Justin Bachman stepped up to the start line at his cross-country meet when he was 13 years old. Moments later he would be pleading with referees to not disqualify him for noises and movements before the race had even started.

Bachman has Tourette syndrome, which causes noises and movements called tics. In addition, he also has Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Dysgraphia, a fine motor skills disorder that prevents him from writing legibly.

His disqualification from the race was his breaking point — if the race organizers had been informed, then he might not have been disqualified. Bachman, now a 17-year-old living in Cleveland, created Honor Good Deeds, an organization that aims to educate people about accepting differences and dispel intolerance derived from ignorance.

Now, he is preparing to attend Syracuse University in the fall as an incoming freshman in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. He hopes one day to relate with a national audience through a career in broadcast journalism.

“I want to be that character that connects with a person every night at 6 on their TV screen, or I want to be that person that a community trusts and goes to, and I want to be able to still work with people,” Bachman said, “and that’s what Newhouse and communications allows me to do.”

Bachman said he was bullied through grade school and tried to take his own life three times before the age of 11. Bachman is now a public speaker, presenting all over the country. His presentation, “Living Loud,” addresses his experiences with intolerance and learning to be confident in himself. He has given his talk to more than 63,000 students across 11 states.

“We are all different,” Bachman said. “My message applies to everyone whether those differences are big, small, physical, mental — it’s everyone, and so my goal is for everyone to do a bit of learning, for everyone to boost their confidence and for everyone feeling better about themselves.”

Honor Good Deeds has now grown into a fully-fledged nonprofit, a business model with Bachman still at the helm as chairman of the organization. When he arrives at SU, Bachman plans on scaling back his role in Honor Good Deeds. In the future, he would like to bring a Tolerance Fair Leadership Academy to Syracuse and would like other students to be involved in his efforts.

“When we visited Newhouse it just clearly was the place for him. Both my husband and I will miss him terribly but he’s doing the right thing,” his mother Lisa Bachman said. Before Bachman was accepted to Syracuse, she had already ordered a sweatshirt for him, which she hid and gave to him as soon as his acceptance letter arrived.

Dawn Kendrick, a board member for Honor Good Deeds and a local journalist for WKYC Channel 3 in Cleveland, said she is the self-proclaimed Justin Bachman fan club. Kendrick attended the Missouri School of Journalism and wanted “to claim him.”

“Syracuse is going to be the stepping stone to molding this awesome man that we already love as a team,” Kendrick said.

Bachman said he didn’t have any fears about starting this new chapter beyond the standard questions of an incoming freshman: Is it going to be easy to make new friends? Is the change in class style going to be difficult? Is it going to be a lot harder?

Bachman added that he was the only person in his high school that applied to SU and said the change in faces was the most exciting part of coming to college.

Said Bachman: “Being able to meet all new people is something I am beyond jazzed about.”

Published on April 22, 2015 at 11:06 pm

Contact Rachel: rcgilber@syr.edu