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High roller on small stage

By Bill Gallo, Special to the Rocky

Published June 20, 2008 at 3 p.m.

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World champion skater Brian Aragon, the 24-year-old professional from Brighton who has an in-line skate named for him, used to roll more than a mile from his home to a halfpipe in that city's Benedict Park.

Photo by Ken Papaleo © The Rocky

World champion skater Brian Aragon, the 24-year-old professional from Brighton who has an in-line skate named for him, used to roll more than a mile from his home to a halfpipe in that city's Benedict Park.

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In Escondido, Philadelphia and Zurich, everyone calls Brian Aragon "the Prince."

His silky moves and seemingly effortless style have earned him that moniker in the world of competitive in-line skating, and he doesn't mind one bit. Things could be worse: They call his friend Mike Johnson "Murda," and Dre Powell is "The Dazed Owl."

The Prince has the movie-star looks and soulful brown eyes to go with that nickname, but don't expect any regal self-absorption from this 24-year-old from Brighton. He's got no spoiled-jock airs. No attitude. Not even a girlfriend - too busy. No fat bank account, either.

For that matter, if you're interested in seeing the Prince's crown, don't bother looking at his head. Instead, X-ray his feet: Because most of the royal hardware is in his left ankle - a surgical plate decorated with seven tiny screws, courtesy of a scary wipeout three years ago in Tehachapi, Calif., that almost ended Aragon's career as a pro skater. The day after taking two firsts at a competition in Sacramento, he was working out a new trick, a Forward 1080 (three full revolutions off the vert ramp) when he came crashing down.

"I didn't think my body would survive that," he says. "I thought it was all over."

Maybe they should call him Prince Lazarus. Since coming back from that shattered ankle and the gruesomely torn ligaments, the 5-foot-6-inch, 140-pound star has won eight titles on the international skating circuit and finished second twice. He is the only major-league blader Colorado has produced.

In late April, Aragon overcame a foot injury to win the Chaz Sands Invitational in Glasgow, Scotland. The second-place finisher was . . . well, Chaz Sands, the Scottish champion for whom the contest is named, the guy who designed the skate park where it was held and who knows every inch of its surface. The Prince beat him flat.

OK. Still searching for a glimmer of recognition? Still wondering why you've never heard of Brian Aragon?

For one thing, his name is not Tony Hawk. Even lame geezers who don't know a simple Kickturn from a Shove-it Fakie Feeble Grind are vaguely familiar with the pre-eminent name in the related sport of skateboarding.

Now a 40-year-old father of three and a multimillionaire, Hawk has edged off to become godfather legend in a subculture that celebrates youth. But he's still a watchword in a sport - and a form of play - practiced by an estimated 20 million teenagers around the world. Twenty- five years after he turned pro, Hawk and his thrasher descendants are still everywhere - online, in videos and video games, at the X-Games, in movies.

Who would have thought it? Skateboarding is now in its fourth generation of evolution, a half-century after it adapted Pacific wave surfing to the dry streets and drained swimming pools of Southern California. Credit development of the cushioned, free-spinning polyurethane wheel (circa 1972), the Thomas Edison moment that put skateboarding on a roll.

By contrast, recreational rollerblading and its high- tech professional offshoot, known as "aggressive rollerblading" (or, as Aragon prefers to call it, "freestyle rolling"), have fallen prey to growing pains, at least in the U.S.

Start of the roll

Historians date the first in-line skates to the early 1700s, when an inventive Dutchman nailed little racks of wooden thread-spools to the bottoms of his wooden shoes. Using polyurethane wheels, Minnesota brothers Scott and Brennan Olsen developed the modern version in 1980, in their parents' basement. "Rollerblades" quickly became popular off-season training aids for ice hockey players and cross-country skiers. By the mid-1990s tens of thousands of trendy stockbrokers and soccer moms had followed suit, and the Olsens' company name - Rollerblade Inc. - slipped into common use to include all in-line skates.

"But everything got too big, too fast," Aragon laments. "Some of the early (manufacturing) companies weren't solid. A lot of the pro skaters weren't professional enough. It blew up fast, and people weren't ready."

By 2000, rollerblading was in decline. Drop by the state-of-the-art Denver Skate Park at 20th and Little Raven streets near Coors Field any afternoon and you'll see 10 skateboarders for every in-line skater, along with a few fast-pedaling BMX bikers. Aragon is usually there too, a Prince aglide among the people, working on his moves and tricks, occasionally dazzling the kids but mostly enclosed in his own splendid isolation. It's as if Joe Sakic had dropped by to work out on the far corner of the neighborhood pond.

The few regular bladers at the skate park, mostly teenagers, know Aragon and love getting tips from him. Nick Cassell, a seventh-grader at Merrill Middle School, idolizes the Prince ("I have a bunch of videos of him on MySpace and stuff"). But when Aragon does, say, a Hurricane Topsole - spinning 360 degrees in the air and landing his two feet flush on a steeply canted rail (what skaters call a grind) - the locals don't pay much attention anymore.

