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Rodney Mullen
John Rodney Mullen was born on August 17, 1966 in Gainesville, Florida. One of the skaters with the most influence in this sport's history, Rodney has more than 30 ollie and flip tricks to his name, all of which he invented through the 1980s. Some of these include the Kickflip, the Heelflip, as well as the 360 flip, all of which are popularly performed today in both street and vertical skating. Street skating is his expertise, and Rodney is credited with the developing of the street ollie, which is popping the skateboard into the air and landing back on the board, all while moving forward. This is one of the most common and utilized tricks in skateboarding. The development of these tricks alone would be enough to name Rodney the name of most importance in skateboarding history.
Rodney Mullen began skateboarding the same year it turned in a career. At age ten he received his first board, against the initial wishes of his father, and won third place in the first contest he ever entered in 1977. He immediately won the notice of Bruce Walker and gained Walker Skateboards as a sponsor right away. For three years that followed, Rodney won all the contests he decided to enter. He turned professional at the end of those glorious three years, when he was the ripe age of 13 in 1980. He started to skateboard with the Powell Peralta Bones Brigade team after his legendary win at the Oasis Pro in San Diego. His career carried him to 33 out of 34 freestyle competition wins in ten years, the 34th of which he placed second to Per Welinder because he was ill the day of the competition.
While skateboarding, Rodney Mullen also supported himself with some acting and writing. He was part of the feature film Gleaming the Cube in 1988 and also starred in several skateboarding videos from 1984 to 1995. His autobiography "The Mutt: How to Skateboard and not Kill Yourself" was released in 2003.
Rodney Mullen’s other accomplishments include beginning World Industries in 1992 with Steve Rocco, winning the Transworld Readers’ Choice Award for Skater of the Year in 2002 and creating the Almost skateboard company that same year. He is retired from competitions, but still skateboards every day. His number one sponsors before retiring were Almost, Enjoi, Darkstar, Tensor, Speed Demons, Matix and Globe. Rodney will go down in history as the best street skateboarder of his time.
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