Invention of the Skateboarding 'Ollie'

The ollie wasn't invented on purpose — it happened by accident in 1977 when Alan Gelfand's wheels unexpectedly lifted off the wall during failed lipslide attempts. He wasn't using his hands or deliberately popping the board. Skaters around him immediately recognized something new had just happened. His nickname "Ollie," which he actually found irritating, became the trick's name thanks to friend Scott Goodman. There's a lot more to this story than you'd expect.

Key Takeaways

• Alan Gelfand accidentally invented the ollie in 1978 while attempting failed lipslides at Skateboard USA in Florida.
• The trick was discovered when Gelfand's wheels unexpectedly lifted 1-2 inches off the wall without hands or deliberate pop.
• "Ollie" was Gelfand's personal nickname, which he actually found irritating, but fellow skaters popularized it regardless.
• The name "ollie pop" was coined on the spot by family friend Scott Goodman when he witnessed the trick.
• Rodney Mullen adapted the ollie to flat ground in 1982, leading to kickflips, heelflips, and 360-flips.

Who Invented the Ollie and When?

Alan Gelfand invented the ollie in 1978, performing frontside no-handed aerials in bowls and pools across Florida's vert ramps. You might be surprised to learn his nickname "Ollie" came from family friend Scott Goodman, which is how the trick got its name. He first discovered the ollie pop during the summer of 1977 at Skateboard USA, making the florida skating scene the true birthplace of this revolutionary move.

What makes this history remarkable is the ollie's cultural impact, which extended far beyond skateboarding itself, eventually influencing surfing, snowboarding, and popular culture. Gelfand debuted his ollie air in front of photographers in Southern California, and Skateboarder magazine featured him in the 1970s, cementing his place in skateboarding history. Before Gelfand's groundbreaking invention, aerial tricks required skaters to use their hands to grab the board in order to get air.

In 1982, Rodney Mullen took the trick to new heights by debuting a flatground ollie, which he had adapted from Gelfand's vertical version, forever changing street skateboarding as we know it.

The Happy Accident That Started It All

The summer of 1977 at Skateboard USA was all about the lipslide, a trick where skaters rode up the wall and slid their board along the lip. Everyone around Alan Gelfand had mastered it, but his smaller frame and equipment kept holding him back.

Then came the unexpected discovery. While struggling through another failed lipslide attempt, all four of Gelfand's wheels suddenly lifted 1-2 inches off the wall. No hands. No deliberate pop. Just an accidental drift that somehow landed cleanly.

Skatepark culture's influence made sure the moment didn't go unnoticed. His peers immediately recognized something new had happened. Scott Goodman coined it the "ollie pop" on the spot, borrowing Gelfand's nickname. What started as repeated failure had accidentally revealed a trick nobody had ever consciously tried. Gelfand's technique involved a raising of the nose and scooping motion to perform these no-handed aerials in bowls and pools.

The ollie quickly became a foundational maneuver, allowing skaters to gain air without hands and opening the door to an entirely new generation of tricks built upon its discovery.

The Ollie's Unusual Name and Where It Came From

Behind every great trick is a great name, and the ollie's origin story is just as accidental as the maneuver itself. A family friend coined "Ollie" during Alan Gelfand's youth in Florida, and Gelfand's ambivalence towards the nickname was immediate — he ignored it and found it irritating.

Skaters like Kevin Peterson, Jeff Duerr, and Rick Furness kept repeating it until it stuck. The ollie was created in 1978 in Hollywood, Florida, marking a pivotal moment that would forever divide skateboarding history into two distinct eras.

The Technique Behind Gelfand's Original Trick

Pulling off Gelfand's ollie starts with your approach — come in at an angle similar to a frontside kick turn, positioning your back foot's heel closer to the rear truck than usual and your front foot just behind the lead truck. These board positioning techniques set you up for what's next.

As you reach the lip, kick the tail firmly and push down — counterintuitive, but essential. Then unweight completely, pulling your body away from the board. This dynamic weight transfer is what keeps the board close without any physical attachment. Your upper body rotates before your lower body, and the board follows through 180 degrees automatically.

On re-entry, stay centered over the board, place your feet down without forcing weight, and ride out smoothly. The ollie was invented in the late 1970s by Alan Gelfand and went on to become the foundational move from which countless other skateboarding tricks were developed. Gelfand first debuted the ollie at the Lakewood skatepark in California in 1978, before it was later documented in SkateBoarder magazine the following year.

