Up Close And Personal With Robin Miller

Up Front & Personal With:

ROBIN MILLER

Agressive Inline Skater

Publication Date: September 1997

The day couldn't have started more perfectly. My girlfriend and I were thirty minutes early for my eleven o'clock interview with Robin Miller, one of today's hottest aggressive in-liners. Our scheduled meeting place was Allyn's Cafe, a small cajun-mexican restaurant on the outskirts of Cincinnati, OH, which by the way, doesn't open till 11:30 on Saturdays. So, with half an hour to kill, and empty stomachs from the morning rush, we decided to grab a quick bite to eat before the interview. PLEASE TAKE NOTE: There is no place to get a quick bite to eat anywhere near Allyn's Cafe. Forty minutes of scenic Cincinnati and map surfing led us back to Allyn's, just as hungry as when we left, and ten minutes late to meet Robin.

There was still only one car in the small gravel lot. My growling stomach sank. Frustrated, hungry, and worried that I had jeopardized the interview, I grabbed tape recorders, note-pads, pens, camera, and knocked on the door anyway.

The tension disappeared as the door opened. It was Robin, and if she had realized my tardiness, she didn't acknowledge it. The twenty-four year old pro was all smiles. After brief introductions, she picked a booth along the wall of the quaint little cafe and with one recorder rolling and another on reserve, I began to learn about Robin Miller.

Robin, you're a professional skater now, but how did it all start?

Well, actually I saw some guys down at Lunken Airport skating on a half pipe. I had a pair of rented in line skates and thought to myself, hey, I can do that. I got right up on the ramp and tried it, and they were like, hey you're good! I kept going back and then one day I got a pair of skates and just kept skating.

Did anyone help to push you into the sport?

The guys who were down at Lunken that day were really good, and I kept in touch with them. They taught me a few things, and I thought they were so good, and now they're pros too- they're really good.

With all the places skating has taken you, do you have a most memorable moment?

I'll never forget the time I got to skate on a half pipe at Extremefest with people like Tony Hawk.

You got to skate with Tony Hawk?

Yeah, when I got to skate with Tony Hawk later at Woodward Camp, and he knew my name, that was really cool.

Some of our readers are probably wandering what Woodward is.

Woodward Camp is a summer camp in Pennsylvania where kids come to learn gymnastics, skating, and BMXing. Woodward has the best facilities I've ever seen. Eleven to eighteen year-olds from everywhere come to meet the pros and learn how to skate "aggressively."

You were like a counselor at Woodward?

I wasn't really a counselor, I was a visiting pro. Visiting pros have the option to teach, so I definitely did that.

Weren't you there this summer?

Yeah, it's really cool because you get to meet all these kids who think you're great and want to learn from you. It's really fun to teach when you get a cool kid who's learning and loving every minute of itthen you're stoked to be around them. Everyone is really happy. Being a visiting pro also lets me go to competitions during the summer, so that's cool.

Part of the attraction to extreme sports seem to be the feeling of being something of an "individual?" Do you think media coverage like the X-Games and other such events take away from that?

In the beginning, I think everyone thought they (the X-Games) were going to be really cool about it, but now all they can see are the dollar signs. We see it and think first, wow cool street course, or a great opportunity to skate on TV for millions of people. We were just a big sale, really. It's like they look at us now and just see big pants and, you know, Mountain Dew. They don't even feed us anymore. At the X-Trials, all we got was a really bad Black and white photocopy of a map.

Speaking of the X-Trials, you did really well there. Why weren't you in the X-Games?

Actually I was in Texas doing show in June three days before the X-Games started and my sponsor, Factory Wheels, called to as me if I knew I was in the X-Games. But I already had job, and ESPN hadn't called me! I'd rather be able to skate whenever i want anyway.

Obviously you can't skate as hard as you do without some sort of accidenthave you had any serious wipe-outs?

Yeah, I tore my ACL doing a handrail once. That was when no-one was really doing handrails. I just decided to do it and I rode it - the first time on my skates, the second time on my butt. Just don't tell my momI told her I just fell - you know how moms are.

I know you're traveling a lot, and it gets pretty tiring. You must have a lot of support from your family.

They're pretty cool about it. Last summer I left in June, expecting to be gone for three weeks. Three months later I came home and it was like, UhHiI'm back. They understand.

What's Robin like off her skates?

When I'm not skating I'm usually hanging out with Iannick (her significant other) or studying.

What are your studying?

I'm at the University of Cincinnati studying to go into some type of engineering-mechanical or chemical; hopefully to apply to my sport.

So, where do you see yourself in five years?

Definitely I'll still be involved in skating, and maybe some snowboarding and BMXing. I just can't see myself settling down yet.

Sounds like you're having too much fun doing inverts off the vert ramp.

Definitely! That's my favorite trick, I can do them better than most guys.

Well Robin, it's been great talking with you, can we have one piece of advice for those of us who may aspire to someday be where you are?

Don't get caught up in the "I wanna compete, I want sponsors" mentality. Just have fun with it, stay mellow and be sure you're skating for YOU!

Robin, Iannick, Rhea and I sat around the dark wooden table and talked for a few more minutes, about nothing really, just as good friends might after being apart. Such is the feeling one gets around Robin, sort of a radiated comfort that this writer believes follows the skater wherever she goes. Maybe it's her smile, not once in the time I was with Robin did she stop smiling. Or maybe it's her philosophy of "You're as young as you feel" that dispels any shyness of tension. Whatever it is about Robin that makes her so easy going is surely a part of what will take her where she's going, wherever she may go.