On a recent day, though, six enlisted men stationed at Buckley Air Force Base were thrilled to spot Aragon in midflight.

"I just got back from Iraq," reported Senior Airman Steve Benner, 23. "This is unbelievable. Whole time I was there we were watching Brian on YouTube at the Air Force computer stations. And today I get to meet him. He's pretty much our idol, the best skater in the world. Seeing him in Iraq, I said, 'I wanna start skating again. I wanna do that.' "

Below the radar

Aragon wants to keep doing it, too. But while he waits, full of uncertainty, for the rebirth of blading, he signs more autographs in Moscow and Munich than he does in Denver. And the clock keeps ticking.

Born in Brighton, he is the elder son of Lorenso Aragon, a University of Colorado professor who teaches bilingual education, and Jeanette Aragon, a recently-retired middle- school principal. As a 9-year- old, he used to skate from his house to a halfpipe in Brighton's Benedict Park. But it wasn't until one pivotal summer in Kansas, when he saw his cousins grinding and doing simple tricks, that he got hooked.

"I was always good at sports and super-competitive," he says, "but I loved this. You don't have to rely on anyone else. Because no one tells you what 'proper' technique is, you develop your own style. I like to look smooth, so everything is fluid motion. When people say: 'That looks easy,' that's when I'm doing my job."

He turned pro at age 18 and rose swiftly through the ranks, winning a variety of the top awards annually, starting in 2002. Aragon has skated and won in France, Germany, Scotland, Russia, Switzerland, the United States and some places no one's heard of.

"He's the best, period," says friend and fellow roller Courtney Cain. "No. 1 in the world. He's won everything at least once and he's always in the top three."

But Aragon is concerned about the future. That's why he's not only a full-time in-line skater but a full-time student, a sophomore in business and marketing at Metropolitan State College of Denver.

"I know I'm going to have to get a real job someday," he says.

Brass tacks: Last year, Aragon, one of the three top earners in his sport, took home between $40,000 and $50,000 - about what Todd Helton blew on pine tar and sunflower seeds. That included everything: Aragon's endorsement contracts with the California-based skate maker Razors (the $300 "Aragon 2" skate came out in March) and four other clothing and equipment companies, as well as prize money from the 40 or so contests he entered, skating for the Razors team.

His recent first-prize check in Scotland came to $4,000. While in Dallas two years ago for the Hoedown Invitational, he spent $1,000 on a pair of diamond earrings - a rare expression of Princeliness - then second- guessed himself about it all night.

"I better win here tomorrow," he mused. He won.

The only other outward sign of Aragon's pro status is the 2005 Mercedes-Benz he bought last year - a silver C230 Kompressor that turns heads when he pulls up to the skate park and astonishes scuffling fellow students in the overcrowded lots at Metro State.

"My first big purchase," he says, a bit sheepishly. "But I'm still thinking about that real job."

At 24, Brian Aragon might have four or five good years left in his sport. He hits the gym five times a week, works out with a personal trainer and skates two hours a day - indoors in winter, outdoors in summer. He snowboards at Keystone. One of his favorite pro skaters, John Julio, is still nailing the ledges and rails at age 28, and Brian sees no reason why he can't do the same.

But if that doesn't happen, he's content with his career. "I've gotten an entire college degree from all the traveling I've done and places I've seen," he says. "It's helped me grow as a person, and I wouldn't change that for anything."

What he would like to change is the status and popularity of his sport. Cain, who spends his days driving an armored truck, is pessimistic. "We never got the exposure that skateboarding and BMX did. 'Why isn't this on TV?' People would ask that and the answer would always be because it's . . . nothing cool to do."

Aragon, who doesn't need the real job just yet, is more hopeful.

"Everybody in the industry is asking what's going on right now," he says. "We've been out of the limelight for so long that people really have no idea what we do anymore. Truth is, the skating is much better. The tricks are more spectacular.

"Rollerblading is incredibly popular in Europe, and I think the turnaround will come here. I just hope it happens while I'm still skating at my best. If not, no regrets. Maybe I can help it happen on the business end."

With that in mind, Aragon boarded his flight for Glasgow not in the company of a girlfriend or a fawning posse, but with a couple of guys named Ingram and Albright. Instead of watching movies or dreaming out the window, he dutifully absorbed a chunk of those authors' weighty volume Financial Accounting. Chapter 12: "Analysis of Investment Activities."

He was thinking about his future moves. But then, that's the way this Prince rolls.

Skating away

Some of skater Brian Aragon's top accomplishments since turning pro at age 18:

* 2002: Aggressive Skaters Association Rookie of the Year

* 2003: ASA Tour Champion

* 2004: Rolling Foundation Competition Circuit World Champion

* 2007: Athlete of the Year

Comments

  • June 24, 2008

    3:47 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    dip writes:

    Nice article, big thanks to Rocky Mountain News!

  • January 14, 2009

    9 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    CaptainAsh writes:

    Awesome to see Aragon getting some coverage, he deserves it. Proud of him and everything he's done for our sport