What Made the Ollie Revolutionary for Its Time

Understanding the mechanics of Gelfand's ollie is one thing, but grasping why it shook skateboarding to its core is another. Before 1978, nearly every aerial maneuver required hand grabs. When Gelfand introduced no handed tricks developed purely through board manipulation, he eliminated a requirement skaters had accepted as absolute.

You have to ponder the context. All four wheels leaving the wall simultaneously had never happened before. The new aerial techniques attempted by Gelfand weren't just stylistically different — they rewrote what skateboarding could physically accomplish.

This breakthrough wasn't incremental. It was a complete departure from everything that came before it. The skateboarding community recognized it immediately, and the technique spread rapidly, proving that one accidental discovery could permanently redirect an entire sport's trajectory. The ollie's influence would ultimately extend beyond skateboarding, shaping the evolution of surfing and snowboarding as well.

Before the ollie existed, most skateboarders found themselves completely stopped by something as modest as a simple 6-inch curb, illustrating just how dramatically this single trick expanded what was possible on a board.

How Rodney Mullen Reinvented the Ollie

What Gelfand built on vert, Mullen carried to the streets. In 1982, Mullen adapted the ollie to flat ground, solving challenges that ramp momentum once handled automatically.

The physics behind Mullen's technique involved precise kinematics — popping the tail, dragging the foot, and leveling the board mid-air without ramp assistance.

Mullen's dedication to perfection drove him to master the movement in under an hour, refining it secretly before debuting at the Rusty Harris contest. His adaptation required four critical innovations:

1. Repositioning the nose foot from freestyle techniques
2. Executing a controlled tail pop
3. Dragging the foot to level the board
4. Achieving height without ramp momentum

This reinvention became street skating's foundation. Beyond the ollie, Mullen went on to invent the kickflip, heelflip, and 360-flip, tricks that are now considered essential parts of modern skateboarding.

The Tricks That Only Exist Because of the Ollie

The ollie didn't just change skating — it created an entirely new vocabulary of tricks that couldn't exist without it. Once Rodney Mullen cracked the ollie's mechanics, kickflip variations exploded. He invented the kickflip in 1982, and within two years, skaters were landing half-cab kickflips, backside 180 kickflips, and 360 flips. Each trick builds directly on the ollie's foundation.

Heelflip trick innovations followed the same pattern. Mullen's 1982 heelflip opened doors to double heelflips, frontside heelflip shove-its, and eventually the helipop heelflip by 1990. Beyond flips, the ollie enabled impossible combinations like the Casper 360 flip, darkslides, and primo grinds. You couldn't have any of these without the ollie setting the groundwork first. Rodney Mullen's contributions extend far beyond individual tricks, as his pioneering approach expanded the scope of what could be done on a skateboard.

The ollie is performed by snapping the tail while sliding the front foot forward, causing the front wheels to leave the ground first, a mechanic that serves as the foundation for countless tricks like the kickflip, heelflip, and 360-flip.

What Comes After the Ollie?

Once you've built your trick vocabulary on the ollie's foundation, the next logical question is where to go from there. Mastering essential fundamentals beyond the ollie opens up a structured progression of ollie based trick variations:

1. Pop Shuv-it – Pop the tail and kick the board 180 degrees backward, building rotation control.
2. Frontside 180 – Swing your shoulders and front foot forward while popping, initiating body rotation.
3. Backside 180 – Scoop the tail backside during your pop, requiring full body commitment.
4. Kickflip/Heelflip – Flick your front foot outward or forward, spinning the board for advanced combinations.

Each trick builds directly on ollie mechanics, creating a logical pathway toward more complex maneuvers like tre flips and big spins. For the heelflip specifically, your front foot toes should hang over the edge of the board before you ollie and kick your back heel forward to rotate the board parallel to the ground.

Why Every Modern Street Trick Starts With an Ollie

From the moment Alan Gelfand and Rodney Mullen refined the ollie, it didn't just add a trick to skateboarding's vocabulary—it rewrote the entire language. The ollie's fundamental importance lies in its mechanics: you're popping the tail, keeping your feet on the board, and achieving air without grabbing. That single concept enabled kickflips, heelflips, tre flips, and thousands of variations beyond them.

The ollie's universal application means it works on stairs, rails, gaps, ledges, and flat ground. Every urban obstacle you approach requires that same foundational movement before anything else happens. History literally splits into pre-Ollie and post-Ollie eras because no single maneuver changed progression more completely. You can't build modern street skating's trick library without starting exactly here.