A real-life 360

Sometimes climbing the ladder to success begins with hitting rock bottom. Clovis High graduate Tony Hoffman happened to fall from the top rungs.

As a high school senior in 2002, Hoffman was a sponsored, elite-level BMX racer who graced the cover of a magazine. A few years later, he was sleeping on the streets — even on the campus of his alma mater — and using drugs like Oxycontin, heroin, meth and cocaine.

Today, with more than eight years of sobriety under his belt, Hoffman is the leader of Freewheel Project, which he founded in 2011 to keep kids from making the same mistakes he did.

Here’s the story of how Tony “THoff” Hoffman spun a 180 — and then another — to become the mentor and motivational speaker he is today:

“I’ve always been a young, talented athlete and played every sport imaginable outside of golf,” Hoffman said, noting he was involved in basketball, baseball, football, soccer, aggressive inline skating, skateboarding and BMX. “A lot of people said I was going to be someone who was going to make it as an athlete.”

He grew up in Clovis schools, attending Red Bank Elementary, Clark Intermediate and Clovis High.

“I’m your stereotypical Clovis kid,” he said. “I had all of the latest Jordans when they came out, I had the nicest mitts and baseball bats, I had a lot of opportunities to do any sport that I wanted.”

But his talent came with special treatment from coaches and teachers, which led to a cocky attitude and apathetic work ethic, Hoffman said.

“I only tried when I wanted to try, and that was dangerous,” he said.

At Clark, he sought acceptance from his peers.

“I wanted to be the cool kid,” he said. He found marijuana for a girl in his class, which eventually got them both kicked out of school.

Hoffman’s brother turned him onto BMX racing, which quickly became his passion.

“That kept me out of trouble all through high school,” he said. “My sophomore year I made it to the expert level. My junior year I signed a three-year contract with Fox Racing, I had a sponsorship deal with Airwalk shoes, I had a deal with Spy (Optic) sunglasses as well. My senior year I was on the cover of BMXer Magazine.”

“THoff” was ranked No. 1 across the country throughout the year, but skipped the BMX championship race to take a job offer in San Diego. He was hired to do installation and maintenance for a wireless internet company — which in 2002 was very new technology.

“I was very into computers when I was a young kid,” Hoffman said. “That’s where I wanted to go with my life. I didn’t see BMX as being a career path.

“I didn’t have the wisdom to understand that sometimes you follow your passion not because it’s bringing you money, but because it’s what you love to do, and that along that road you find these things that open up opportunities for you to receive financial blessing and everything works out.”

Without a firm grip on his bike’s handlebars, Hoffman found himself holding what everyone around him was — marijuana and alcohol.

“At the time I was the only one not smoking or drinking,” he said. “But at Shaver Lake one time … I tried it.

“What I didn’t realize was that day was like a fork in the road spiritually. I could’ve said no and my life would’ve gone a totally different direction. It opened up a door for these situations to occur in my life that was literally like walking through Hell for six years.”

His job in San Diego was short lived — turns out the guy he was working for was a Ponzi scheme scam artist wanted by the FBI for stealing $28 million — and he returned home. His best friend, Jeff Simonian, died in a crash just days before Christmas 2002.

“I just kind of got real confused about life,” Hoffman said.

Back in Clovis, Hoffman’s parents found marijuana in his belongings and kicked him out of the house. He started partying his buddies and was introduced to Oxycontin.

“It was the perfect drug for me and for a lot of the kids in Clovis, period,” he said. “I saw what I consider an epidemic. I watched so many kids get swallowed up by these pain killers.”

Popping pills quickly became an everyday thing.

“None of us realized how powerful this drug was at the time,” Hoffman said. “I’ve put heroin in a spoon, drew it up with a needle and stuck it in my veins and I’ve put Oxycontin in a spoon, drew it up with a needle and put it in my veins — there’s no difference other than the taste that hits your tongue as it circulates.”

Hoffman and the young adults surrounding him grew physically dependent and horrifically addicted to Oxycontin, and experienced withdrawals when they stopped taking them. When one source for the drug disappeared, Hoffman remedied the situation by doing something he’ll never forget.

“My co-defendant and I committed a home invasion robbery in Clovis,” he explained. “I don’t regret much in my life, but the one thing I do regret going inside someone’s home with a gun and robbing them for the medication that they needed for their illness.

“It’s a decision I’ve had to live with for the rest of my life. I wish I could take it back ... I was such a young, foolish person completely driven by a drug addiction.”

At age 21, Hoffman was sent to jail.

“The courts didn’t give us prison time, which they should’ve,” he said. “We were Clovis kids that came from good families, we all had incredible attorneys, and they had never seen oxycontin crimes before... Nowadays you get punished like everyone else.”

Hoffman failed felony probation by using again just a month after he was released from jail.

He was taking more than 1,000 mg of Oxycontin a day, using several grams of cocaine each day and was selling drugs to support himself. It didn’t take long for him to start using meth as well, and switched from oxycontin to heroin because it was cheaper.

One night he asked a good friend to let him spend the night, but that friend’s father didn’t want him there — “he couldn’t trust me anymore,” Hoffman said. “He gave me a sleeping bag.”

“That night I slept at Clovis High in the baseball stadium under the announcer’s tower because it was raining and I needed to stay dry.”

At 3 a.m. he walked to a donut shop on the corner of Fowler and Shaw with only a quarter to his name. He asked the baker to sell him a donut for 25 cents, but was kicked out of the store.

“I walked back to Clovis High and I was thinking about life. I was thinking ‘how did life turn out to be like this? Everything was so good in high school, and now you’re this.’ I was literally talking to myself and I told myself out loud, ‘Now you’re this, and you’re gonna die soon. This is what your life has turned out to be.’”

