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25 Famous Skateboarders Who Made a Big Impact

Skateboarding is a new-age sport that has revolutionized the limits of sports. Not only do skateboarders exemplify a fearless spirit with their audacious mid-air tricks, but also show us what great passion and true commitment birth. Literally or figuratively, watching these skateboarders inspires us all to break free from societal barriers and embrace the exciting ride of life. 

In this article, we feature 25 famous skateboarders legends from the likes of Tony Hawk and Rodney Mullen, whose groundbreaking tricks have set the stage for generations to come. We will explore the fearless spirit of trailblazers like Nyjah Huston and Lizzie Armanto, whose relentless pursuit of excellence has redefined skateboarding for a new era. Let’s delve into our list.

1. Tony Hawk

Tony Hawk is an American retired professional skateboarder and the owner of the skateboard company Birdhouse. He is also nicknamed Birdman. Hawk completed the first documented 900 skateboarding trick in 1999 and is a pioneer of modern vertical skateboarding. 

Hawk licensed a skateboarding video game series named after him published by Activision that same year. He retired from competing professionally in 2003 and is regarded as one of the most influential skateboarders of all time. He founded the Skatepark Project, which helps to build skateparks in underprivileged areas around the world.

2. Rodney Mullen

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Rodney Mullen is an American professional skateboarder who practices freestyle skateboarding and street skateboarding. He is considered one of the most influential skaters in the history of the sport, being credited for inventing numerous tricks, including the flat ground ollie, kickflip, heelflip, impossible, and 360-flip.

As a result, he has been called the Godfather of modern freestyle skating. Mullen has appeared in over 20 skateboarding videos and has co-authored an autobiography, entitled The Mutt: How to Skateboard and Not Kill Yourself, with writer Sean Mortimer.

3. Nyjah Huston

Nyjah Huston is an American professional skateboarder. With numerous sponsorships and competition prize winnings, Huston is one of the highest-paid skateboarders in the world.

Huston has won numerous awards and championships, including the Street League Skateboarding Super Crown World Championship in 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2017. He has also won the X Games gold medal in street skateboarding multiple times, solidifying his position as one of the top street skateboarders in the world.

4. Lizzie Armanto

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Lizzie Armanto is an American-Finnish professional skateboarder. She is part of the Birdhouse Skate Team and is also sponsored by Vans with whom she has her own pro-model shoe.

Armanto has won over 30 skateboarding awards. In 2010, 2011 and 2012, she placed first overall in the World Cup of Skateboarding points race. In 2018, Armanto became the first female skater to complete The Loop, a 360-degree ramp.

5. Ryan Sheckler

Ryan Sheckler is an American professional skateboarder and the star of the MTV-produced reality television series Life of Ryan, which ran from 2007 to 2009. In 2008, the Sheckler Foundation was created to assist children, and injured and recovering athletes. One of the Foundation’s major annual charity events is Skate For A Cause. 

Sheckler also starred in four seasons of the short-format video series Sheckler Sessions on Red Bull TV. Sheckler was listed in Fox Weekly’s 15 Most Influential Skateboarders of All-Time article.

6. Bob Burnquist

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Bob Burnquist is a Brazilian-American professional skateboarder who competed for Brazil throughout his career. 

In 2010, he became the first skateboarder to land a fakie 900-degree reverse-natural rotation, making Burnquist the fifth person in history to successfully complete the 900 trick.

7. Bam Margera

Bam Margera is an American former professional skateboarder, stunt performer, television personality, and filmmaker. Margera started skateboarding at age 7, and by the time he entered high school, it had developed into a full-time hobby. In 1994, Margera dropped out of high school to pursue a full-time skateboarding career. 

In 2001, Margera became a member of Team Element, the demonstration team for Element Skateboards, which he remained affiliated with for the rest of his professional career. He rose to prominence in the early 2000s as one of the stars of the MTV reality stunt show Jackass and subsequent sequels. 

8. Steve Caballero

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Steve Caballero is an American professional skateboarder. He is known for the difficult tricks and air variations he invented for vertical skating and for setting the long-standing record for the highest air achieved on a halfpipe.

