KEENESBURG, Colo.—Quinton Aaron says the only reason anyone knew him in high school was because of his size.
“I was the biggest kid in school,” said Aaron, who portrayed Baltimore Ravens offensive tackle Michael Oher in the movie, “The Blind Side.”
“I had the biggest feet. I had no girlfriends. And people picked on me all the time.”
Eric Martinez is trying to raise a 15-year-old to be the person he always wanted to be.
“I’ve never been prejudiced,” said Martinez, from “Love Lies Bleeding” and ABC’s “Scoundrels.”
“I was ignorant. If someone wasn’t like me, they weren’t with me. A friend of mine finally told me, ‘You had better find yourself or you’ll be by yourself.”
Aaron and Martinez were at Weld Central High School recently, taking their anti-bullying message to hundreds of seventh- through 12th-graders.
It’s a mission the men said is more important than just about anything in their lives.
“I have always said if I can use my career as a platform for this I would,” Martinez said. “I talked about bullying on my Facebook page a lot. I don’t like bullies. I was bullied. A couple of years ago, I was asked to speak at a high school in Phoenix about it.”
It took off from there. Martinez met Aaron, who was also bullied in school, and the two men started traveling together to convince junior high and high school students that bullying is not the way to go.
“I know so many people in this business who won’t use their platform,” Martinez said. “I am very blessed to be able to take my message out to students.”
The Hudson-Keenesburg Lions Club organized the Feb. 7 event. Sheryl Pulis, president of the club, said it was an important message to get across, especially to students at this age. “The bullying problem in the schools is so bad,” she said. “It’s one of the reasons we formed the Lion’s Club last year, to make a difference in our community.”
Aaron and Martinez spent the morning telling students what their lives were like growing up. They told jokes, sang, signed autographs, posed for photos and visited classrooms for two hours.
Martinez said he was bullied and then became the bully when he was working in the music business.
“I was a tyrant,” he said.
Aaron said he laughs today when he sees the requests he gets on his Facebook page.
“Everyone who was mean in high school is now on Facebook,” he said. “And they are still in Augusta (Georgia, where Aaron grew up). I’ll see them at my 10-year reunion. I became successful because that’s what I focused on.”
Dalton David, an eighth-grader at Weld Central Junior High, said anytime someone famous talks to students it’s “awesome.”
“Just to have them talk to us and have dialogue with us back and forth was awesome,” Dalton said. “Most of the time you talk to someone you look up to. If that someone is a bully, then you’ll be a bully, too. But if that someone is someone like these guys—we all look up to actors—then you’ll stop.”
Aaron and Martinez both said they love acting, but they love how it’s made people look up to them so they can deliver a positive message to their fans.
“I was never the kid to do to others what was done to me,” Aaron said. “I want to help others be that way. When you look at these kids you kind of see yourself in them and you feel obligated to let them know what they can do to be successful. My mother used to always tell me, ‘Angels are everywhere. They are not just spiritual. They are all the people that are around you helping you succeed.'”
