You only need to jump 2 feet.

It’s just 20 inches, actually. Spring up 20 inches, drive your hands against the air for momentum and when you hit that 20-inch mark, just yank your knees in toward your chest. The motion will thrust you backward, and you will be spinning through the air like a pinwheel in the breeze. Until you have flipped over and, hopefully, landed upright.

“But I wouldn’t take advice from me,” Sam Morrison said laughing, as he describes how to do a backflip. “I have friends who are gymnasts, and they’re like, ‘Yeah, dude, you’re not even good at it.”’

But Morrison, a senior information technology major in the School of Information Studies, is an authority on backflips. In 2011, prompted by a $100 bet with his father, he completed a backflip every single day of the year. Afterward, he compiled video footage of some of his 365 backflips into a montage that went viral on YouTube and garnered more than 500,000 views in one week.

“Backflipping has become synonymous with who he is and what he does,” said Alyssa Henry, a friend of Morrison and recent SU graduate with a master’s degree in information management.

Now, Morrison is taking his backflips across the globe on a solo backpacking-and-flipping trip that lasts from May 6 until he returns to Syracuse on Aug. 24.

Morrison has no plans or destinations, but a goal to complete a backflip on each continent. He is halfway there, having spontaneously journeyed to Israel, Turkey, Cyprus, Egypt and Greece.

Morrison said his trip is about more than just flipping in front of the pyramids of Giza.

“Backflips are a catalyst for me to do cool things,” Morrison said. “(The trip is) not about the backflips at all, really. It’s just about going out there, putting your mind to something and actually following through with it.”

Morrison’s true aim rests on motivation. He hopes to inspire others with the philosophy behind his backflips.

Morrison’s backflips, and subsequent documentation through YouTube videos, photos and blog posts about his trip have transcended beyond just a cool trick. His dedication to the venture is an example to others.

“It always comes back to this: what can he inspire someone to do relentlessly, wholly and fully?” said Isaac Budmen, a friend of Morrison and an iSchool graduate student.

This year, Morrison and Budmen worked on a team at New Explorations in Information Science, a center at the iSchool, and the two are now developing their own digital companies.

Morrison’s company is his means of inspiring others. He hopes to develop a social network that will further anyone’s ability to strive and achieve. Backflip.me, named after his hallmark goal, will enable users to announce a vision or goal that they have to their friends. Each day, they can update their profile with media, such as statements, photos or videos, to showcase their progress.

“The fact that you’ve publicly told somebody, even if it’s just one person, creates this social pressure that makes you want to follow through and actually accomplish your goal,” Morrison said.

Under mentorship and independent study with NEXIS founder and iSchool professor Anthony Rotolo, Morrison is in the early stages of developing backflip.me.

“We always turn to our friends and family for support, and people know that when they declare their goal publicly, they’re sort of held to a certain accountability for that,” Rotolo said. “Sam is translating that into a system for making it easier for people to share their goals and eventually accomplish their goals.”

Rotolo believes backflip.me has the potential to succeed because of both its unique model and its capacity to be an extension of everyday life. Morrison’s network would be the digital companion to real world goal-setting and an enabler of achievement.

Atop a philosophical basis, it also has practical merit.

“It’s a market that hasn’t been tapped yet,” said Chris Becker, a senior information management major and Morrison’s former NEXIS team member. “There’s a lot of potential to help people help themselves.”

Morrison’s “aspiration to inspire,” as his resume reads, is also hitched upon his backpacking trip to encounter new places and people. To help motivate others, he hopes to appreciate others — cross-culturally.

“For me, this trip is trying to understand myself and trying to understand humanity. It’s kind of a large task, but I’m getting there,” he said.

He has met a cast of characters on his journey, from distant Israeli cousins who took him in as family, to a Greek hostel owner with fluctuating Wi-Fi and a French-Spanish peer to split hummus with.

“The amazing thing is that in every photo that we see of Sam, he’s with someone else. It isn’t someone he knows from Syracuse or from his hometown,” Budmen said. “Sam has this incredible ability to bring people into his life, make them feel like they are a part of what he’s doing and inspire them to be a part of his vision.”

Perhaps the backflips do not have much to do with Morrison himself — they are an exercise in the understanding of motivation. And Morrison’s understanding of motives and potential is consistently growing.

Said Morrison: “If you can jump a little bit, you can do a backflip. It’s all in your head.”

ggriccar@syr.edu

 

Published on June 5, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Gabriela: ggriccar@syr.edu