Jonathan William Moseley (born August 27, 1975) is an American freestyle skier and television presenter. He is the first person born in

Puerto Rico ; abbreviated PR), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a Government of Puerto Rico, self-governing Caribbean Geography of Puerto Rico, archipelago and island organized as an Territories of the United States, unincorporated territo ...

to become a member of the U.S. Ski Team. He is also known for hosting three seasons of MTV's '' The Challenge'', which was formerly known as ''Real World/Road Rules Challenge''. He has also hosted four reunion specials for '' Battle of the Sexes'', the sequel of '' Battle of the Seasons'', '' Rivals II'' and '' Free Agents''.

Early years

Moseley was born on August 27, 1975 to Barbara Moseley, a real estate broker, and Tom Moseley, son of Tim Moseley, developer of

Paradise Cay, California Paradise Cay, also known as County Service Area No. 29, is an Unincorporated area, unincorporated Enclave and exclave, enclave, surrounded by the town of Tiburon, California, Tiburon in Marin County, California, United States, located south o ...

, in

San Juan, Puerto Rico San Juan ( , ; Spanish for "Saint John the Baptist, John") is the capital city and most populous Municipalities of Puerto Rico, municipality in the Commonwealth (U.S. insular area), Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the ...

. In 1978, he saw snow for the first time when his family went on a trip to

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. Eventually, his family moved to

Tiburon, California Tiburon ( ; , ) is an incorporated town in Marin County, California. It is located on the Tiburon Peninsula, which reaches south into the San Francisco Bay. It shares a ZIP code (94920) with the smaller incorporated city of Belvedere (formerly ...

, a suburb north of

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

where he attended

The Branson School The Branson School (also known as Branson, Branson School, or KBS) is a co-educational College-preparatory school, college-preparatory high school for students in grades 9–12. The school has 370 students, and is located in Ross, California, no ...

in Ross, California. His family would go to the

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada ( ) is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primari ...

every weekend. This, and the fact that he was a better skier than his brothers, inspired the then nine-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 The 1994 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XVII Olympic Winter Games (; ) and commonly known as Lillehammer '94, were an international winter multi-sport event held from 12 to 27 February 1994 in and around Lillehammer, Norway. Hav ...

held at

Lillehammer Lillehammer () is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Lillehammer. Some of the more notable villages in the munici ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

and became determined to qualify for the 1998 Olympics. In 1995, he enrolled at

UC Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...

, but his education was interrupted by his intense training. In 1998, Moseley participated in and won the first two World Cup events of that year, leading to his participation in the

1998 Winter Olympics The 1998 Winter Olympics, officially known as the and commonly known as Nagano 1998 (), were a winter multi-sport event held from 7 to 22 February 1998, mainly in Nagano, Nagano, Nagano, Nagano Prefecture, Japan, with some events ...

held in Nagano,

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, 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 its policy to allow its athletes to participate in professional events, such as

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

X Games The X Games are a series of action sports events founded by ESPN Inc. and aired on ESPN networks and ABC. In late 2022, ESPN sold the long-running property to MSP Sports Capital, a private equity firm co-founded by Jahm Najafi and Jeff Mo ...

where he earned a silver medal in the Big Air event. Moseley was the first skier to medal in both the X-Games (silver) and the Olympics (Gold). 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 Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...

. 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 Moseley has received is a parade in his honor in which 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 The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) is the National Olympic Committee (NOC) and the National Paralympic Committee (NPC) for the United States. It was founded in 1895 and is headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado ...

and has been featured on the covers of ''Freeskier'' and ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

'' magazines. He was also chosen to be the traditional post-Olympics athlete host of ''

Saturday Night Live ''Saturday Night Live'' (''SNL'') is an American Late night television in the United States, late-night live television, live sketch comedy variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Michaels and Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC. The ...

'' in 2002, hosting the March 2, 2002, episode of the show with musical guest

Outkast Outkast (sometimes written as OutKast) was an American hip-hop duo formed in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1992, consisting of Big Boi (Antwan Patton) and André 3000 (André Benjamin, formerly known as Dré). Widely regarded as one of the greatest an ...

. On the show, he performed a sketch called "Jonny's Journey," in which he went "around the world on a never-ending Dinner Roll" via a

green screen Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two or more images or video streams together based on colour hues ( chroma range). The technique has been used in many fie ...

. Moseley is largely credited with having brought the

Iron Cross The Iron Cross (, , abbreviated EK) was a military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia, the German Empire (1871–1918), and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). The design, a black cross pattée with a white or silver outline, was derived from the in ...

trick into the limelight, where the athlete crosses their skis midair during a jump. This trick was a radical departure from the old school air tricks, which include Daffies, Backscratchers and Moonwalks (see Glen Plake).

