In Search Of Excellence - Ryan Sheckler: The Youngest Winner of X Games | E65

Episode Date: June 13, 2023

Welcome to another episode of In Search of Excellence! My guest today is Ryan Sheckler, one of the greatest skateboarders of all time! He turned pro when he was only 13 and, in that same year, became the youngest gold medalist in X Games history. At 17, he was the star of his own MTV reality show, The Life of Ryan. And in 2008, he created the Sheckler Foundation, whose goal is to support and enrich the lives of children and injured action sports athletes.Tune in to hear about his beginnings, the skateboarding community, Tony Hawk, the crucial X Game competition that made him famous, and so much more! Time stamps:00:50 Ryan’s first skateboarding experienceHe was around 18 months oldA wild kid that moved around a lotDiscovered skateboarding as a toddler and naturally took it to the next levelAll his neighbors skatedLoves free-falling and speedThe reaction of parents when they got hurtBroke his arm when he was 505:48 Wearing helmets and padsVery important for kids that are still learningWore helmet until 14There is always a risk of fallingToday, it’s all about social mediaSocial media can work for you or against for youKids should learn in their own way and at their own paceThere're no rules to skateboarding, you’ve got to feel itRandall’s experience in Venice skate park15:00 Meeting Tony HawkTony Hawk skated at the YMCARyan’s dad emailed him and asked to come to a birthday partyTony asked for $500 and a chocolate cakeIt was an incredible experienceHis coming and the way he treated them stuck with him17:22 Skater community is a giving communityWas in Cuba years agoThe skate scene in Cuba is epicThey build their own incredible skateboards from various materialsLeft everything he brought with himself thereThe skater community is special and very givingRyan traveled the world as a skateboarderYou don't have to speak the language, speaking skateboarding is enoughWhat they all have in common is painRyan had 12 broken bones, ligaments injuries, surgeries, and pinsDo good things for people in silenceRandall’s son skateboarding themed Bar MitzvahAs getting older, Ryan wants to be more selfless27:50 Rodney Mullen and his impact on Ryan’s lifeRodney Mullen is the best skateboarder alive everRodney is the forefather of skateboardingA Skateboard company called AlmostUnexpectedly, Rodney Mullen called RyanRyan was obsessed with skateboarding and won many competitionsBut didn’t expect to go pro before 21Started traveling with RodneyThe impact he had on Ryan’s life is immeasurable 33:57 Winning the X Games at 13Getting invited to X GamesAlways enjoyed skateboarding contestsGot the opportunity to go to X GamesHe was stoked to be around all the skateboarding superstarsPreformed excellently and his score was the bestHe won the competition but it didn’t make sense to himHad to go to school the next day 38:50 Learning wrestling in high schoolWon thSponsors:Sandee | Bliss: BeachesWant to Connect? Reach out to us online!Website | Instagram | LinkedIn

No matter what your background is, no matter who you are, what you do, like if you're on a board, I relate with you. You don't have to speak the language. We speak skateboarding, which requires a lot of pain to learn. My guest today is Ryan Sheckler. Ryan is an entrepreneur, former reality TV star and philanthropist, and is most well known as one of the greatest skateboarders of all time. He turned pro when he was 13 years old.

In that same year, he became the youngest gold medalist in X Games history. At 17, he was the star of his own MTV reality show, The Life of Ryan. And in 2008, he created the Sheckler Foundation, whose goal is to support and enrich the lives of children and injured action sports athletes. Ryan, it's awesome to have you on my show. Welcome to In Search of Excellence. Thank you for having me, man. It's super good to be here. And what an intro. I appreciate that. Sometimes I forget, man. I forget that I've had such a full life. I very much try to live on a day-to-day basis and not get too far ahead of myself or actually go too far back.

So every once in a while when I hear some of the accolades and things that have happened in my life, it makes me smile, man. It's good stuff. Well, let's start by going all the way back. And I want to talk about this board you found in your garage. Can you tell us about the board, how old you were and what you did when you saw it for the first time? Yeah, man, that's the crazy thing is I actually don't remember. I was so young. I think I was 18 months old. And the only reason I know it's around that time frame is because we have home videos. And the skateboard was just intriguing to me. You know, I think I was a wild kid.

