Rodney Mullen is kind of a strange guy. Anyone who was around him during his professional career could tell you that. Fortunately for him, this often worked in his favor, as he dedicated his entire life to skateboarding, a sport where teamwork is not involved. The funny thing is, that other than skateboarding, one of the first things that is associated with him is innovation. One only needs to look at his list of invented tricks to understand why. Rodney has invented tricks on every side of the skateboard that is possible, such as a dark slide, which is upside down, a primo slide, in which the board is sideways, and the casper slide, where he stands the skateboard on end. Not only has he invented this wide range of complex tricks, but he also was the first to discover skateboarding basics, such as the ollie and the kickflip. When asked about the kickflip, Rodney said that one time he tried to ollie his skateboard, and failed. While he failed, he saw the board flip around, and said he felt that it was moving in slow motion. Next thing he knew, he had invented the kickflip on accident, a trick where you ollie and kick with your front foot in order to spin the board.
Today Rodney Mullen travels around to speaking events, and even appeared in a TED talk called, “Pop an Ollie and Innovate.” He has his own line of skateboards, called Almost, which consistently pushes the boundaries for skateboarding technology. It’s crazy to think that one of the most basic tricks in skateboarding happened by accident.
Cool story! It is quite inspiring that someone created a career centered around something they love, and even started it by just messing around and creating new tricks!