Jonny Moseley

Jonathan William Moseley, better known as Jonny Moseley (born August 27, 1975) is the first Puerto Rican to become a member of the U.S. Ski Team.

Early years

Moseley was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In 1978, he saw snow for the first time when his family went on a trip to California. Eventually, his family moved to Tiburon, California, a suburb north of San Francisco where he attended The Branson School in Ross, California. His family would go to the Sierra Nevada every weekend. This and the fact that he was a better skier than his brothers inspired the then 9 year old Moseley to take skiing lessons. In 1992, he joined the Squaw Valley Freestyle Ski Team and soon won his first Junior National title in Freestyle Skiing; he graduated from high school in 1993 and that same year was selected for the U.S. Ski Team.

United States Ski Team

Moseley tried but did not qualify for the 1994 Winter Olympics held at Lillehammer, Norway and became determined to qualify for the 1998 Olympics. In 1995, he enrolled in the University of California, Davis but, his education was interrupted by his intense training ; it wasn't until 2000 that he resumed his studies. The following year, he won his first World Cup Mogul.

In 1998, Moseley participated and won the first two World Cup events of the year; this led to his participation in the 1998 Winter Olympics held in Nagano, Japan where he won a gold medal. Later that year he secured the 1998 World Cup Mogul Skiing title with nine wins that season. He also won the U.S. National title.

In 1999, Moseley challenged the International Skiing federation to change their policy and to allow their athletes to participate in professional events, such as ESPN's X Games.

In 2000, Moseley won the U.S. Freeskiing Open and in 2001 regained a spot in the U.S. Ski Team at the World Cup qualifications held at Sunday River, Maine. In 2002, Moseley competed but came in fourth place in the Olympic Games.

In 2002, Moseley gave the commencement convocation address at UC Berkeley. The choice by the senior class committee was controversial at the time because Moseley had dropped out of college.

Honors and recognitions

Among the honors and recognitions which Jonny Moseley has received is a parade in his honor where San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown declared a "Jonny Moseley Day" and handed him the "Key" to the city. He was named "Sportsman of the Year" (1998) by the U.S. Olympic Committee and has been featured on the cover of Freeskier and Rolling Stone magazines.

Personal life

Moseley married Malia Rich, a business manager, on March 25, 2006, in Telluride, Colorado. Moseley met Rich in high school; the couple started dating in 2001 and got engaged on April 20, 2003. [ [http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,1176730,00.html Olympian Jonny Moseley Marries - Marriage : People.com ] ]

On September 4, 2007, Rich gave birth to the couple's first child, named Jonathan William Moseley, Jr. "Jack" in San Francisco, California. [ [http://www.ktvu.com/news/14058843/detail.html Olympic Champion Moseley Becomes A Father - News Story - KTVU San Francisco ] ] [ [http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20055836,00.html Skier Jonny Moseley, Wife Welcome a Boy - Birth : People.com ] ]

Later years

Moseley launched a web site which sells products with his logo on them and has appeared on Ads for McDonalds, Sprint and Budweiser.

Moseley, who currently lives in California, was the host of the MTV reality show "The Battle of the Sexes". He is part of the celebrity panel of judges (along with Steve Garvey and Oksana Baiul) on the ABC show "Master of Champions".

He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley on May 17, 2007 with a B.A. in American Studies focusing on Consumer and Popular Culture.

On X-Play, a video game review show on the G4 cable network, Moseley has become a running gag during reviews, due mostly to the ridiculousness of his dialogue (along with the acting) in the opening FMV for the PS2 game he endorsed, "Jonny Moseley Mad Trix", which contained an oft-mocked quote that sets up the game's plot device:

Moseley performed trick jumps on the streets of San Francisco in the ICER AIR event on September 2005 then at AT&T Park in 2006 and 2007. He hosts the annual big-air ski and snowboard event.

Moseley is famous for an aerial ski move called "The Dinner Roll". Moseley talked about it during a 2002 speech at UC Berkeley:

cquote|The Dinner Roll is a trick I developed for the ’99 X-Games. It’s a 720 degree off axis rotation, wherein you ski off the jump, do two full rotations, one on the horizontal plane and the other on the vertical plane. At the X-Games where everything is "extreme" and "rad" the jumps are big, and you have lots of time in the air. The Olympic moguls course is a whole different ball game. It’s steep, with tight turns, and a small narrow technical jump, with an unforgiving landing. The trick was so new that we had to appeal to the Olympic Skiing Federation in order just to do it. We had to show them that it fell within their rule stating "no inverted tricks in the moguls" and also prove that it was not dangerous. After lobbying and video explanation we pushed it through by one vote, much to the chagrin of the European countries. [ UC Berkeley Campus News, [http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2002/05/commencement/jonny-moseley.html] (17 May 2004)UC Berkeley Accessed on 4 November 2006 ]

In 2007, Moseley became an investor and show host for The Ski Channel television network. He hosted the launch party for the channel in Los Angeles which drew celebrities from the snow sport world and mainstream including: Julia Mancuso, Kirstina Koznick, Lauren Ross and Dash Longe and an assortment of other celebrities attended: Alexandra Paul, Donna Mills, Melissa Rivers, Dawnn Lewis, Jaron Lowenstein, Scott Grimes, Kevin Durand, Amy Pietz, Jason Gray Stanford, Sinjin Smith, Pam Shriver and George Lazenby.

ee also

*List of famous Puerto Ricans

References

External links

* [http://www.jonnymoseley.com/2006/biography_text.htm Biography on www.jonnymoseley.com]
* [http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/04/28_moseley.shtml Berkeley 2004 press release]
* [http://www.theskichannel.com Official Website / The Ski Channel]
* [http://www.icerair.com Official Website / ICER AIR]