Surprise appearance of skateboarding pro Hawk is 'completely awesome'

Groton – Skateboard pro Tony Hawk made a surprise appearance in Groton today, drawing hundreds of skaters from the region to the skate park at Sutton Park.

"This is completely awesome," said 20-year-old Lauren Lange, a Groton resident. "The only reason I got into skateboarding is because of Tony Hawk, dude. And now he's here. Oh man, I'm so excited right now that I could cry."

Donny Barley, 36, of Providence, runs a skate camp during the summer. As a teenager living in Groton, he and his friends lobbied for the town to build the park.

"It's unbelievable, man," Barley said. "We had been fighting for this skate park as kids for maybe 10 years. Everybody has put a lot of time and effort into this place and now to see Tony here, we're on the map now."

Hawk is on tour this month to promote his new videogame, "Tony Hawk: Ride," and has been making surprise visits to parks. A few hours before arriving with about 20 other professional skaters, Hawk posted to Twitter that he would be coming to Sutton Park.

"This is a nice change," he said. "A lot of the things we have done in the past have been organized on a big scale. I like doing this when it's a lot more renegade and a lot more intimate."