COSTA MESA : Ex-Biker Has New Wheels in His Life

Mikel Bistany admits that his life hasn’t just turned around; it has spun around.

A former motorcycle gang member who “took my frustrations out with my fists,” Bistany, 38, is now interim head of Orange Coast College’s department of physical education for handicapped students. He also coaches the college’s wheelchair basketball team.

“I have the best job in the world,” Bistany said. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for these people. I get love in my job. Not many people can say that.”

A few years ago, however, Bistany lead a different life.

“I was 300 pounds with long hair, a beard, leather jacket and aviation goggles,” he said. Fighting “was a way of life. My father was physically abusive, and it left me with a lot of anger.”

At the time, Bistany owned a motorcycle parts business. One day he realized that a teen-ager in his shop was emulating his destructive behavior.

“I didn’t want to be that kind of a role model. So I decided to straighten myself out.”

He went from biker to bodybuilder. He devised a rigorous physical fitness routine that helped him lose more than 100 pounds in just over a year. “I also stopped experimenting with every drug imaginable,” he said.

In 1985, he enrolled in a fitness training program at Orange Coast College.

“But I really wanted to find a way to help other people,” he said.

He volunteered to help in physical education classes for the handicapped and was eventually hired as a teaching assistant. He learned physical therapy and devised therapeutic exercises for students disabled by accidents, birth defects or illnesses such as multiple sclerosis.

Bistany continued working at OCC while completing his bachelor’s degree at National University in Westminster. Now he is working on a master’s degree at Cal State Long Beach.

Although his new responsibilities make his schedule hectic, Bistany decided to help coach the college wheelchair basketball team this year.

“He has a gift. He is very loving and patient,” said Lynn Fischl, who hired Bistany. “But he also threw himself into learning the chemistry, anatomy and physiology that go along” with coaching handicapped people.

As a college administrator, Bistany “hates red tape, and sometimes he just goes out and spends his own time and money on things for the students,” she said. But he has accomplished a lot within the system because his enthusiasm wins people over. “That’s pretty good for someone who spent most of his life in rebellion against authority.”

Bistany himself has mild dyslexia, a learning disability that interferes with perception. “But his determination helps him overcome it. He is amazingly quick to learn new concepts,” she said.

The mechanical skills Bistany once used to work on motorcycles are now used to adapt equipment in the campus weight room so it can be used by the handicapped.

“He makes us work,” said Robyn Grimmer, one of Bistany’s students who credits his encouragement with improving her self-esteem. “He taught me to start something, even if I wasn’t good at it, and then keep working to improve,” she said.