PAJARO, Calif. — When Teddy Herrera finished an assembly at Pajaro Middle School on Tuesday, a school administrator had to really work to get students to back away from him, to allow a TV reporter to set up a camera tripod.

"The girls are getting Teddy’s autograph," one boy shouted to his friends as he ran to see the ongoing commotion.

Who the heck is Teddy Herrera, this 25-year-old from Elk Grove, Calif., who can get 400 middle-schoolers to listen and get inspired?

Herrera explained his story while showing slides from his bike ride across America last year with his new venture, Across American for Childhood Obesity (www.aa4co.com). He finished the 11,000-mile, nine-month bike ride in March, after stops at more than 100 schools, hiring his first two employees this spring.

His second cross-country ride began last week, with a stop at the Pajaro school by invitation of teacher Margie Jennings.

Herrera told his story early on, after some rousing techniques and infectious dynamism. He told the middle-schoolers he walked into the house one day, on Sept. 11, 2007, and saw his dad sitting on the couch.

He said that never happened with his 47-year-old father because he was always working, if not at a business he started at age 18, then outside in the yard.

He said his dad made a sound similar to a snore, leaned his head back, and died of a heart attack. A photograph of his dad was on the auditorium screen at that point; he looked fit and strong.

"He had an unhealthy heart because of the things he ate and because of his lack of regular exercise," Herrera told the kids.

More impetus came later, when he visited his grandmother’s house on a sunny day and found that his 12-year-old twin cousins wouldn’t go outside because they were spending hours playing video games, he said.

He said he thought there was nothing he could do and then decided that was untrue, and that he wanted to prove that one person can make a difference.

He said his dad had told him he could be whatever he wanted to be, and that he aimed for professional baseball and a mariachi band called "Los Jalapenos." Then he poked a bit of fun at himself for work that had him wearing spandex in front of people.

"You can’t be whatever you want," he said. "But you will be whatever you decide to be."

Drawing from his long ride, he said he nearly turned back while heading over the Sierra, lost his tent in a storm while camping behind a gas station with only $10 in his pocket, and contracted pneumonia during a Dallas ice storm. But he made it.

He advised the young students to set daily goals they can achieve, believe in themselves and do it. He had them hold out their hands and imagine a delete button in the center they could hit to discard discouraging comments, and said his mom had not encouraged him, but had questioned him whether he was sure he really wanted to embark on that ride.

But, he said, his cousins called when he was in Kansas and said they were riding bikes daily and mapping the miles as if they were with him. They made Boston after four months, he said, adding later that some students track progress that way too.

After the assembly, he said, smiling a wide smile, that it’s those he meets at schools that make it all worthwhile.

"People ask me what it’s like to inspire kids, but I’m inspired by people every day," he said. "Otherwise, why did I ride? The people at schools fuel me."

He smiled again and said that he "found out that a lot of people take that trip," riding across country, but that people seem to appreciate his sharing of his story with children.

That seemed the case with Pajaro eighth-graders Marcos Escobar and Elias Limon, who both said it was cool Herrera believed so strongly in himself, while Juan Flores vowed to set daily goals to improve his soccer game.

Jackie Lopez said she liked everything about it. Sitting beside Lopez outside, 13-year-old Lizzeth Cosio added quietly that "what he is doing is very nice for all the kids."