Xtreme Faith

The X-​​Games™ have always been the place where over-​​the-​​edge ath­letes throw down adrenaline-​​pumping stunts that blow the minds of spec­ta­tors. Those who really excel at these death-​​ defy­ing sports often embrace a dark and murky cul­ture of dis­sent, dis­sat­is­fac­tion, and diss­ing any­thing that resem­bles rules or conformity.

But a few of these dare-​​devils have been rais­ing an uncom­fort­able stir. Spon­sors and orga­niz­ers are nail-​​biting over what fans will think when they learn their bad-​​boy, rebel heroes have embraced Chris­tian­ity. In this les­son we’ll find out who some of them are, and how it happened…

x-​​treme biker

When motocross rac­ing new­comer Brian Dee­gan won the1997 LA Col­i­seum Super­cross, he aston­ished the crowd by hop­ping off his mov­ing bike at the fin­ish line. It launched rid­er­less into the air. That was to be the first of many shock­ing stunts from Dee­gan that would rock the motocross world. The move was imme­di­ately banned by motocross author­i­ties and rac­ing rebel Brian Dee­gan found his bad boy niche.

Dee­gan was 12 years old when his par­ents divorced. He found a vent for his anger in dirt bik­ing, and turned pro by age 17. He left small town Nebraska for South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, FMX head­quar­ters, promis­ing his father he would come back home and go to col­lege if he didn’t make it.

Brian soon switched from motocross rac­ing to freestyle motocross (FMX), which is more about stunts and tricks than rid­ing laps. He soon joined up with other rid­ers who wielded the same revul­sion for author­ity. With Larry Linkogle, Dee­gan co-​​created the “Metal Mul­isha”, an FMX team that would even­tu­ally com­pete and per­form around the world.

In an inter­view with Phil Bartsch of the Courier Mail, an Aus­tralian news­pa­per, Dee­gan said “We formed the Mul­isha because we wanted to have our own group of guys who stood up against the (motocross indus­try) estab­lish­ment. We’re against peo­ple try­ing to make you do things you don’t want to do, like dress and look how you don’t want to look.”

The Mul­isha became known for their rau­cous, destruc­tive behav­ior, shaved heads, tat­toos, wild par­ties and busted hotel rooms. Dee­gan chose a skull with a Nazi hel­met for the Metal Mul­isha emblem, mar­ket­ing the sym­bol in a mul­ti­mil­lion dol­lar cloth­ing line.

x-​​treme talent

The X Games (for­merly known sim­ply as “X-​​treme Sports”) began to include Freestyle Motocross in 1999. Dee­gan has taken 3 Gold and 7 Bronze medals, com­pet­ing in at least one X Games event annually.

He was the first ever to do a 360 in com­pe­ti­tion - an aer­ial back flip on the motor­cy­cle while ramp jump­ing. The trick was named the “Mul­isha Twist”. Dee­gan became inter­na­tion­ally known for his will­ing­ness to invent new tricks risk­ing every­thing to enter­tain an audience.

x-​​treme attitude

“For me, I would say my whole life was being a rebel; try­ing to form an image of this guy who has done a lot of sins, a lot of bad things. (I was) try­ing just to build a name - basi­cally glo­ri­fy­ing being a bad per­son…” Dee­gan goes on to express his grow­ing empti­ness he felt inside. “ I just was hurt­ing the peo­ple I loved and doing the bad things.”

x-​​treme pain

The Metal Mul­isha packed sta­di­ums wher­ever they went. But rip­ping on a bike in FMX com­pe­ti­tion has the poten­tial to rip the rider’s body as well as take his life. Like ancient glad­i­a­tor games, spec­ta­tors are as eager to see a crash as they are thrilled with a suc­cess­ful death-​​defying trick.

In May of 2005 Brian Dee­gan attempted a back flip for the MTV cam­eras film­ing Viva La Bam. He tried to slice through a 40 mph cross­wind. The jump went bad. He took the han­dle­bars in the gut, explod­ing his kid­ney, lac­er­at­ing his spleen. He crash landed and writhed in pain on the ground.

x-​​treme promise

“In my head, I knew I was dying.” recalls Dee­gan. Rushed to hos­pi­tal, the sur­geon told him that he might not make it. Then and there he made a promise to God. “That was the final moment when I said, ‘You know what? If I live through this, I am going to fully fol­low Christ.’”

