Rodriguez was born in Los Angeles, and was a pioneer of schoolyard picnic table skating. He was discovered by Stacy Peralta in the late ‘80s alongside Paulo Diaz, Rudy John Johnson, and Guy Mariano, and first appeared in the L.A. Boys section of Ban This in 1989. He would later go on to skate for 101 and Chocolate before retiring from professional skateboarding in the early 2000s.
Rodriguez is best known for his part in Chocolate’s Las Nueve Vidas De Paco [1995]; and Guy Mariano has credited him as being his original inspiration in skateboarding in numerous interviews over the past decade.
This tragic news broke yesterday via Instagram. As of this writing, we are unsure of the cause of his death. We’ll update as more details become available.