by Scott Bolzan
But that didn’t ease the pain of also learning that I’d been accused of breaking the law. I wasn’t looking forward to hearing about it, but I did want to know the basic facts, so I asked her to explain. “Can you tell me about this felony charge?”
Leaning toward me from the ottoman in front of my chair, Joan took my hands in hers. Her eyes were drooping with compassion, and her lips were tight with the pain of having to deliver news she knew would be difficult for me to hear. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” she asked, giving me one last chance to change my mind. “Because I don’t want to upset you.”
I’d been driving myself crazy with the possibilities for the past hour, and I just wanted her to blurt it out and get it over with. “If I’m going to move forward in this new me, I’m going to have to know about the bad things that were part of my life as well,” I said, bracing myself for the impact.
Reluctantly, Joan told me about the series of events leading up to the conviction eight years earlier that had haunted me ever since. I leaned back in my chair as she talked, feeling as if I were taking a new punch with every sentence: After having a falling out with a business partner and friend for whom I’d been managing jets, I withheld his aircraft’s logbooks, hoping to force him to pay me what I felt he owed me, and his response was to file the lawsuit that Joan had tried to tell me about several months ago. He and I negotiated back and forth, and when he finally agreed to pay me a partial sum, I held out for past commissions and management fees as well. According to the paperwork I later found in my desk, I met with him and he gave me a check in exchange for the logbooks. But instead of walking away happy, I was arrested for theft, among other charges, by an undercover officer he’d brought along.
It was extraordinarily difficult for me to hear all of this, so much so that I glazed over as Joan was talking. I felt truly sick to my stomach. All I wanted to do was withdraw into myself to deal with the emotional heaviness I felt as I tried to process this development. It didn’t help that Joan started crying as she watched me struggle with the news.
How embarrassing this must have been for Joan! I wonder what she thought of me when this happened. How could I have done something that must have disappointed her so much?
I knew what a felony arrest was from watching Cops, The First 48, The Sopranos, and CSI Miami, but I didn’t understand much else of what Joan said, only that it sounded really bad.
“Why would I do that?” I asked.
Joan said I’d consulted with an attorney about the problems I’d been having with this partner, and although I’d told Joan some of what was going on, I’d largely acted on my own. Obviously, things hadn’t worked out as I’d anticipated. Because we didn’t have the money for a protracted court battle, I took a plea bargain in the criminal case and agreed to settle the civil case. At the time, Joan said, she and I felt our best option was to avoid going to costly trials in both cases.
All the criminal charges were dismissed but the theft, and even that was downgraded from a Class 2 to a Class 6 felony, which, she explained, was far less serious. Bottom line, she said, was that I served no jail time and got two years’ probation, from which I was released a year early after doing one hundred and fifty hours of community service. The whole episode caused significant financial and emotional damage to my family, enough to cost us our house and force us into bankruptcy, but at least we were able to move on with our lives.
“I’m sorry that I put us in that position,” I said. “It must have been difficult for you as well.”
“It was horrible,” Joan said, still crying. “What was most difficult was that you took things into your own hands—and I understand why; you were trying to protect me from the legal issues. If you’d told me your plan, I would have said no, no. But you made an error in judgment, and you’ve regretted it ever since.”
“How did everyone else react?” I asked.
“No one else knows except you and me, and I think Mark may know, but I’m not sure,” she said, explaining that we’d both wanted to keep this private because we saw nothing to gain from sharing it.
After we talked I found some court documents in my file cabinet and Googled some of the terms she’d used to try to better understand how this must have affected our lives together. Although I didn’t have the emotional strength to read the paperwork carefully, I did notice that it said I had expressed remorse at the time.
Well, the remorse I’d felt then must have paled in comparison to the regret, embarrassment, and anger that I was feeling now.
What kind of man had I been to bring such devastation on my family? I must have caused pain to these other people involved as well.
I felt the utter stupidity of what I had done, but I also knew that I was going to have to be accountable and hold myself responsible for these events, even if I had no memory of them.
Later, as I was writing this chapter, I realized I was going to have to tell my family about this episode so they wouldn’t learn about it for the first time in the book. And with that realization came the dread of having to reveal the shame and humiliation of the secret Joan and I had kept hidden for so long. How would I tell Taylor, who looked up to me so? How would I tell Grant, for whom I was trying to serve as a role model, and whom I was encouraging to clean up his own act? How would I tell my mother and father, who still saw me as their little boy and who were so proud of all of my accomplishments? And Joan’s parents? I had no idea how they would react.