I definitely moved around a lot. I did not stop. And the skateboard wheels were what was the most intriguing. And I think I flipped it over one day and, you know, my dad was there, my mom. And I just kind of crawled onto the thing and figured out that I could put my front arms on the front of the board and one leg on the back and then use my other leg, which would have been my right leg, to start pushing around. And that's where it started. You know, I started walking at nine months old. So, like, I gradually just I wanted to go fast.

I think I think I always enjoyed going fast and being thrown up in the air. My dad would always grab me and throw me up in the air and catch me. And I got a rush out of that, you know, and I think looking back at it now, it's like, that's a huge reason of why I do the things on my skateboard that I do today. It was just from growing up and actually being exposed to adrenaline very early. Safe adrenaline, I guess you could say. But yeah, the skateboard was intriguing. So I just got on it and I started going.

And then naturally took it to the next level and stood up on it and started actually skating. When was the first time you stood up without your dad or your mom holding your hand? Yeah, probably around three years old. Three years old, just kind of goofing around in the garage. But all my neighbors skated and all my neighbors were three, four years older than me. So they were the big kids, you know, and kind of whatever they were doing, I wanted to do and they were all skating. And so for me, the natural progression of what it was, was like to get good. And then my competitive nature kicked in and then I wanted to be better than, you know, the kids on the block. And, um, I just kind of strive for that goal.

Yeah. You said a while back that you love the feeling of free falling. I think a lot of us have that feeling for the first time when we're on a roller coaster and the stomach is just up in your face, up in your throat, but you had it at a young age. Was that what fueled you every time you got on the board? You just wanted that rush of adrenaline and energy as you got going? Yeah. I would say it was the the experience of the free fall pit in my stomach for sure but then also like speed you know and i think at a really young age uh i realized the consequence of speed and of trying to skate things that were bigger and outside of my means and my parents were super rad dude and still and still are super rad. And I think the main thing that helped me be able to achieve goals and to actually get to this point in my life was the way that they reacted when I got hurt or when me and my brothers got hurt. over the top, definitely not like helicopter parents of like, oh, you know, like freaking out. They just stayed super calm. And so in my mind, even as a young kid, it showed me like,

oh, I'm okay. You know, like, I'm okay. I'm hurt. I broke my arm. But, you know, I'm looking at my mom and my dad for reaction. And they're just cool and calm and got me to the hospital and got the bone set, got the cast on. And, you know, I remember breaking my arm when I was like five years old, four years old. And it was a traumatic experience for sure. Jumping over a Fisher Price picnic table, if I have that right. Yeah, you do. You got it right. All my neighbors were doing it and I was like, man, I can do that. And I couldn't do it. And I broke my arm. That was the first time I broke it. Uh, I think it's one of five on the left arm,

but I remember getting it casted up. And, uh, I just asked the doctor, like, can I skate again? And he said, yeah. And then I looked at my parents and they said, yeah. And so I was like, all right, this is fine. Like I get hurt and be okay. So I mean, that played a huge part of my life. I've been hurt a lot. Did you wear the pads when you started skating? My son, Charlie, I skated when I was a kid, nothing like you. And then Charlie, my son, who's 19, loves you, by the way. I took him to the park. What's that? I said, what up, Charlie? He's not here right now, but... He'll see it. He's totally going to see it.

He's super psyched. So I took him to a park. We live in Los Angeles. I took him to one of these flat parks and held his hand, right? And he's skating along. And this is actually super funny. We're skating, skating, skating, let go. And it happened so fast where he ran over this two-year-old kid with a mom.

Standing there, we're like, poop. It's just one of these super funny moments. That was his first time at letting go. He actually hit a kid. The kid didn't get hurt, just cried. But when I took him to the park and he skated Venice and he'd go to the Cove every day after school, but I was terrified when he fell for the first time and he was wearing pads. I was terrified and hoping,

I mean, I was the parent that your parents were not. And I was hoping he'd fall once or twice. I'm thinking he's not that tough, never want to play football. And he just kept going. He just kept going back and back and back. And it finally got to the point where he was too cool to wear the pads. Were you wearing pads or you just took them off right out of the gate? No, I'm actually a pretty big advocate for helmets and pads for kids that are starting to learn how to skateboard. I think it's very important. I think that your neck is not strong enough, especially when you do fall off the board. And like you said, you know, skateboarding happens in milliseconds,

split seconds. And so if you're not prepared and if you're not focused and you fall, sometimes as a kid, you're not ready for that whiplash. And I think, uh, I think the helmets are super important. Um, elbow pads, knee pads, it's kind of up to the parents discretion at that point. Cause you got to remember, like, these are still kids, you know, the parents can still have a say in the safety of their child. And, um, for me, I didn't stop wearing a helmet until I was almost 14 years old, you know, um, for me, maybe the knee pads and the elbow pads, they kinda, they left a little bit quicker, but that's cause I was skating street. And the difference between park and street is like

in the park, you can fall, you know, and if you have knee pads on, that's all good. You can slide out and fall. But if you start going and skating street, the concrete, the asphalt, the park, you can fall, you know, and if you have knee pads on, that's all good. You can slide out and fall. But if you start going and skating street, the concrete, the asphalt, the stairs, like you do not want to be stuck in the habit. I did not want to be stuck in the habit of falling to my knees on the concrete. And especially when you start taking them off, you don't want to do that at all. Yeah. So for me, it wasn't about being cool. It wasn't a cool thing for me. It was more of a comfortability thing at that point. I needed a little bit more

kind of free flow with my body when I was in the streets, but I still wore a helmet because I understood that my neck was not strong enough. And still to this day, I can get smoked for sure. Like I can go skate and not pay attention for half a second and I could end up on the ground hitting my head, you know? So it's a calculated risk that I take, but I don't think it's important. Well, I think it's actually really important for kids to wear helmets until you feel comfortable enough or, you enough or you have a discussion with your parents or whatever it may be. But don't worry about being cool.

Skateboarding is like super accepting and people understand. Everybody on the skateboard started in one place. We all started at the same place. We all started not being able to do what we wanted to do. We fought through it. We trudged through it. And we just kept being persistent on the board to get to where you want to be, whatever level that may be. So especially kids when they're at

the park and they're wearing a helmet, I'm stoked. I'm stoked that they're being smart, you know? And I should wear a helmet sometimes, dude. Honestly, like I really should. And I think about it all the time. And especially now being a dad. I'm like, man, some of these risks are getting a little crazy. But at the end of the day, I can't stop skating and I can't stop pushing myself. So much of the non-helmet movement, I think, is you're growing up or you grew up in a little different day than the kids today where social media, it's all about the social media, right? So you're going to the park, you got your friend. I mean, I was Charlie's photographer.

So we go to parks, we've driven all over LA. We went to Detroit once to go to Tony Hawk's Park there. They built downtown in the city, city. I mean, it was not a safe neighborhood to even get out of the car, but he wanted to go there. But it's all about the city city. I mean, it was not a safe neighborhood to even get out of the car, but he wanted to go there. But it's all about the social media. And you got these kids at Venice skate park without the helmets because everyone's filming them. So just give the advice to all the kids listening or the weekend warriors, even people my age, the social media thing, you got to forget it and you got to wear the helmet.

Yeah, dude. You know, social media is a fickle beast. It can work with you or it can absolutely work against you. And what I've realized happening now is a lot of comparison going on. So maybe you'll watch a trick that I did and you're like oh that was you know that was what it was um i want to do that and but i don't want to wear a helmet and i want to look like that well the difference is is that like i've put my whole life into this craft and i understand the risks that i'm taking by not wearing protective gear. A kid that doesn't know, or hasn't been skating as long as I have, or as committed, so say, doesn't know how he's going to fall or how it's going to react or what the board's going to do. So I think with social media, you kind of got to ignore it. Like you said, man, it's like, who cares if you look cool, but you're in a coma,

you know, like who cares about that? That's not cool. So it's tough, dude. It's a fine line. It's a fine balance, you know? And I think, I think social media is, is it can be good and bad. You know, I think kids don't actually really get to explore and figure out what they, what they want to do. I think the internet tells kids what they should be doing and how they should be doing something instead of firsthand learning. And so for me, especially over here at Sandlot Times, you know, my new skateboard company, like I'm here to let the kids learn and let whoever gets on the team, like learn your

craft, learn it the way you want to do it. It doesn't have to be done a certain way. And, uh, we have a huge sticker in the skate park and it just says change the narrative. And that can mean a million different things. But for me, change the narrative is just like, you don't have to do something the same way everybody else does it. There's no rules to skateboarding. There's no rules to a skateboard business. There's, it's all feel, you know, you got to feel it and you got to listen to your intuition. So if you're a kid or a young adult or a weekend warrior, as you said, and you're getting ready to go skate and something in your mind tells you to put pads on, put them on, listen to that. You know? Um, I think it's important. Yeah. And, and you've seen a lot of bad stuff. I've seen not as much bad stuff as you have, but I remember going to Venice skate park and, you know, you take turns, right? So you got the riders and then you wait for someone else, you know, they got their

turn. And I think this kid was 14 years old, whatever. And you get motivated. Someone before you goes, and they're really good. Then you want to go, and you want to show off your stuff. And it's a Saturday. There's 500 people there, five people deep. And the kid, who was not that good. I mean, he was fine. He could get around the ball.

Hit his head. And the kid just passed out. And everyone is standing around. We went down to the bowl. I was on the edge. I went down there and, you know, I mean, it's a steep drop, right? So you're sliding on your ass going down there and the kid wouldn't move. I'm like, oh fuck. And so I ran the lifeguard tower at Venice beach was, I don't know, a half mile. And there's no police around either. You're looking for one, right? They're walking up and down the Venice park. And, you know, I, I was, I probably ran the fastest half mile that I've run in my life and I hadn't run in a long time, but you know, just yelling and screaming for them to come over and,

you know, they came over and, you know, it's not like they ran right away either. You know, you got to knock on the door and, uh, the kid ended up waking up, but, and he didn't die, but it was really the first time I saw someone really pop their head. You know, my son would come home, you know, are you okay? And now I got a concussion. What happened? You know, skaters are skaters. They want to keep going, right, no matter what.

We'll talk about the theory in a while, but let's go back. Tony Hawk, icon, some consider the best ever. You're in that conversation as well, but it could be your birthday party when you're six years old. How'd that happen? Yeah. I mean, me and my brother were obsessed with Tony Hawk and obsessed with skateboarding, period. And we knew that he skated at the YMca um back in the day it was the ymca skate camp but it was just the ymca skate park in uh encinitas and shane's birthday was coming up so we were going to celebrate a uh kind of a joint birthday and we wanted tony hawk and my dad found his email emailed him directly and uh asked him if he would come and and tony replied you know and said

he would come uh for i think it was like a 500 appearance fee and some chocolate cake you know so at the end of the day thinking about it now where i'm sure his appearance fee is probably half a million dollars you know it's like we got him for 500 bucks and he ate cake and he brought a bunch of pro skaters and they skated and we watched them and they hung out with us and they signed autographs for me and my bro and all of our friends that came. And you know, that was a really awesome experience for me because Tony was super cool. And it's a life lesson that I learned very young that like somebody I looked up to and somebody I was intrigued with had the time of day to be cool to me. And that's always

stuck with me. That will never leave me. And that's the way I treat people that come up to me or kids that I see when I'm out skating that come up. Um, I've also had experiences where I've looked up to people and thought they were epic and met them in person and they really bummed me out. And so I've had the, I've had the spectrum of, of both sides for sure on, on treatment in skateboarding. And, um, I want to be, uh, I want to be the guy that the guy that's nice. And not because I'm trying to be nice, just because I care about skateboarding. I absolutely care and love skateboarding. I love the passion that a new skateboarder has. Watching a kid land their first kickflip, their first ollie, there's nothing better for me. Tell us about the kid from Cuba.

From Cuba? Didn't you give a board to a kid from Cuba who needed a board one day? Dude, that's a crazy... I don't even know how you came up with that. Yes, dude. So I went... I was actually in Cuba on a Red Bull trip years and years ago. And we started off in Panama and I brought a ton of shoes and wheels and trucks and boards and brought them over to Cuba because the skate scene there is actually epic. It's insane. They will create a board out of whatever means they can, build these crazy skateboard presses, use glue that we don't use today and build their own skateboards. And it was very like old school.

You know, there was like roller skate trucks that they would take off and put on the board. So it'd be like a full size board with really small trucks. And I was just like blown away when we got to Cuba and saw how many incredible skateboarders there were, and especially on what they were skating. So we, um, I actually left everything that I brought all my clothes, my bag, I went to Cuba with a huge duffel bag and left with just my backpack. And like, I think one pair of boxers and a pair of socks in case the flight got messed up. But, um, that for me is what it's all about. You know, that's why we do Schecter foundation. Now it's like, we want to introduce skateboarding. We want to show

what skateboarding can bring the feeling it can bring the actual practice of perseverance. You know, like you're not going to get skateboarding first try. You're not like nobody will. You cannot not be a skateboarder, get on and master skateboarding. Honestly, you can't even master skateboarding. It's always changing. It's forever changing. And there's always a new trick. Somebody's always going to be better than you. And that's okay. Once you accept that, you're like, you're totally fine. But yeah, the Cuba trip, I haven't thought about that trip in a long time. That was a cool trip. You know, when you've done well, you've had tremendous success. I've done okay. And my son

loves a new board, right? Kids got to get a new board. It's five new boards a year. I mean, every birthday or non-birthday, dad, I need a new board. What's five new boards a year i mean every birthday or non-birthday dad i need a new board what's wrong with your board you know it's three months old whatever so we had i don't know 12 boards in the garage uh and my kids i'm very big on teaching them to get back they all volunteered at the food pantry in santa monica and as you know a lot of the skaters have no money right they're there and um some of them look homeless and volunteering at the food pantry. And there was a guy in line who saw at the skate park. And so he took a super proud moment as a dad. He took, I think he gave him a couple of boards. He said, dad, he came home. He said, I don't know. You know, I looked

at him. I didn't know if I should say something. He felt uncomfortable because he didn't know what he should say. And it was an eye-opening moment for Charlie because I think he was at the time 16 years old. He said, hey, got to give him some stuff. And he did. So definitely a very giving community for sure. I mean, I hung out with a lot of those kids and a lot of the moms, a lot of the dads, but it's a special community when you're a skater. Yeah, it really is special, dude. It's special in the sense that it's all love. You know, it's all love. And I've got to travel the world as a skateboarder. And I travel to places where there's a complete language barrier. But it doesn't matter because the second I jump on my board and I'm at the skate shop

or I'm just skating around the street and you hear, I can hear skateboard wheels from a mile away. I know like immediately hear a skateboard. I'm like, oh, and I relate with that person. No matter what your background is no matter who you are what you do like if you're on a board i relate with you because i know what it took to even be able to push down the street like that like oh and i can always kind of tell too like how good a skater is by how they push how comfortable they are just

like on one foot or what their push looks like or how they kind of go around a corner, you know, and you don't have to speak the language. We speak skateboarding, which requires a lot of pain to learn. And so for me in my life, you know, a lot of my main lessons and biggest lessons in life, whether it be, you know, actual injury or emotional have been through pain. And I think pain is something that a lot of kids get scared of. I think pain is, is what kind of separates the, you know, weekend warrior from someone who's obsessed, whether that be skateboarding or anything. If you're obsessed with something, if you're super passionate about it, no matter what the circumstances is or are, you are going to continue that. And for me, it's skateboarding.

I can get hurt and I've been really hurt, 12 broken bones, you know, ligaments for days and surgeries and pins and the whole process. And not once have I ever thought, you know, maybe I shouldn't skate. You know, it's more like, man, I cannot believe I was not paying attention for that one second that, you know, spun my ankle backwards, like whatever it may be. It's all passion. Skateboarding is passion. So wherever I go in the world and like, good on your son, dude, like good on your son for doing that. That, that comes from his heart. You know, he didn't have to do that. And some people think they have to do it and they'll do it and then they'll film it for

social media. And it's like, Hey, look at me do this. It's like, we want to do good works in, in silence. You know, we want to do good works when people aren't looking at us and make that a habit of just like doing good things for people. And it doesn't matter if social media or anybody sees you doing that, you know, in your heart that you're actually going out to do it because you want to help. And, um, I don't know. I've just always kind of, I just feel led to do very similar things that your son did. So I'm proud of him for that.

That's really cool. Thank you. He's going to be probably pissed at me that I mentioned it. So I'll just say, Hey, Charlie, sorry. And got a really, really great Tony Hawk story. So my son had a bar mitzvah and it was a skateboarding theme party. So it was super cool. He had a new company that he started called Shred On Hat Company. He designed the logo. He's super cool hat. But I put together this video montage of his whole life from first moment born right up until the party. And I had all these famous people say, happy Bar Mitzvah, Charlie. And sometimes I would run into them or I'd be at a charity function. I'd track them down. Hey, can you say this? I had Tom Brady and Dustin Johnson and Matthew

Stafford. I'm a huge Lions fan. I'm in Detroit and Clay Thompson. And I want to get Tony Hawk. You know, Tony's the big one, right? Skateboard party. Charlie was all about skating. So like you, I just called up. I said, hey, having a skateboarding party for my son. Would Tony just film a little video? And at that point, his sister was running the foundation. I forget her first name. Amazing woman.

And she sent this video. Tony at his personal park. I don't know how big this drop-in was, 40 feet. Tony's going, hey, Charlie, this one's for you. And up and down. And I mean, he was flipping all over the place, upside down. He was four round trippers. And then he finished like, happy bar mitzvah, Charlie. And that's how we ended the video. And it's like, when people are good and they're great, they're just good and great. I mean, giving back, being a role model. Just huge, right? That just fires you up and it makes you believe in great things as a kid.

Yeah, for sure. For sure. And I feel like... Did you post that somewhere? I feel like I've you post that somewhere? I feel like I've seen that. I didn't, but I'm going to send it to you and I probably should post it. I think it's really cool.

It's epic, by the way. Yeah, I love that word. I think you should post that, dude. I think you should post it and show people, know that like some of their their heroes their favorite dudes like are actually super selfless and will do something cool like that for uh for someone they don't know you know and that's the whole point dude it's like i'm not unique in the sense that i'm a professional athlete like i'm not unique because i skateboard um there's nothing about me that's unique. And I, and I accept that. And when I, when I know that and I understand that it makes life so much easier, man, I'm, I'm living life on life's terms. If I run into someone that needs help, I'm going to help them.

If I'm going to the skate park and a kid wants to learn how to kick flip, I'm going to help him before I start doing my session. The, the older that I'm getting and the more life that is going by, just the more selfless I want to be. I just want to do things for others. I want to do things for my wife, for my kid, for my family. It about me when I, when I take myself out of the way and think about others first, crazy doors open up that end up being for me. But, um, if I'm stuck in my will and stuck trying to, trying to finesse my life and make it, make it go the way I want, I'm, I'm. When I kind of just sit back and let life happen, it's all right.

So, you know, there's times in all of our lives, right, when some weird things go down. You're not expecting it and you think some things are just not happening. I had a friend who worked at Fox. It was probably 15 years ago. Fox had nothing online, no content. You know, the net was taking off and Fox was nowhere. And they had had some senior people there really just do nothing. And my friend gets a call, his phone rings. This is Rupert Murdoch and I'd like to have lunch with

you today. Click. The guy calls back. I said, it's Rupert Murdoch. I'd like to have lunch today. And he said, who is this fucking with me? And he hung up again. Then the phone rings a third time and he says, this is Rupert Murdoch. I'd like to meet you in the executive lounge at noon today. And it was Rupert Murdoch. Tell us about Rodney Mullen and who he is and you star 69ing him and the impact he had in your life. Yeah, that was crazy. You know, thinking about that. It's so funny. Like right when you started talking about that story, my brain snapped to like my Rodney Mullen story. Rodney Mullen. How do you even explain him, dude?

He's the best skateboarder alive ever. Still to this day? For sure. He'll always be the best. He'll always be the best because he created all of these tricks that everybody does now. Sorry, Rodney was the first to do them, was the first to create them. The kickflip, 360 flip, everything. So I attribute and look at Rodney as, you know, the forefather of skateboarding for sure for me. And I've always looked up to Rodney. I've always respected Rodney. And there was a period of my

life where I was writing for World Industries, which is a skateboard company, and Rodney and Daywon, who definitely deserve to be mentioned in the same breath. Day day one song is absolutely incredible and might be just as, just as gnarly as Rodney. So the two of them were starting a skateboard company called almost. And I was just getting ready to turn pro for world industries. I had boards that were like ready to come out but never did and i was sitting at home and my the the house phone rang so there's no caller id and my dad answered the phone and rodney who has a very calm like very subtle voice was like hey it's rodney mullen um is your son there and my dad hung up the phone just like i was like hey who's that he was like ah some guy pretending to be rodney mullen and i was like dad if it's actually rodney like you gotta call him back dude and so we

star 69'd him and uh he answered the phone and my dad kind of vetted him out for a little bit and then kind of realized it was him and the second i heard his voice when i got on the phone i knew it was rodney and rodney asked me if i wanted to ride for his new company and for me dude that whole period of my life right there like that 10 10 to 13 was out of my wildest dreams. And it actually wasn't even a dream. You know, I thought when I was skating with all my neighbors and all the kids, like when I was growing up, you know, and I talked about growing up like five to five to 10, I had tried skating so hard and I was skating every day and was making it a passion. I was obsessed with skateboarding, but I knew, well, what I thought I knew was that it was going to take me until I was like 21 to be pro because skating was so hard.

And I was like, man, there's no way I'm going to be professional at skateboarding. Um, anytime before I'm 21, like I'm going to have to put in this much work in skateboarding to, to turn pro. And, you know, I was still going to contests. I went to contests every other month. Um, I was winning a lot of contests. I really enjoyed competition skateboarding and yeah, Rodney hit me up, dude. He hit me up and wanted me on his team. And, um, I said, yes, of course. Uh, of course. And I got to travel with him. I got to travel with him for, you know, four years, three or four years, which being on a trip with him is incredible. Everybody would skate. He would be there. He wouldn't skate. And then once everyone kind of got back to the hotel,

kind of checked in, chilled out, you know, right around like one o'clock in the morning, Rodney would get the filmer and go find a parking garage and just go skate flat ground for hours. And I kind of started figuring out that's what he was doing. And so I would just kind of shadow him and I wouldn't skate. I would just watch him skate. And some of the craziest skateboarding I've ever seen, but also the most intact mental that I had ever seen. He had a plan. He was going to do this trick until he landed it. And then he was going to land it 10 times. And I learned a lot from Rodney. I learned a lot from Rodney, especially like body weight, where my shoulders need to be for a lot of tricks and being taught a trick from a guy who created the trick. Um, that's why some of the

tricks I do today are the way they are because I learned how to perfect them from the guy who created them. And, uh, it was just a trip, dude. It's a trip. And, you know, I don't get to talk to Rodney as much as I would like. Um, we still are friends. We still, you know, stay in contact. I'll see him maybe once a year, something like that. But, um, the impact he had on my life is immeasurable. You're 13, you're going to go pro at 21. And as a rookie, you won every contest that year that you were in, including the X Games.

Was the X Games easily the biggest crowd you've ever seen? And how do you respond to the pressure? And once you're there and you're getting the gold medal on the stand, what are you saying to yourself? I mean, I watched the Olympics and X Games and Sean White and it's, yeah, they've been up there before, right? I mean, even the first time, but you're 13 years old and you're looking around.

What are you thinking? It was crazy, man. Getting invited to X Games was the craziest thing to start it off. You know, I didn't know I was going to get invited to X Games. I just enjoyed skateboarding contests. So I would skate contests and I would take it very seriously. If I didn't win, I was crying and I was very bummed. Obviously, I would congratulate the winner because I had respect.

But internally for myself, I was kicking my butt, dude. I was bummed out and I was trying to figure out immediately, like can I be better how can I actually how can I win the next one so with that you know mentality skating contests like I I got the opportunity to go to x games and I had watched x games for years and we ended up showing up there and I started skating the practice. The whole thing was crazy, actually, like checking in as an athlete to X Games was gnarly. You know, I'm like in the athlete check in and there's Brian Deegan. There's Travis Pastrana. You know, there's Tony Hawk and Bob Burnquist and Jamie Bestwick and Ryan Nyquist and all of these superstar athletes that like I'm I'm a fan

of and now I'm in the same room checking in on the same computer that you know Tony just touched and I'm like man this is crazy this is crazy and then like Eric Koston would walk in and I was like man that's Eric Koston like how am I going to actually compete with these guys but I didn't I wasn't in that mind state yet because I was was just stoked to be there. Um, and I think just being stoked to be there is what actually got me to the victory. So once I started skating practice, I loved the course, you know, the course was super small, it was super tight, but I was super small and I was like, I was a kid, you know? So like I can make it around this park with with ease and I

