He may be one of the greatest action sports legends of all time, but this week the only board he will see any extreme action on is one that has little black sliding buttons and cylindrical notches.

OK, so Tony Hawk has seen a switchboard before. After all, he did work the broadcast booth for the X Games back in 2007.

Now, he returns to the booth again to provide action sports fans the ideal commentary for X Games 15.

The popular extreme actions sports event kicks of Thursday, July 30, as commentator Sal Masekela joins Hawk to kick off X Games 15’s five skateboarding events, including the inaugural Big Air Rail Jam competition (July 31 final) and the debut of Skateboard Park Legends (Aug. 2 final).

This year’s competition features more than 250 athletes participating in five different events: skateboarding, motocross, BMX, surfing and rally car racing.

Defending motocross champion James Stewart, who reportedly signed on with Team San Manuel, makes his X Games debut this week. Joining him, among others, are household names such as Ryan Sheckler, Paul Rodriguez, Aaron Ross, Greg Lutzka, Rune Glifberg, Bob Burnquist and Blake Williams.

Another big name hitting the extreme button at this week’s games is 29-year-old Van Homan, who brings his high-flying BMX act to the X Games for the 11th time.

Homan is challenged by Sean Sexton and Garrett Reynolds. The 18-year-old Reynolds already won several international events earlier this year, including key X Games events in Mexico, Brazil and Dubai. Last year, he claimed a gold medal in the BMX event, ahead of Homan (silver) and Sexton (bronze).

But Stewart brings class to the games. At the ripe age of 23, he is the only African-American champ of these X Games – and the honor is well deserved. In his short five-year career, Stewart has amassed 36 arena circuit victories during the rigorous January-through-May schedule.

At his current pace, he may very well surpass the 72 victories established by Jeremy McGrath. In fact, Stewart is already within reach of second place on the all-time victories list, currently held by Ricky Carmichael, with his 48 career victories. Indeed, Stewart’s debut will be the biggest draw of the event.

Games begin on Thursday, with events at both Staples Center and Home Depot Center in Carson. Among the events kicking of on Thursday include the Hometown Heroes Street Elimination, BMX Freestyle Park Elimination, Skateboard Vert and Street Women’s Finals and the MotoX Step Up Final. Similar events will be held on Friday.

Saturday is almost exclusively dedicated to skateboarding events, yet there are also a few MotoX finals as well as some BMX Vert challenges. The final day will close with the Rally Car final and a skateboard legends event.

This week’s games come on the heels of another action sports championship. For the past two weeks, Huntington Beach hosted the U.S. Open of Surfing just south of the city’s pier. Also, up the freeway in Manhattan Beach, the AVP held its volleyball championships last weekend. A fitting finale for a July full of action and non-traditional sports, X Games 15 certainly finish off a warm July with some of the hottest competition in the world.

X Games 15 is in Los Angeles for its sixth consecutive year and runs from July 30 through Aug. 2. Competition will air on local ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 channels, including an estimated 20 hours of live coverage.