad Ali. Ty starred in several commercials, including Sunny Delight, Wendy's, and MG cars, and appeared in several movies. Ty was a U.S. Goodwill Ambassador and traveled around the world performing in exhibitions and safety demonstrations. In 1977, he was awarded the key to the city of New Orleans by the mayor. He was huge in Japan and went there two or three times, and he was also famous in Europe, especially Germany, Spain, France, and Italy. After two spectacular tours through Germany, Ty was featured as the centerfold in the November/December 1977 German issue of Skateboard, the first U.S. skater to be so honored.
In March 1978, the California Free Former team was featured in Cal Jam 2, skating to Aerosmith, Heart, Ted Nugent and others. Ty skated to the Latin rhythms of “Black Magic Woman” as Carlos Santana performed on stage. The show set a new record for the largest audience in the history of skateboarding – an estimated 300,000 – and was aired nationally on ABC. Ty’s half-pipe skating was highlighted on the cover of Wild World of Skateboarding Magazine in July 1978.
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Famous quotes containing the words big and/or time:
“Nothing is far and nothing is near, if one desires. The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing—desire.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)