loved it and all of the tricks that I wanted to do were working and even a couple that I didn't plan on doing worked really well and I just remember the feeling of like looking up into the crowd I saw my parents saw my grandma you know like holding signs and like people were stoked. Like a couple of people knew who I was and I got a lot of cheers, you know, and I think I got a lot of cheers just because I was the young kid that was there, you know, by far the youngest. And I just remember landing my run and like not really thinking anything more than just like, oh, I landed it, you know, like, and X games was cool because you got instant scoring. So it kind of threw my name up on the board and with my score

and it was above everybody else's. And I was like, man, that's crazy. And I had one more run to do. And I don't think I bettered my score. I think I stayed in first after my, either after my first or second run, I stayed, I stayed in first and then either after my first or second run i stayed i stayed in first and then the contest was over dude and i just remember all my friends like these skateboarders that i looked up to like came over and picked me up and i don't think it actually made sense to me what had happened um they put the medal around my neck and i just remember like thinking about what to do with it. And so I like put it in my mouth cause I was like, I've seen other people, you know, put the medals in their mouth. Like, is that what you're supposed to do? Like, I didn't know what to

do. But my, my initial thought after I won too, was like, I was just so stoked to go to school the next day. You know, it was like on a Sunday and I had to go to school the next day and i was going to take the medal and i did and you know i thought maybe like i would just show a couple friends like hey check this out you know but like i forgot x games is on tv you know and people watch the x games yeah and and i'm from san clemente you know so it's like surf skate community like that's what we do down here and uh everybody watched it everybody watched it my teachers watched it like people watched it and um that feeling was crazy that feeling was crazy so it was always a trip to me when my teachers didn't work with me when i needed to go on a trip and they would give me homework and then you know

some worked with me some didn't and that's a whole nother story but well let's let's let's get into this yeah i mean let's get into it because that's where i was going next you know you your family the values are you finish what you start you tell us about how wrestling helped you which learned, I think you took wrestling your freshman year of high school and what it was like, because you didn't really finish and then you didn't go to high school anymore. You were homeschooled. So tell us about all of that. Yeah, it was just a crazy time. It was a crazy time in my life. I had just turned pro, just won the X Games. And then obviously the rest of that summer, there was three more events.

Slam City Jam in Vancouver. There was a Vans Triple Crown. There was another one. I forget what it was. But there was like four main gravity games in Ohio. There's these four competitions. And my rookie year of being a pro, I won all four of these and traveling and doing that whole thing was kind of crazy.

So I was like, all right, I still like want to be somewhat of a kid. I had good friends at home and I really enjoyed being at the beach and like just hanging out. So I made the decision to go to freshman year of high school, not homeschool, like actually go. And I remember sitting in PE and I had the uniform on and I'm like sitting on, on a number on the ground, you know, it's like one through a hundred and I'm just sitting there. And I was really second guessing, uh, being at school. Like, man, this is like, this is PE. Like I should, I should be skating right now like I have contests coming up like I should definitely be skating and then my buddy Carl was like walking

by and he saw me sitting there he's like what are you doing here like you're not doing PE like come with me and so I attributed a lot to my buddy Carl we call we call him Nohea. He pulled me out of PE and I was like scared I was going to get in trouble. And he like walked me into the wrestling room. And then that's where I saw the adrenaline and like fast pace of wrestling. And I was like, oh, this is actually really cool. So I started wrestling that day and I took to it pretty quickly. I took to it pretty quickly. I took to it pretty quickly. I really enjoyed it.

I absolutely loved it. It gave me the same feeling when I was in a wrestling match that like I got before I skated where I got super nervous, almost on the borderline of like crying, you know, because I was so focused. I was just so focused and I wanted to win.

And that helped me win a few, uh, few wrestling matches that year and, you know, contribute to the school, which was cool. But the biggest thing wrestling did for me was teach me how to roll out of tricks that I'm falling on, on the ground. I learned so much control of, of being able to just fall backwards and actually roll out of it and then get back to my feet. And without wrestling, I think I'd have a lot more injuries, absolutely a lot more injuries. So it's kind of something I recommend if, you know, kids are interested in trying something new is like, you're taking skateboarding serious. You should definitely start grappling or jujitsu or wrestling, something of that nature, too. And it's also a great outlet.

It's a great outlet. But it helped me with skateboarding.