FREMONT — A 14-year-old Fremont boy beat out hundreds of other teens from across the country with his illustrious mane, earning a $1,000 cash prize and best in flow at the USA Mullet Championship. Mason Padilla bested 500 other teens with his winning hairstyle, which he coined “The West Coast Wave.” The young East Bay native has grown out his 20-inch, curly, lofty mullet for the past four years and has competed the last three, earning a top five and top 10 finish.
But this year the esteemed hairdo of his own design, brought to life at Fremont’s own Rick’s Sundale Barbershop, earned the eighth grader a championship belt. “I just thought it was a cool haircut,” Mason said in an interview this week. “It makes me feel good.
” It didn’t always, though. In 2019, after Mason watched the cult comedy movie “Joe Dirt” with his three brothers, he began plotting a climb to the top. His inspiration came in an explosive scene where the mullet-wearing Dirt, played by David Spade, sets off a whole lot of fireworks.
In between school, playing baseball, basketball, wrestling and riding dirt bikes, Mason started to grow his luxurious hair. But after he began sporting the mullet, Mason was bullied by some of his peers at school over it, his mother Michelle Padilla told this news organization. Some classmates “were calling him a girl,” or said he “had a rat’s tail” on his head, she said.
Upset, he abandoned it. “The negativity really took its toll on him, and he.