MULTIMEDIA: X-Games entertain and enlighten students about bullying

By Emily Kim and Aydan Prime,
Bluedevilhub.com Staff–

Three professional BMX riders spent 30 minutes on Monday, Dec. 8  at Davis High during lunch at an event called the X-Games jumping their bikes over students and flipping three feet above DHS staff members’ heads, all to raise awareness for anti-bullying. Athletic Director Jeff Lorenson organized the event with ASA (Aggressive Skaters Association) as an exciting way to educate students on the dangers of bullying in all of its different forms.

The main purpose of the event was to motivate students to take part in preventing bullying in schools nationwide. The event consisted of the athletes performing incredible tricks as the announcer Dustin Grimes informed the crowd of problems of bullying in the US.

As students filed into the north gym, they were met with the view of a ramp at the center of the gym. The organization ASA coordinated this event with the US Marines as their sponsors , who were also present today during the games.

Bullying has been a rising problem, especially with the advent of new social media platforms, and ASA has been on its 15th annual high school tour for the past 14 weeks to bring about a more innovative and interesting way to teach students about bullying. The event started off with a short discussion about bullying around the nation.

Around 56 percent of students have witnessed some sort of bullying on their campus. Athlete Mykel Larrin, who is also a part of Bikes Over Baghdad–a program in which he travels to perform for U.S. soldiers–discusses what he hopes to achieve with this event.

Halfway through the event, the athletes chose 5 volunteers to lie down while Larrin jumped over them on his bike. ASA’s engaging method proved successful and caught the attention of many students, like senior Gabe Leal, who had a chance to volunteer halfway through the show.

Towards the end of the event, Grimes called on a few students to answer questions about the statistics announced at the beginning of the event in exchange for a free t-shirt and water bottle.

Grimes then announced a competition that called for one girl and one boy. Senior Clara Riggle beat the flex arm hang challenge record by 76 seconds with a time of 200 seconds, and junior Nick Borowsky did 17 pull ups, 20 short of the record.