When Zach Newman, aka @zachfullface, grabbed some big air inside the gym at James Monroe High School on Thursday, the students’ shouts lifted the roof. Good thing, too, as Zach seemed to flirt with the rafters each time he cleared the top of the quarter pipe and took to the sky.
The thrills were a welcome break for kids heading into the Thanksgiving Break, but there was a message to be had, too.
Tour manager and Master of Ceremonies Dan Sieg – himself a former BMX bike pro – wants kids to know that there’s a place in this world for all of them.
“The motivation behind this tour” he told FXBG Advance, is “to help kids find a way in life that is going to beneficial to them, and know that there is a path for the misfits, the kids that are misunderstood.”
That includes folks like Newman. Known today for his Big Air stunts and his Bronze Medal at the X Games in BMX Vert, Newman wasn’t always the man at the center of the action.
His first helmet was pink, his kneepads were camo, and his bike a low-end model – all from a local used sports store. It’s all his mom could afford.
Laughed off the ramps the first time he took to his local park to try BMX biking, his mother told him that to get where he wanted to go, he had to put his head down, and keep pushing regardless what those around him thought.
That advice has served him well, and all the riders on the No Hate Tour, who willingly share with kids their path to success – falls, stumbles, and all – in hopes to motivate them to keep pushing.
The other message that also rang out? Bullying is a problem, and it’s not something students have to put up with. It’s what drives Sieg every day. “My big why,” he says, is to “be the person for anybody at any age they are that I wish I had. For the 17-year-olds, I want to be the person I wish I had at 17.”
Martin Davis is editor-in-chief of FXBG Advance
