Summary Of Rodney Mullen: The Godfather Of Skateboarding

Rodney Mullen: The Godfather Of Skateboarding
What do you think it would be like to be the best in the world at something, but you still feel empty inside? Rodney Mullen knows exactly how that feels. In the late 1970’s and 1980’s, skateboarding became very popular. After a few years of skating everyday, Rodney became the best in the world. But with success, there comes struggles too. Rodney had his fair share of both. Although Mullen had struggles throughout his entire life, he became a major influence and success in the skateboarding industry.
Although Rodney Mullen struggled throughout his childhood, he managed to have many successes as well. Rodney started skating one day with his neighbor Jack and instantly fell in love with it (Mullen

24). From then on, Rodney went to Jack’s house everyday to skate (Mullen 24). One day, Rodney asked his father if he could have his own skateboard. His father said, “Hell no! And I dont just mean no, Rod I mean hell no!” (Mullen 27). Rodney decided to devise a plan with his mother, on New Year’s Eve, after his father had a few drinks, he would ask again. This time his father said sure (Mullen 30). “On the first day of 1977, I officially became a skateboarder.” That day, Rodney and his father went to the local surf shop to buy a skateboard.As soon as Rodney arrived home, he put his pads on and went into his garage to skate all day (Mullen 33). Rodney started going to the surf shop to skate in the parking lot. Day by day he was becoming better and better. Eventually, the owner of the shop noticed him and asked Rodney if he wanted a sponsorship. Rodney accepted and started entering contests and winning (Mullen 41-50). When Rodney was thirteen his father decided the he was spending too much time skateboarding (Mullen 75). After Rodney won his first pro contest in California, he thought he was at the end of his skating career (Mullen 93). Life, as Rodney knew it, was over.
Just when Rodney thought his skating career was over, a new set of struggles and successes came into his teen years.

After Rodney came back from California, his father would not allow him to skate any more. During the times that he would usually be skating, he was sitting in his room writing, reading, and thinking about skateboarding (Mullen 97). On the third day back from his trip, Rodney received a phone call from Skateboard News, which was the leading skateboard magazine at the time. They interviewed him for fifteen minutes. Rodney’s dad heard the whole conversation and called Rodney to where he was sitting (Mullen 97). He asked him who was on the phone and Rodney told him who it was. Rodney’s father decided that, “...with all these people investing money in you, maybe you should keep skating…” (Mullen 98). In 1982, Rodney invented the flatground ollie (Mullen 115). This was a huge accomplishment because without the flatground ollie, modern street skating would not exist. Not only did this accomplishment help him win more contests, it also compelled him to invent new tricks, the likes of which nobody had ever seen before (Mullen 116). After Rodney graduated from high school, he attended the University of Florida (Mullen 142). Rodney was worried that he would have to stop skating when he entered college, but having always been a straight A student, college was surprisingly easy for him. “No one was more surprised than me when I got straight As and won the two freestyle

contests I entered in 1985” (Mullen 142). Rodney was at a good spot in his teenage life, but as his adult life was beginning, so were a new set struggles that Rodney would have to face.
Rodney Mullen was beginning his adult life and with this new stage in his life, he would go through more trials and tribulations than he could ever imagine. When Rodney came home for summer break in 1987 after college, he got into a fight with his father (Mortimer 56). Rodney decided to move out for good. He had no place to stay except for with his grandmother in Texas, who had been disowned by Rodney’s father years earlier (Mortimer 162). Rodney’s only income was from demos and competitions that he competed in (Mortimer 165). Rodney eventually moved out of his grandma’s house and into a government-subsidized house on the edge of town (Mortimer 167). After Rodney finished his fourth year in college, he was on a tour with other skaters in the Bones Brigade (Mortimer 173). “I had slowly been getting more and more anxious at the demos, and I knew it was only a matter of time before a meltdown. I couldn’t deal with the mob scenes, people shouting questions at me, chanting my name, suffocating me as they squeezed in closer trying to get an autograph. I dreaded getting out of the van for demos” (Mortimer 173).