Brian Deegan and his band of freestyle motocross miscreants called the Metal Mulisha wore black and were covered in tattoos. They brawled, cursed and stirred up trouble. In their sport, they were the bad guys.
So when Deegan was baptized, he wondered what his fans would think.
After a near-fatal crash in 2005 while attempting a back flip during filming for a TV show, he lost a kidney and four pints of blood, and found religion. When a surgeon told him he might not survive, Deegan, 34, who has won more freestyle motocross medals at the X Games than any other rider, made a pact with God.
PHOTO: AFP
If he lived, he would mend his ways. When he finally pulled through, he sought a pastor, began reading the Bible and “gave his life to Christ,” he said.
Soon his fellow freestyle riders Jeremy Lusk, Ronnie Faisst and Jeremy Stenberg, who is known as Twitch, began attending Bible study with Deegan.
“All the heavy hitters of the Mulisha are born-again Christians,” Deegan said. “I started tripping. ‘What are the fans going to think?’ I started getting nervous.”
Action sports such as freestyle motocross and skateboarding were founded as antiestablishment. But events such as the X Games, taking place this week in and around Los Angeles, have made them more mainstream. And as the sports’ culture has changed, some have recognized a greater profile for religion.
It is difficult to chart when attitudes toward religion began shifting in action sports. But several years ago, ESPN representatives began receiving credential requests for members of the clergy to accompany athletes at the X Games and they have continued to issue them.
The case of Nate Adams is instructive, too. As a Christian, Adams was part pariah during the early days of freestyle motocross.
“We tried to pick him apart,” Deegan said. “But you had to respect him. He always ripped on a dirt bike. And now Nate Adams is one of our best friends.”
Skateboarding, too, has been transformed somewhat.
Christian Hosoi, 41, was a high-flying rival to Tony Hawk during the 1980s. On Sunday, he will compete in the Legends event at the X Games.
“I was such a rebel against conforming to government, or society because we skateboarders were so radical and we wanted to be outlaws,” he said about his professional heyday. “We were totally individuals, image-driven. It was more a lifestyle.”
Drug addiction derailed Hosoi’s career. He spent nearly five years in prison after pleading guilty to possession with intent to distribute crystal methamphetamine. He was released in 2004, but not before embracing Christianity.
“There wasn’t another option back in my day,” Hosoi said about the image he fostered as a professional skater. “It was either you were hardcore against it all, or you’re not cool and you’re out.”
Today, Hosoi is an associate pastor at a church in Huntington Beach, California, and he travels the world as an evangelist, using skateboarding and drawing on his personal experiences.
“I’m using my popularity, the history, my image and my accomplishments to preach the gospel,” he said.
Deegan is on a similar mission. At an X Games tribute to Lusk on Saturday before the freestyle motocross finals, Deegan planned to say a short prayer. Lusk, who won the gold medal in freestyle at last year’s Games, died of head injuries sustained in a February crash during a competition in Costa Rica.
Before taking part in the ceremony, Deegan weighed the potential effect on his image.
“In the end I said, who’s more radical than us?” Deegan said. “Everything we do is full-on. Once we went to church, we were full-on Christians, too. And we’re going to go for it. On the mic, I’ll say it. On TV, say it. The next thing you know, I have way more people pumped on me. And that’s not why I did it.”
For many in skateboarding, proselytizing carries a stigma, though.
“There are Jews and Muslims and Buddhists,” said Jake Phelps, editor of Thrasher magazine, which covers the sport. “They all have their own special brand of what they believe in. As far as where its place is in skateboarding, it’s pretty much, don’t ask, don’t tell.”
Jereme Rogers, 24, a skateboarder who has competed in the X Games and proclaimed his faith in tattoos, is an exception. He was arrested in May after preaching naked from his apartment rooftop in Redondo Beach, California. Rogers apologized, and he retired the next month.
Chris Cole, 27, a two-time gold-medal winner in skateboard street at the X Games, said in an e-mail message: “The last thing most people want is to be preached to about someone else’s beliefs. The Christian skaters I have met will not preach to you unless you ask them to. I think that is something the community of skaters needs to know.”
Paul Rodriguez considers himself a nondenominational Christian. A two-time gold-medal winner in X Games skateboard street, Rodriguez, 24, has a tattoo of Jesus on his forearm, and a Day of the Dead skateboard graphic.
At contests, he removes his hat and says a prayer before a run, sometimes repeating the ritual several times. His agent, Circe Wallace, initially had reservations about Rodriguez’s spirituality.
“Early on I was concerned as management how his relationship with God would affect his career,” Wallace said. “In terms of certain people’s perception or judgment, and kids not as enthusiastic about buying his products.”
Rodriguez, who does not talk about his faith except to those who ask, wound up taking more grief for signing an endorsement deal with Nike. Some skaters contended the move amounted to selling out.
“When people think like, ‘How does this affect your career, sales, and this and that,’ you’ve just got to be you,” Rodriguez said. “You can’t worry about that. Whether we’re talking about spirituality, religion, or not, just as a general sense of it, you’ve just got to be yourself.”
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