Personal life

Moseley married Malia Rich, a business manager, on March 25, 2006, in

Telluride, Colorado Telluride is the county seat and most populous town of San Miguel County, Colorado, San Miguel County in the southwestern portion of the U.S. state of Colorado. The town is a former silver mining camp on the San Miguel River (Colorado), San M ...

. Moseley met Rich in high school; the couple started dating in 2001 and got engaged on April 20, 2003. On September 4, 2007, Rich gave birth to the couple's first child, named Jonathan "Jack" William Moseley Jr. in

. On May 25, 2010, their second son, Tommy, was born.

Later years

Moseley launched a

web site A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, education, ...

that sells products with his logo on them and has appeared on advertisements for

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation, doing business as McDonald's, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain. As of 2024, it is the second largest by number of locations in the world, behind only the Chinese ch ...

and Sprint. He graduated from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

on May 17, 2007 with a

B.A. A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree ...

American Studies American studies or American civilization is an interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary field of scholarship that examines American literature, History of the United States, history, Society of the United States, society, and Culture of the Unit ...

focusing on Consumer and Popular Culture. In December 2001,

3DO 3DO is a video gaming hardware format developed by The 3DO Company and conceived by Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins. The specifications were originally designed by Dave Needle and RJ Mical of New Technology Group, and were licensed by third ...

released '' Jonny Moseley Mad Trix'' a level-based extreme skiing game named after the skier. Moseley, who currently lives in California, was the host of three seasons of the

MTV MTV (an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on ...

reality show ''Real World/Road Rules Challenge'' (now called '' The Challenge''). He is part of the celebrity panel of judges (along with

Steve Garvey Steven Patrick Garvey (born December 22, 1948) is an American former professional Major League Baseball player who played first baseman for the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres from 1969 to 1987. Garvey began his major league career wit ...

and

Oksana Baiul Oksana Serhiyivna Baiul-Farina (; born November 16, 1977) is a Ukrainian retired competitive figure skater. She is the 1993 world champion and the 1994 Olympic champion in ladies' singles. Baiul is the first Olympic Champion from Ukraine t ...

) on the

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...

show " Master of Champions". After the 2002 Olympics Moseley hosted Saturday Night Live. Moseley developed an aerial ski move called "The Dinner Roll" and spoke about it during a 2002 speech at UC Berkeley: In 2007, ''Warren Miller's Playground'' was released with Moseley as the narrator. He was also in the movie as he has been in a few Warren Miller ski movies in the past. Moseley has narrated every film since. He has gone on to narrate a number of other Warren Miller movies. Moseley also used to host a weekly radio program on Sirius/XM's channel 41. The show was called "The Moseley Method". Moseley was the color analyst for NBC at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver for the moguls, aerials and ski cross events. In 2010 he was cast on the ABC show Skating with the Stars where he was paired with retired Pairs skater Brooke Castile. Mosley finished in third place as second runner-up. He is currently the host of the latest viral marketing campaign by Ford Motor Company, Focus Rally America. In 2012 Moseley became a co-host of "

American Ninja Warrior ''American Ninja Warrior'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''ANW'') is an American sports entertainment reality show based on the Japanese television reality show ''Sasuke (TV series), Sasuke,'' which also serves as a successor of ''American Ninja C ...

" on G4. The show started broadcasting on

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

and he continued his hosting role. In 2013, Moseley appeared on ''

Undercover Boss ''Undercover Boss'' is a reality television series franchise created by Stephen Lambert and produced in many countries. It originated in 2009 on the British Channel 4. The show’s format features the experiences of senior executives working u ...

'', playing the host of the fictitious reality show which Squaw Valley/

Alpine Meadows Alpine tundra is a type of natural region or biome that does not contain trees because it is at high elevation, with an associated harsh climate. As the latitude of a location approaches the poles, the threshold elevation for alpine tundra gets ...

CEO Andy Wirth is supposedly a contestant on.

References

External links

Personal web site

Berkeley 2004 press release
{{DEFAULTSORT:Moseley, Jonny Sportspeople from San Juan, Puerto Rico Puerto Rican male freestyle skiers University of California, Berkeley alumni Olympic gold medalists for the United States in freestyle skiing Olympic freestyle skiers for the United States American male freestyle skiers American freeskiers Freestyle skiers at the 1998 Winter Olympics Freestyle skiers at the 2002 Winter Olympics 1975 births Living people Medalists at the 1998 Winter Olympics Skiers from California People from Tiburon, California Sportspeople from Marin County, California Sportspeople from Olympic Valley, California 21st-century American sportsmen 20th-century American sportsmen