In this photo taken Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2011, pro skateboarder Nyjah Huston, 16, poses for a picture in Costa Mesa, Calif. Huston won the first three stops of the Street League Skateboarding tour. If he wins the $200,000, winner-take-all final on Sunday in Newark, N.J., he will become the first pro skateboarder to pass $1 million in career prize money. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)Chris Carlson/The Associated Press
The Mercedes he recently bought is a sweet ride, particularly for a 16-year-old, and it was a dream for Nyjah Huston to be able to move his family to Southern California, the epicentre of action sports.
On Saturday in Newark, N.J., Huston can become the first pro street skateboarder to surpass US$1 million in career contest earnings if he outlasts nine other pros in the $200,000, winner-take-all finals of the $1.6 million Street League of Skateboarding. The biggest payday in skateboarding history was moved up one day as cities along the East Coast prepared for Hurricane Irene.
After winning the first three stops of Street League's second season, Huston will be looking to once again beat a field that includes stars such as Chris Cole, Paul Rodriguez and Ryan Sheckler.
Huston, who recently cut his trademark dreadlocks, has won a staggering $685,000 in two seasons of Street League, a coast-to-coast arena tour founded by pro skater and MTV star Rob Dyrdek. His total contest earnings since turning pro at 11 are estimated at $815,000.
While the cash is outstanding, Huston, like athletes in other sports, is driven by the bling and what it represents.
"As far as the money goes, that's not what I'm tripping on that much," Huston said in a phone interview. "I just want to win the championship contest because I think it means that much. I don't want to see someone else walking away with the ring."
Huston won the inaugural Street League title last year, which came with a watch and ring as well as money.
"I was able to get them last year and they're really sick," he said.
In a sport where a big paycheque can be won or lost on a single trick, Huston's been pretty sick, too.
In six Street League contests to date, Huston has four victories and two third-place finishes. This summer alone, his three first-place checks have added up to $450,000, or $36,000 more than major league baseball's minimum salary.
He's landed 87 per cent of his tricks. He also has the highest-scored trick of the tour to date with a 9.9 on his final trick in this season's opener at Seattle, a backside 270 ollie to noseblunt slide down a handrail.
"He's good at everything," Dyrdek said. "He has an immense amount of control and technicality that's far superior to most guys."
Dyrdek said Huston consistently does harder tricks in a format that rewards taking risks.
"I don't think anyone expected at the beginning of the season that he would be able to dominate like this, but after the very first one, everybody was like, 'He's never going to get beat,' " said Dyrdek, whose ambitious dream is to elevate Street League to the same level as mainstream sports. "That's how dominating he was in that first one in Seattle. He basically shut up everyone in the league."
Huston said he doesn't feel invincible. He credits his success to feeling comfortable with the Street League format, in which skaters compete head-to-head on prefabricated concrete street plazas and tricks are scored instantly.
"It's sketchy, but it's a fun format," he said.
Winning the tour opener gave him confidence for the next two stops.
"This one, the pressure is back," he admitted.
Along the way, Huston changed his looks.
For the first several years of his pro career, he was known as the kid from Davis, Calif., with the flowing dreadlocks, the byproduct of his dad following the Rasta lifestyle.
Huston cut the dreads before the third stop this year.
"I didn't want to be thought of as the kid with dreadlocks for my whole life," he said. "I felt the time was right. A lot of people thought, like, I could skate so good because of the dreadlocks. That gave me a lot of motivation to win that last Street League."
Dyrdek joked that some people thought there'd be a Samson effect.
"It probably made him a little better since he didn't have all that hair in his face," Dyrdek said.
"It's almost like this coming of age, new chapter in becoming an adult superstar. He got sick of being known for his dreads as opposed to being known for his skating," Dyrdek said.
The 29-year-old Cole, who knows all about cashing big checks — he won three straight Maloof Money Cups for a total of $300,000 — is impressed by Huston even as he tries to beat him.
"It's pretty crazy," Cole said. "It's kind of unheard of for somebody to do what he's doing, especially at the age he is now. He's a pretty different person. He's extremely talented and very gifted."
Besides contests, pro skateboarders work endlessly to land big tricks for videos and magazine shoots.
"Kids grow up much faster in this skate world," Cole said. "They get really good, really quick. They see the videos and think these tricks are normal. He's a prime example of that."
Dyrdek, who wants street skateboarders to be seen as more than nuisances who get chased by cops and security guards, said Huston's success is due to his upbringing.
"He is a true product of a skateboarding dad that took him everywhere, took him to every skate park and skate spot," Dyrdek said. "He was clearly a talent beyond talent at a very young age."
Huston's big leap to fame came when, at age 9, he talked his father, Adeyemi, into letting him try a feeble grind down the 16-stair handrail at Hollywood High on his first trip to Southern California. He nailed it.
"My dad was really into skating when he was a teenager. He always had the same dream I did but his parents weren't the most supportive on it," Nyjah Huston said. "So when he got a chance to get me into it, he did."
Huston's new wealth allowed him to move his family to Orange County.
"It's nice to know I should be able to have a good future for myself and never have to get a real job and always be able to do something I love for a living. That's the best part of it," Huston said.
"He's solid and grounded," Dyrdek said. "He's a really cool kid that just absolutely loves skateboarding."