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Rialto native and professional skateboarder Tristan Rennie, 27, now living in Crestline, stands in a private empty swimming pool in San Bernardino on Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025. Rennie, who is also a part time EMT and firefighter for the Running Springs fire department, will compete later this month at the Rockstar Energy Open in Portland in the Park event. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)
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Rialto native and professional skateboarder Tristan Rennie, 27, now living in Crestline, stands in a private empty swimming pool in San Bernardino on Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025. Rennie, who is also a part time EMT and firefighter for the Running Springs fire department, will compete later this month at the Rockstar Energy Open in Portland in the Park event. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)
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SAN BERNARDINO – Tristan Rennie dreams about pools he’ll never skate, spots he’s seen in videos but never had the pleasure of visiting, not while he’s awake anyway. Thus is life for a legendary pool skateboarder; some places you can only go to catch air while you’re catching Zzz’s.
“That’s just the cycle,” the 27-year-old from Rialto told me last week while we chatted about old-school pools, those architectural beauties, often kidney-shaped, inviting, inverted cement sculptures. They proliferated Southern California in the 1950s and ’60s and, during a drought a decade later, lured in skateboarders when homeowners drained them, giving skaters a canvas to create a whole new way of doing it – vertically.
Those pools come and go now; there one day, gone the next, sometimes filled back up with water, other times covered over forever – the stuff of legend … or dreams.
Between many successful backside air attempts, Rennie was talking to us – a columnist and a photographer, a PR rep and her good dog, Hobie – at one of the “permission pools” he frequents. An Anthony Pool on a hot day in San Bernardino, where the elderly homeowners inside allow Rennie and Co. to have the run of their pool in exchange for some yard work and upkeep.
Rennie was gearing up for the Rockstar Energy Open on Aug. 15-17 in Portland, Oregon – living one dream still before going back to another, his newish job as a firefighter.
He was the kid who answered “pro skateboarder” when prompted in elementary school. And after he won his first contest early – a smooth entry into the profession – Rennie carved a path right to the deep end. It would be the only job on his resume for years: sponsored athlete, competitor, world traveler, skateboard film star, one of the the best on the planet in a proper pool.
Obviously adept at tight transitions, Rennie’s priorities began to shift in 2020 when his daughter, Isla, was born. That’s when the other dream job started to come into focus, the one he’d have pursued to start with, he said, if skateboarding hadn’t taken off.
Rennie was always impressed with firefighters when he saw them helping in the community and, as a skater, he often wished he’d had the training to know what to do when his friends would got hurt, as inevitably happens. (Rennie, himself, busted his elbow at 15 on the first day of spring break.)
So five years ago, the new dad began studying. He took online fire science classes and went through EMT school, started taking shifts in an ambulance as he worked his way toward a firefighting position.
When he applied for a position at the Running Springs Fire Department, he presented a pretty unique resume: “I just put: ‘Athlete for Rock Star Energy drink,’” said Rennie, a Carter High School product. He, of course, highlighted all that went with that, that he’d managed his travel and scheduling, the physical training and so forth.
And he got the job. But, humble guy that he is, he didn’t tell his new colleagues much about his illustrious skateboarding past. It wasn’t a secret, either; he’d had to put it on his resume, after all. So soon enough Rennie showed up to work one day and heard the familiar notes of a song he knew from … somewhere.
“I was walking up the stairs and I couldn’t even place exactly where I knew it, but I was like, ‘That song’s familiar, wonder what they’re watching?’ Rennie said. “And then it’s me at the X Games.”
His work colleagues think his other job is pretty cool – which is to say, his skateboarding colleagues think the firefighting is, and his fellow firefighters feel the same about the skateboarding.
Both gigs offer a sense of adventure and a taste of adrenaline that Rennie craves – as does daughter Isla, who loves hopping on her dad’s board with him; some dads do dance steps with their daughters on their feet, Rennie will ride pools with her on a skateboard.
“You can definitely draw parallels from the fire service to skateboarding,” Rennie said. “A lot of it is just that unknown, where when you go on a skate trip or out on a skate mission, it’s spontaneous, where the wind takes you. And same thing with the fire service or EMS, it’s whatever calls come in, that’s where the days takes you.”
So there are days like one recently, when Rennie is one of the guys racing to a car fire, followed by a medical call and then straight to a parade in town.
And then, a week or so later, Rennie will be one of the guys throwing himself into tricks in the men’s park contest at the Rock Star Energy Open.
At the event last year, he took 11th in front of packed crowd of action sports enthusiasts at Waterpark Park along the Willamette River. Catch him via ThePlatfrm.com and FuelTV.
“I’m very fortunate to be able to live out essentially two dreams,” Rennie said. “So yeah, super grateful. None of it’s been easy, it’s a lot of hours and it can be tiring at moments, but it’s always worth it.”
Dreams really do come true; sometimes two at a time.
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