EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE: The Wheel Deal

WRIGHTSVILLE BEACH, NC (WWAY) — We all have challenges. We’re human and it’s simply a part of life. Those challenges can get the best of us. They can also bring out the best in us.

Sean Onoyeyan is a Marine. He’s also passionate about skateboarding. You may have passed him skating around New Hanover County. He’s our Extraordinary Person of the Week.

“It inspires me when someone tells me I inspire them,” Onoyeyan said, “because you never know what you’re doing and how it can affect other people.”

Onoyeyan has served more than five years in the US Marines.

“I’m a a field radio operator with an artillery unit,” he said.

And at times you may see him on the streets of New Hanover County, because Onoyeyan leads a unique life.

“I incorporate my fitness into the skating,” Onoyeyan said of his intense workout at Wrightsville Beach. “And I’ll do push ups, mountain climbers, jumpin’ jacks, push ups on my board, crunch workouts.”

Those workouts at Wrightsville Beach that have created a following.

“He’s this little kid, and we’re doing like 20 push-ups at each end for hours at a time,” he said of the 13-year-old who sometimes joins him in workouts. “So he’s really getting into it, and I see his friends gravitating towards it.”

But Onoyeyan’s public display of inspiration needed its own help at one point in his life. He says an accident led to both his left hand and right elbow undergoing surgery within two weeks of each other. When that happened, his wheels stopped.

“During that year and a half,” he said of the recovery, “I pretty much fell off track. I wasn’t working out. I was eating bad, lost all my motivation. It was a really depressing time.”

Therapy was pain. Pain was therapy. And finally after using his weakness as motivation, he would become fast on those four wheels again. Onoyeyan found an extraordinary way to overcome his own hurdles and in turn, help others.

“For me,” Onoyeyan said, “it’s like that how you leave a lasting memory on the world, it’s that ripple effect, that something you’re doing when it affects someone else. It’s going to keep trickling down and affecting people in positive ways, and it’s all about just being positive and helping other people.”

Yep. That way of thinking is most definitely… EXTRAORDINARY!

Onoyeyan says he expects to wrap up his life in the military in February and then hopes to start college. If he’s as good in school as he is on that skateboard of his… he’ll cruise straight to the head of the class.

If you know an extraordinary person, email me at dseamans@wwaytv3.com. I’d love to tell their story!
-Daniel