Steve Olson – Shortys Fulfill The Dream (1998)

Muska’s first choice for the original Shortys team.

Shorty’s Fulfill The Dream is a cult classic of skateboarding. Here was an established hardware brand that pioneered bolts less than an inch long and featured a beautiful model named Rosa in most of its risky adverts. Now the brand entered the board market with a team of five relatively unknown and young amateurs (Sammy Baptista, Jesse Silvey, Brandon Turner, Toan Nguyen and Aaron Snyder) and the larger than life professionals. Those three pros were Chad Muska, Peter Smolik and Steve Olson.

Muska and Smolik became fan favourites instantly. Olson had already established himself as an amateur for Foundation Skateboards but Fulfill The Dream elevated him to legendary status. Olson was easily recognised with his glasses, curly mop of hair and baggy-baggy trousers. His style was like that of a ragdoll combined with cat-like agility. Olson looked just as comfortable jumping off a building or onto a rail as he did shredding the ramps in a skatepark. The standout tricks from his professional debut part are the roof to rail slide, gap out to lipslide a double kink and his shirtless three trick line back and forth across a non-descript skatepark. This line along with another at Tampa skatepark penned Steve in as a demo killer and crowd pleaser.