Plain and simple, there’s nothing conventional about Rob Dyrdek. He’s a dreamer who isn’t scared to take risks. He’s got the gift of gab and a dangerous knack for persuasion. He’ll sell you the Brooklyn Bridge but actually be the one guy to deliver it to your backyard, providing you have the space. He’s a skateboarding legend turned mega-celebrity who revels in the thought of accomplishing the impossible. His imagination, passion and iconic status are the things modern heroes are made of.
At the age of 12 Rob picked up a skateboard for the first time and within a month, won his first competition and became the youngest member of the G&S skateboard team. Forgoing his senior year of high school, Dyrdek turned professional at the age of 16 while simultaneously becoming one of the founding members of the legendary Ohio-based Alien Workshop team. Later that year, Dyrdek took fourth place at the 1991 World Championships, the first contest he competed in as a professional. Talented, persistent and maybe a little bit lucky, this was just the beginning for Rob… the framework that set the tone for what would follow.
Over the next few years, Rob released major video parts in classics like Alien Workshop’s Memory Screen, Time Code, and Photosynthesis, as well as TransWorld’s Dreams of Children and The DC Video, a company for which he was also a founding member and the first street skater, and remains there to this day. In the early to mid-nineties, his concepts for shoe designs (such as protective rubber lace loops: rubber simple in hindsight but revolutionary at the time) changed skateboard shoes forever. Then Rob went on to build one of the first private “training facilities” skateboarding had ever seen. Another concept that, to this day, has revolutionized and accelerated the progression of skateboarding.
And soon, the professional skateboarder became an entrepreneur as well. Dyrdek proved himself one of the most influential street skateboarders in the world, but not just for his abilities on a skateboard—it’s the way he thinks about skateboarding and what’s possible for its future—literally making what most only dream of into a reality. Dyrdek conceptualized the progressive and groundbreaking DC Skate Plaza concept. The first 40,000 square foot Kettering Skate Plaza opened in June 2005, as a legal place for street skaters to hone their skills. Not only did the Kettering Skate Plaza receive rave reviews from the skateboarding community, it won the Modernism Award from Dwell magazine. But no one in the skate community was surprised by the tenacity Dyrdek showed in making his vision, and every street skater’s dream, come to life. A second plaza opened the less than a year later in Shreveport Louisiana.
While building the Kettering Plaza, Dyrdek’s long time dream of making a movie about skateboarding came to fruition. Dyrdek’s foray into the film business manifested itself in the writing, financing, casting, producing and starring in his feature film, Street Dreams. As if that wasn’t enough, he was about to launch one of the most viewed shows in MTV’s history, Rob & Big, with his dear friend and personal bodyguard Chris "Big Black" Boykin… only to follow that up with helping conceptualize a skateboarding contest to put four decades of contests to shame—The Maloof Money Cup. Safe to say Rob is a one-percenter. He thinks big, he lives big and he dreams big. But even more, he knows how to make those dreams a reality.
Plain and simple, Rob Dyrdek He is a role model to millions, both on and off the board. He is a skateboarding legend and icon in every sense of the word. But not one of those legends who is now up on a shelf that everyone reminisces upon over a drink or two at the bar. While most pros have packed it up and disappeared with their millions (or less than that) by their mid-thirties, Dyrdek is still doing it, every single day, for the good of all of skateboarding. And from a glimpse of what’s on the horizon, including a part in the new Alien Workshop film, Mindfield and some more Skate Plaza-esque projects, it seems he’s just getting started. Thanks, Mr. Dyrdek, the skateboarders of the world owe you one.