Chad Knight was born on November 8th, 1976 and raised in Westerville, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus. At the age of eight, Chad began skateboarding for the sole purpose of proving to his brother that it was possible to charge down the driveway and still make the turn at the bottom onto the sidewalk. This was 1984, in the midst of the second wave in skateboarding's popularity.

As skateboarding was quickly gaining popularity, Chad began skateboarding on a regular basis with the kids in the neighborhood. He excelled quickly and began entering local competitions. Within a short period of time, Chad was traveling to other states to complete.

In 1988, Sunsports Skatepark opened in Columbus. This enabled Chad to skate during the rain, sleet and snow; which was more often than not. He was at the skatepark nearly everyday and was truly beginning to stand out as a natural.

Chad was sponsored by Sunsports a year later in 1989 at the age of 13. At that time, the skatepark began to hold contests. Chad won most of the street contests and all of the ramp contests even though he was much younger than the other competitors.

Sunsport's manager, Kenny Bucholz, had taken Chad under his wing in helping him find some sponsors on the west coast. Chad would have his friends film him skateboarding at the skatepark and throughout the city. Chad would edit his videos, VCR to VCR, and contact the companies he wanted to represent.

In 1990, Chad was sponsored by Gullwing Trucks, Union Wheels and H-Street Skateboards. H-Street was skateboarding hottest new company and their team was taking skateboarding in a new direction with innovative tricks and a new approach to skateboard videos. H-Street's first two videos, released in 1986 and 1988, changed skateboarding forever. This was Chad 's dream team. Being part of such an elite team had Chad progressing at an amazing rate.

Chad visited Woodward Skate Camp in Pennsylvania for the first time in the summer of 1991. Chad was 14 at the time and caught the eye of the visiting pros he skated with there. He capped off his stay by winning Woodward's summer contest.

In 1993 Chad has his first video part in H-Street's "Lick" video. This was a major milestone in his career by making his name known around the world. Contests had been replaced by videos in the mid 1990's. Chad concentrated on filming street skateboarding and editing his own video parts. H-Street dissolved in 1994 and from it's ashes, Evol skateboards was born. Chad starred in Evol's 1994 video "Back in Black" before parting ways with the company. Chad made the switch to a new company that was new and fresh, Maple skateboards. Maple was similar to H-Street's early days with a diverse team that was again pushing the limits of skateboarding.

In 1995, Chad graduated Westerville North High School in Ohio. His new team manager for Maple, Ed Dominick, had set things in motion for Chad to make the move out to San Diego. Within a month of graduating, Chad headed west. In his first year in San Diego, Chad won his first and only California Amateur Skateboard League contest and filmed a full part for Maple's debut video, "Seven Steps to Heaven". Chad had made a name for himself in California as a street skater who was not afraid to go big.

Around the same time, Chad had his first interview in Transworld Skateboard Magazine. Transworld is considered the top magazine in the world of street skateboarding. That year Chad upgraded his sponsors considerably. He rode for the many of the top companies at the time: Dukes Shoes, Pig Wheels, Edward Sebastian Clothing, Shorty's Hardware, Spectra Trucks and Maple skateboards.

In 1996, Chad had interviews in Big Brother Magazine and Thrasher Magazine, the two other leading magazines. Chad was used in heavy rotation by his sponsors in advertisements and videos.

In 1997, Chad signed with Osiris Shoes. He designed and developed a shoe with Osiris that was sold as the Chad Knight signature model. Chad toured the world with the Osiris team over the next two years, filming for their debut video "The Storm". "The Storm" was the most anticipated video in years. It won the "Transworld Skateboarding's Video of the Year Award" in 1999 by a landslide.

Chad followed that video part up with "Black Cat", Maple Skateboard's second video. By the time "Black Cat" was released, Chad either starred in or had full video parts in eleven other videos.

Chad suffered an injury in 2001 which took him out of the limelight for two years. During this time Chad spent a lot of time in the offices of his sponsors, learning the infrastructure and mechanics to the business side of things. Maple went out of business and Chad ended things with Osiris.

In 2005, Chad began skating again solely for the fun of it. Very quickly Chad 's skating for fun transformed into him pushing his skating to the limit. He began shooting photos and filming video again.

By the summer of 2005, Chad began working with Adio shoes and skating regularly at their warehouse. He went on the Tony Hawk's "Boom Boom Huck Jam" tour and other smaller tours with Adio.

In 2006, Kristian Svitak, another Ohio pro, left Black Label to start his own project, 1031 Skateboards. Kristian signed Chad on as the second pro for the team. The team filmed through summer and wrapped up their first video, Bleed For Me. Chad had his first full length video part in 6 years. The video premiered on Halloween night in shops throughout the country. Chad was in Houston, Texas at the time with Adio for the Make-A-Wish Foundation demo/ contest. There, Chad won first place in the Best Bowl Rider contest.

In 2006 Chad appeared in Fuel TV's newest show, American Misfits, on 7 of the 12 episodes. He also worked with another Fuel TV show, Adrenalina, in Argentina. The show was a full one hour segment on his trip and aired dozens of times on the network.

Chad began working with SkateWave in 2007, a prefabricated skate park manufacturer, as one of their grand opening demo pros. He also began riding for CD Skateshop out of Staten Island, New York.

2008 has a lot in store for Chad. He has officially signed with Sports Unlimited Talent Agency. He has also joined the NSS Footwear team and will have a signature shoe available in 2008. On January 6th Chad was a contestant on the revamped American Gladiators on NBC. He was one out of 24 contestants that were selected from a pool of 10,000 applicants. FUEL TV has asked Chad back on to The Daily Habit and will also be airing a First Hand with him this year. An interview with The Skateboard Mag is scheduled to run in May and the new 1031 video, "Turn Up The Hell", should follow shortly after.

Chad is also currently starting a personal training business. The program will be a one on one basis targeting all spectrums of the population. Chad is interested in working with action sports athletes in an attempt to raise awareness of the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle for optimum performance and injury prevention. However, Chad encourages people of all ages and lifestyle to contact him about a program that is right for them. chad@chadknight.com