Getty Image / Ulrik Pedersen / NurPhoto
Rune Glifberg is a name I haven’t heard or thought about in possibly two decades. But there was a time and place in my life when the Danish skateboarder was a bigger part of my life than my own dad.
I’m talking, of course, about my Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 phase when I used to put in like 5 hours a day of gameplay after school and had convinced myself I could go pro playing the game years before e-sports had really materialized into any semblance of what it is today.
Rune Glifberg was a playable character in the first 5 installments of the Tony Hawk Pro Skater franchise, a franchise that coincided perfectly with my gaming era after I’d busted up my knee wakeboarding and was dealing with a torn ligament. Instead of skating/wakeboarding/surfing, I went all-in playing the Tony Hawk Pro Skater every day and if Rune’s out there reading this I’d like to send him a shoutout for his part in all of that.
In this clip from The Nine Club, the Danish skater with 12 X Games medals (2 golds) talks about how much money he made on the Pro Skater franchise. He mentions at one point he received a check for $160,000+ and he also discusses how Tony Make was making money hand over fist from the video game franchise:
Enjoy that? Do you have two-and-a-half hours to spare and watch the full interview? It’s on YouTube, so you’re in luck. Rune Glifberg talks about the X Games, moving back to Denmark, the Olympics, and more:
Lastly, I’d like to call out that he has arguably the best name in extreme sports. Sure it sounds incredibly similar to Rube Goldberg which is possibly why I like it so much because I’m a sucker for Rube Goldberg machines, everyone knows this, but Rune Glifberg’s got the best name in the game.