The day after his surgery, his wife Marissa fueled his desire to live by announc­ing that she was preg­nant with their sec­ond child.

x-​​treme change

In an inter­view with Chris Palmer of ESPN Mag­a­zine Dee­gan said, “ That was be being a dumb kid. I tried to uphold an image and shock peo­ple. We had to be gnarly all the time. When I real­ized how stu­pid that was, peo­ple called me a sell­out. But I didn’t owe them any­thing.” He also said, “It took me years to real­ize that I was a [exple­tive removed] idiot. It took me another 2 years to get away from it.”

True to his promise, as soon as he recov­ered he found a church for his fam­ily to attend and began open­ing up his home for a bible study and faith shar­ing for his bik­ing brothers.

x-​​treme influence

Soon other mem­bers of the Metal Mul­isha joined Dee­gan in his search for God. “I was able to bring Jeremy Lusk into our bible study. Twitch was in our bible study, just our close friends that we really cared about and it started to grow.”

They started tak­ing heat for express­ing their Chris­t­ian faith in a cul­ture that despises reli­gion. But they found strength to stand up for their beliefs in each other. “I think the main thing,” said Dee­gan, “ is find­ing peo­ple that you can asso­ciate with. I con­tin­ued to grow. Through that, we (all) really started to learn about God and the bible. That was pretty much how our walk started advancing.

x-​​treme loss

Jeremy Lusk was one of Deegan’s clos­est friends and a team­mate, and he had recently been bap­tized. On Feb­ru­ary 9, 2009, while per­form­ing a back flip trick called the “Hart Attack” at a show in Costa Rica in front of thou­sands of motocross fans, he crashed and crushed his skull. The Metal Mul­isha were dev­as­tated, but con­tin­ued in their pub­lic out­pour­ing of faith.

x-​​treme wake-​​up

“At this point, I’d say Jeremy Lusk pass­ing away - you know I see my best friend, and just see­ing him lay­ing there – you know after he passed, down there in Costa Rica, I was just like, you know what? I go, this has to be the strongest awak­en­ing for me going, ‘You bet­ter fig­ure it out, you bet­ter just fol­low Christ from this day on.’ It just really made me see how short that life can be and you don’t know what is going to hap­pen the next day, and so why not live your life to where when you’re gone, you can be like, ‘Man, I lived the best life I could pos­si­bly live. I affected peo­ple in a pos­i­tive way.’

x-​​treme witness

Dee­gan, when asked about his mak­ing his faith pub­lic, told The New York Times, “In the end I said, ‘who’s more rad­i­cal than us?’ 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.”

So many fans began to ques­tion what it meant to give one’s life to Christ that Brian Dee­gan was moved to share his faith with his fans in an inter­view posted on YouTube called “Faisst Pas­tor PJ and Dee­gan Gospel” part 1 and part 2.

x-​​treme struggle

Brian De­­agan spends a lot of time up in the air flip­ping motor­cy­cles. But his life is becom­ing grounded in Christ. He strives to be a bet­ter per­son with God’s grace. “You know we had our ups and downs. We have done a lot of bad stuff and it still hap­pens. I am still a sin­ner, I’ll admit it. I have my moments. I’m not happy for the things I’ve done. I feel bad the next day and I don’t want to do it again. The thing is, I am try­ing to become a bet­ter per­son, a bet­ter dad, a bet­ter hus­band, a bet­ter friend.

x-​​treme sacrifice

X-​​treme motocross has some­thing in com­mon with the real Cross. When an FMX biker, rally car racer, or any other extreme sport ath­lete per­forms, they offer every bit of them­selves to their sport. Risk­ing great injury and maybe even death, they pour it all out on the altar of that dirt track; to feed their fans hunger for a rush, and to gain their prize: the medal, respect, and money.

When such rad­i­cal peo­ple come face to face with the intense, “full-​​on” love, giv­ing, and self­less sac­ri­fice that Jesus made on the cross (and we wit­ness at Mass), they have a deep under­stand­ing of what it takes to do that. They get it, they respect it, and want to fol­low it.

God’s love for us, and giv­ing that love to oth­ers, is the miss­ing ele­ment that they were search­ing for but could never sat­isfy with an adren­a­line high. Their desire to be unique is answered by Christ’s indi­vid­ual love for each of us. And as they con­tinue their Chris­t­ian walk, they find them­selves more rad­i­cal and dif­fer­ent than ever before.