He began skating in 1976 at the age of 12 and started his career at age 14. He turned pro in 1980 during the Gold Cup series at the Oasis Skatepark, Southern California. By this time, Caballero had invented the Caballerial, a skateboarding trick also known as the Fakie 360 aerial. Caballero is also credited with inventing the frontside boardslide. Read more on 10 Things To Know About Skateboarding and Its Inventor. 

9. Danny Way

Danny Way is an American professional skateboarder, who has been awarded Thrasher magazine’s Skater of the Year award twice. He is known for extreme stunts, such as jumping into a skateboard ramp from a helicopter. One of his other more notable stunts was jumping the Great Wall of China on a skateboard via Megaramp.

10. Bucky Lasek

Bucky Lasek is an American professional skateboarder. Lasek started skateboarding at the age of 12. After entering amateur contests, he was quickly noticed by Powell Peralta talent scouts in 1987. Lasek attained professional status with Powell in 1990, but by this time, skateboarding, began to lose popularity and his career waned. 

After vert skateboarding was included as part of the X Games by ESPN in the mid-1990s, Lasek’s career was revived. As of May 2009, Lasek owns a backyard concrete skateboarding bowl named Lasekland.

11. Eric Koston

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Eric Koston is a Thai-born American professional skateboarder. As of September 2018, Koston is sponsored by the following several companies including,  Nike SB, Skate Mental, Independent Truck Company, Spitfire Wheels, Fourstar, Diamond, Supreme, The Berrics, Oakley, Jessup, and Skullcandy. In 2015, he did a promotional spot on his Instagram account for the McDonald’s Corporation, making him among the first popular professional skateboarders to advertise for the mega-chain. 

Koston has been described as the Michael Jordan of skateboarding by teammate and professional skateboarder Brandon Biebel. Koston is the owner of Numbers edition skateboards along with his friend Guy Mariano.

12. Andrew Reynolds

Andrew Reynolds is an American professional skateboarder known for co-founding Baker Skateboards in 2000 with artist Jay Strickland. He is now Baker Skateboard’s sole owner. Reynolds established Baker Boys Distribution with Erik Ellington and Jim Greco in 2007. 

Bakerboys Distribution provides distribution for closely related in-house skateboard companies such as Deathwish Skateboards and Shake Junt.  Reynolds primarily skates street. He has been called one of the most influential skaters of all time.

13. Chris Cole

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Chris Cole is an American professional skateboarder. Cole gained attention following the completion of a number of difficult tricks: 360 flip, Switch Frontside flip and Backside 360 ollie down the staircase at Wallenberg High School in San Francisco, California. Cole is perceived as an ambassador for skateboarding, representative of his generation. 

14. Kareem Campbell

Kareem Campbell is an American professional skateboarder. He is known for popularizing the skateboard trick The Ghetto Bird which is a nollie hardflip late 180°. Kareem was an innovative professional skateboarder in the 1990s. He was featured in the World Industries videos New World Order, 20 Shot Sequence, and Trilogy, which are regarded as classics by many skateboarders. 

Campbell rose to mainstream fame in 1999 following his inclusion as a playable character in the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater video game series. Tony Hawk also credited him with increasing skateboarding’s standing in the Black community.

15. Jamie Thomas

Jamie Thomas is an American professional skateboarder and skateboard industry entrepreneur. Thomas is the owner and founder of Zero Skateboards. Thomas’ nickname in the skateboard industry is The Chief. 

In 1992, Thomas left Alabama and relocated to San Francisco, California in order to pursue a career in professional skateboarding. Thomas turned pro for a short-lived brand called Experience. Thomas went on to ride for San Diego-based Invisible Skateboards. Thomas is sponsored by several companies including his own Zero skateboards.

16. Chad Muska

Chad Muska is an American professional skateboarder. Maple was Muska’s first-ever skateboard deck company and he appeared in the 1994 video Rites of Passage. After parting ways with Maple, Muska joined Toy Machine, which is prestigious among professional skateboarders. As of 2021, Muska’s sponsors are Ghetto Child Wheels, Shorty’s, Brooklyn Projects and Supra Footwear.

