Richie Stefanacci fell in love with inlining at the young age of 6 and while many would have preferred to deny him the joy of inlining, opting instead more traditional sports – he would have none of that. From cement skate parks to indoor parks to Woodward and ultimately to the streets of Philly Richie expressed himself best through inlining, plus snowboarding and surfing.
At a young age he mastered the front flip – over rotated once at Camp Woodward resulting in a crack of his front tooth. Later he mastered the back flip and went on to 360 and grinding. Along the way he met some great inliners – not only great in talent but spirit. Inliners like Stu and Adam took in a kid and taught him all they knew about skating and life during his years at Woodward.
It was this knowledge and spirit that helped him through his 394 challenging days battling Ewing Sarcoma. Ultimately, Richie passed away at the very young age of 14 on June 12th 2007 surrounded by family and friends. But not before assuring that his cancer did not deny him the opportunity of snowboarding and inlining on a few more fantastic runs with family and friends.
Richie was all about denying other people’s unfair rules – denying the rule against inline skating in some places – denying the belief that people with cancer should stop living – Of course the reason people have these ridiculous rules is their false beliefs – they truly do not KNOW the truth – that is why we were so taken with the Denial Clothing philosophy especially their ‘know’ campaign – because once you know about inline skating and especially about Richie Stefanacci there can be no denial of the truth.
We know that through all of Richie’s family and friends especially the ones at Denial that we will some day realize a time when there is NO pediatric cancer. So kids like Richie can inline freely anywhere that their spirits take them and for this there can be no denial……. Mr. Stefanacci
knowrollerblading.com
stuartcampbell.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment