John Rodney Mullen (August 17, 1966) is a professional
freestyle and
street skateboarder. He is widely acknowledged as one of the most innovative and influential street skaters in the history of skateboarding.
[1] Mullen is credited with inventing the flatground ollie, the
kickflip (originally called the "magic flip") in 1983, the heelflip, the
impossible and a long list of other original tricks.
[2] Mullen is credited in numerous skateboarding videos, and has authored an autobiography entitled
The Mutt: How to Skateboard and not Kill Yourself.
[3][4]
At age six, Mullen was diagnosed with
pigeon toe and had to wear leg braces to fix the condition.
[5] He began skateboarding on January 1, 1977 at age 10, when his father (who had opposed his son's wishes to practice the sport) finally agreed to give Rodney a skateboard on condition that he would always wear pads, and with the understanding that if he were to ever get hurt, he would have to quit.
[2]
He describes his interest in skateboarding: "I fell in love with skateboarding because it was individual. There were no teams, there were no captains... it was completely opposite of what I saw in so many sports: It was creative. I could walk around with my skateboard at the skate park. "I love skateboarding."
[6] He spent time with his sister's surfer friends who would skateboard on the week days.
[7] In 1978, having owned a skateboard for less than a year, Rodney placed 4th out of a group of older and more experienced professional skateboarders.
[edit] Early career
Throughout the 1980s, he invented the majority of skating's ollie and flip tricks, including the flatground ollie, the Kickflip, the Darkslide, the Heelflip, and the 360 flip.
[citation needed] The tricks are an essential part of modern vertical and street skateboarding.
Despite Alan Gelfand's justifiable fame for inventing the ollie air (Gelfand's maneuver being primarily a vert or pool oriented trick) Mullen is responsible for the invention and development of the street ollie. The ability to pop the board off of the ground and land back on the board while moving has quite likely been the most significant development in modern skateboarding. This invention alone would rank Mullen the most important skateboarder of all time.
As the popularity of freestyle skateboarding declined, Mullen was often urged to move his style toward
street skating.
[8] This is hinted at in the World Industries video
Rubbish Heap, where Mullen's sequence ends with team member
Jeremy Klein breaking Rodney's freestyle skateboard, and handing him a note from Steve Rocco, symbolizing the end of freestyle.
[9]
In 1980 Mullen joined the Powell-Peralta Bones Brigade.
In 1991 Mullen joined the high-profile skateboarding team
Plan B. Mike Ternasky, the owner of Plan B, influenced Rodney to transition from freestyle to street skating, and showcased the results in the 1992 Plan B video
Questionable. Mullen's segment begins with traditional freestyle tricks done on flat ground, but quickly accelerates across public terrain to shift into standard street skating. In relation to obstacles, he sequences tricks, mixes flip tricks with
grinds and board slides. In the video, Mullen introduced two newly invented tricks, the Kickflip Underflip and the Casper slide.
Mullen's
Questionable performance may have marked the beginning of a new era in street skateboarding. His reluctant departure from freestyle to become a street skater was a symbol that legitimized the technical direction street skating had taken over the previous few years. Mullen specialized at this progression in subsequent Plan B videos; noteworthy is 1993's
Virtual Reality where Mullen showcases the newly-mastered
Darkslide.
Mullen's participation in Plan B dissolved after Mike Ternasky died unexpectedly in 1994. In 1997, Mullen started another company, A-Team, with the intent of forming a super team with the defection of
Plan B from the
World Industries empire.
[7] Rodney talked to friend and fellow pro
Daewon Song to plan the video
Rodney vs. Daewon, which featured each skater competing in segments from trick to trick.
Since 1999, Rodney Mullen has appeared in most of the console games of the
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series, Tony Hawk Underground, Tony Hawk Underground 2 ,Tony Hawk American Wasteland, Tony Hawks Proving Ground, and the last game he was in was
Tony Hawk: Ride [10]
The A-Team folded in 2000 and Mullen went from company founder to company rider under former Maple rider
Marc Johnson, who started
Enjoi Skateboards. Mullen left Enjoi to head
Almost Skateboards with
Daewon Song, the company which he still helms and skates for. Mullen's role at Almost includes research and development on new designs and technologies, including
Tensor truck in 2000
[11] and experimental and composite deck constructions for
Dwindle brands.
[12]
In 2002 the
World Industries companies, under the holding name Kubic Marketing, were bought out by Globe International for $46 million. Kubic's management remained intact and Mullen began working for
Globe International under the
Dwindle Distribution brand.
[13]
In 2003, Mullen wrote and released his autobiography, entitled
The Mutt: How to skateboard and not kill yourself. In late 2003 he was voted as the all-time greatest action sports athlete on the
Extreme Sports Channel's Legends of the Extreme countdown.
[14][15]
From 2007 to 2009, Mullen worked to erase his riding stance, allowing him to move from regular stance to goofy stance. In an interview with Tony Hawk, Mullen explained that he had developed problems in his right hip joint and that his transition between stances came out of an effort to favor his leg. He goes on to describe that scar tissue had built up in his joint as a result of habitually hyper-extending his leg while skating. Mullen stated that through extensive and consistent stretching he was able to tear away the scar tissue.
[16]
In December 2010 Mullen stated in an interview that he is preparing to film a part for the upcoming Almost video.
[17]
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