Muska was identified as the 12th most influential skateboarder of all time by Transworld SKATEboarding magazine in 2011. Professional skateboarder, Tom Penny named Muska as one of the five skateboarders who have influenced skateboarding the most.

17. Elissa Steamer

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Elissa Steamer is an American professional skateboarder. Steamer’s first official skateboard deck sponsor was Toy Machine. In 2014, Steamer explained that her biggest paychecks during her skateboarding career were due to video game royalties.

In late September 2013, Steamer launched a collaboration with the FTC skateboard brand entitled Gnarhunters. Steamer explains in the promotional video that, as of the FTC collaboration, Gnarhunters is a project, but will eventually become a brand. Steamer received artistic support from professional skateboarders, as well as professional artists. Here is Everything You Need To Know About The Inventor of The Skateboard. 

18. Christian Hosoi

Christian Hosoi is an American professional skateboarder. Christian quit school and spent his time skateboarding at the Marina Del Rey Skatepark, which was managed by his father. Christian turned pro at the age of 14 with Sims Skateboards.

When street skating began to emerge in the mid-to-late 1980s, Hosoi showed talent there, winning both the vert and street contests at the Lotte Cup contest in Japan in 1989.

19. Tony Alva

Tony Alva is an American skateboarder. He was a pioneer of vertical skateboarding and one of the original members of the Zephyr Competition Skateboarding Team, also known as the Z-Boys.

Inspired by the Hawaiian islands, Alva brought a radically new and powerful free-form surf style to skateboarding. His skill, style and charismatic nature led him to become a professionally sponsored skateboarder.

 20. Nora Vasconcellos

Nora Vasconcellos is an American professional skateboarder. In June 2016 Vasconcellos began riding for Adidas as an amateur skater. She is currently signed with Adidas skateboarding and was the first female Skater signed to Adidas. Vasconcellos is featured in the documentary film Skate Dreams. 

21. Arto Saari

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Arto Saari is a Finnish professional skateboarder. Saari first attracted attention from the global skateboarding community when he competed at the world championship event in Munster, Germany in 1998 at the age of 16 years. 

Saari’s professional skateboarding career commenced following his decision to relocate to the United States with Flip and he has rode for the company for most of his professional career.

22. Geoff Rowley

Geoff Rowley is an English professional skateboarder. Rowley started skateboarding around 1989 in his home city of Liverpool. Rowley has produced a signature line of shoes with Vans footwear since 1999, the year when his first vulcanised shoe model was produced.

Rowley’s first sponsor was Flip Skateboard. A skateboarding trick is named after Rowley: the Rowley-Darkslide. It is a variation of a darkslide in which the trailing foot is placed on the inside of the truck for the duration of the slide.

23. Grant Taylor

Grant Taylor is an American professional skateboarder.  Grant’s style of skateboarding is known to be fast and powerful. He is recognized for his unique versatile skateboarding.

Taylor is recognized as representing the epitome of a new breed of skateboarder, blending contemporary style with the older traditions of skateboarding. He is known for his versatile riding, not shying away from various forms of skateboarding.

 24. Mark Appleyard

Mark Appleyard is a Canadian professional skateboarder. He is currently sponsored by Element Skateboards, Thunder, Autobahn, Globe Shoes, Volcom, CCS, Arnette, and Vivo. He was the Thrasher Skater of the Year in 2003.

25. Jason Lee

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Jason Lee was a professional skateboarder in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Lee is the co-founder and co-owner of Stereo Skateboards, founding the company in 1992 with fellow skateboarder Chris Pastras.

Since 1992, Stereo manufactures and distributes skateboard decks, equipment and apparel, as well as producing skate videos.

In conclusion, these professional skateboarders have shown us how great passion coupled with hard work can amount to success in their careers. They continue to inspire the current and upcoming generations after them. They have also been immortalized through various films and have been recognized for their contribution to the skateboarding community, even through being featured in various video games which will outlive them.