Unable to escape the feelings of depression, shame, guilt and hurt that went along with that realization, Hoffman continued to live on the street and use drugs.

The turning point came when he was arrested on Jan. 21, 2007 for breaking into a vacant home in Clovis that was up for rent.

“It was freezing cold and I knew if I slept on the street that night I was going to die,” he said.

He was sent to prison for two years, and says there are more criminals and drugs in prison than on the streets. Despite the negative influences, he managed to come out a better person.

“It was the first step on the ladder to the top for me,” he said. “I felt divinely inspired to get back on my bicycle when I was in a Wasco State Prison cell. I kind of worked with that calling and it carried me all though prison. That purpose allowed me to finally stand up for myself and say this is who I am and this is who I’m going to be.”

Hoffman made small changes at first, from the way he wore his pants to the way he spoke to people.

“I read something on the prison wall above my bunk that changed my life,” he said. “‘Be careful what you think, because your thoughts become your words. Be careful what you say, because what you say becomes your actions. Be careful what you do, because what you do becomes your habits. Be careful what you make your habits, because your habits become your character, and your character becomes your destiny.’”

He thought about what he used to think and say as a kid, and realized those thoughts and words snowballed into who he became — a drug addict and a criminal.

“The destiny for those people is prison and that’s exactly where I was,” he said. “I used this process to change my life and build a whole new character. I left prison a completely different person.”

He left prison more physically and spiritually fit than he’d ever been, and started racing BMX again. He took third place at a BMX race just five months after leaving his Wasco State Prison cell.

He raced on a professional tour, starting at the A pro level, equivalent to the minor leagues in baseball, and moved up to AA pro, which is the Olympic level for elite men.

In 2011, however, he sustained an ACL injury and he refused all narcotic pain relievers associated with the surgery. The injury, along with ulcerative colitis, ended his racing career.

But it didn’t end his dreams.

“I started the Freewheel Project, which was something I felt in prison I was being called to do — using my bike as a way to help kids,” he said.

Freewheel Project offers a summer camp for kids ages four and up to take part in action sports while learning life skills.

The program began with 13 bikes, 20 helmets, and a professional BMX rider — Hoffman — inviting kids out to Woodward Park to train with him for free. It became popular quickly, with 30 to 40 kids showing up and waiting their turn to use the equipment.

Hoffman used the action sport as a draw, but once he had a captive audience he used his platform to teach life lessons.

Once he did a demonstration using two buckets and a plant. He said one bucket contained gasoline and other contained water. He asked the children what would happen if he poured a bucket of gasoline on the plant — it would die — or what would happen if he gave it water. He used it as a metaphor for life.

“We have the choice to pour in good things that help us grow and live life, or we can pour in drugs and addiction into our lives and they can destroy us and kill us,” he said.

He signed with American Programs Bureau, the largest public speaking agency in the country, and started sharing his story all over Clovis and Fresno.

“Maybe I got hurt because my focus needed to be on these other things,” he said.

In 2012 Freewheel became a nonprofit and gave away 100 bicycles to kids who graduated from its summer program.

A curriculum was created that included three segments: sport, school and credit union.

Participants are taught leadership skills, including having a good attitude, making good choices, respecting others and doing community service.

“At the credit union they learn spending, saving and sharing their money. Schools don’t teach that,” Hoffman said. “Kids will earn money during their time. Just like you and I get a paycheck, they get a paycheck.”

Fresno County Federal Credit Union partners with Freewheel Project to open savings accounts for participants and teach them how to be smart about money.

An afterschool program is also offered at Sequoia Middle School in Fresno for at-risk youth. It’s called B.A.R.S., for Behavioral and Academic Restoration through action Sports.

“We draw kids in with the bike, and then we can get them to do their homework and get tutors for them,” Hoffman said. “A kid had a .7 GPA, and 6 months later he graduated eighth grade with a 2.7, the highest he’d had.”

“Action sports are a different kind of sport, and that resonates with kids that don’t like basketball, baseball, football, soccer.. all things that schools unfortunately only recognize as sports,” Hoffman explained. “This makes our organization extremely unique.

“We provide all of our kids with action sports equipment for them to ride the bike to the park by themselves, ride the skateboard to the skate park by themselves, and escape life, escape friends that make bad choices, escape the struggles they may be having at home, and keep them out of trouble.”

The kids get a unique opportunity to train with professionals like Brooke Crain, a Visalia native who represented the United States in the 2012 Summer Olympics in the women’s BMX event, and AA pro Austin Hiatt.

“I want kids who don’t have opportunities to be able to come into our camp for $20, have an experience with professionals, and just totally be inspired by the greatness of action sports and walk away with their own equipment — but not because we gave it to them, but because they’ve earned it,” Hoffman said. “I think there’s a lot of self esteem that can be built when somebody earns something. You feel so good when you do that. They had to save their money. That skateboard or that bike meant something to them.”

Hoffman hopes to expand the skateboarding afterschool program to Clovis.

“It would be perfect to utilize Rotary Skate Park, it’s close to Clark Intermediate,” he said.

But the organization won’t get there without help.

Granville Homes purchased a van for the organization to use for its afterschool program, and its largest fundraiser is approaching.

The third annual Golfing ‘Fore’ Youth Tournament will be held Monday, Oct. 5, at Copper River Country Club. Hoffman hopes to have 80 to 100 players present.

“Supporting the golf tournament, putting a team together, doing a tee hole sponsorship, is really enabling us to get one step closer to launching our skateboard program here in Clovis or improving our summer camps,” he said.

“My biggest goal for the organization is to seal a package that we can push across the country and let other areas and schools adopt the program, because it works. No one else is doing it like we’re doing it. I want a program that runs without me. If I were to die today, it would go on.”

This story was originally published September 22, 2015 at 5:17 PM with the headline "A real-life 360."