I resolved that the best tactic was simple honesty, to admit that I couldn’t explain my past behavior—I couldn’t even see how the old Scott could have gone there in the first place. If the same situation came up today, I knew history wouldn’t repeat itself because I no longer acted alone on anything; I always consulted with Joan first.
I only hoped that my kids would appreciate the lesson that I’d taken away from all of this, that even adults make mistakes, and if we support each other as a family while we face such errors in judgment, we can overcome them and make our family even stronger. I was learning from my past poor decisions even now, using them as a guide on what not to do in the future.
As for my parents, I certainly didn’t want to bring them any pain, but I hoped they would simply say, “So what. We know who you are, and this doesn’t change that. We love you anyway.”
By September, news of my accident had spread by word of mouth to my former coach and other alumni via my former teammate Phil, with whom I had spoken a couple times now since the accident. Joan still answered the phone, though, because I continued to be scared to talk to people I’d known in my previous life. When Coach Bill Mallory called, I wouldn’t come to the phone, so he gave Joan a pep talk, offering us both words of support.
Joan had told me that I’d always been intimidated by my coach and held him in high regard, and perhaps I’d retained this emotion somewhere in my brain. The idea of having a conversation with him unnerved me, so I needed to know more about him before I felt I could even try. The articles I read described him as a strict and demanding disciplinarian, so when he called again some weeks later, I was surprised to find that he didn’t fit this profile.
The compassionate retiree on the other end of the line gave me some heartfelt encouragement that was both touching and motivational. “I’m thinking a lot about you,” he said. “You’ve always had a place in my heart, and I’ve always had great respect for you. You were always a hard worker and determined to succeed, and that determination is going to allow you to overcome this injury.”
Some of the emails from my teammates, however, proved more difficult to process. I felt sad to read such kind words because I couldn’t remember any of these men who had such strong memories of me and our time together on the field. Even though I appreciated the memories they shared, some brought me to tears.
Terry Clemans wrote that he’d been three years behind me in college and that I’d taken him under my wing. We were roommates for an away game in Lawrence, Kansas, during a brutally hot
and humid Labor Day weekend in 1983. I was pissed, he said, when I saw trucks bringing in giant fans and blocks of ice to cool off the opposing team while we baked in the sun. But on top of that, it had rained like hell the night before so the Astroturf was holding water like a wet carpet. As we rolled around on it, we got more drenched with every play.
“I think that actually worked against them as it motivated you (and others) more than ever to kick their chilly Big 12 asses!” he wrote, referring to the Big 12 Conference, a league of college teams in the central United States.
Vince Scott, who said we’d played together all four years, wrote, “I can tell you, Scott, you were not always a man of many words . . . you were a man of actions. You showed your leadership by working hard in the weight room, off-season conditioning, and on the field. When you did speak, I guarantee you had everyone’s undivided attention!”
But the email from Scott Kellar, who went on to play for the Indianapolis Colts, was the hardest for me because I felt no connection to the old Scott he described. Reassuring me that of anyone, I would be able to overcome this injury, he said we met when I was a junior, with the promise to become “a devastating offensive lineman.”
You never knew it, but every time I had to go one-on-one with you, I was so nervous I would feel sick. You had one gear, and that was 100% all of the time. You played with what Coach Mallory always referred to as “a prick in your vein.” You came off the ball with a nastiness about you. . . . You were the best offensive tackle I ever played against in college. I credit you for helping me get to the NFL. It was an honor to play with you and, yes, get my butt kicked from time to time.
What was so very impressive was the presence you exuded whenever you walked into a meeting room, locker room, and the field. You were the consummate leader, and I, as well as many of us, had and still have the highest respect for you. However, more important was the fact that you were and are a great person. You never looked down on anyone. . . . Even when I was a rookie, you rolled me off the line of scrimmage then proceeded to slap my back and told me to keep working hard. You were always just a great guy to be around. You were a great role model and someone I looked up to.
Scott, I hope for nothing but the best for you. I know you are going to come out of this better than you ever imagined. Keep striving every day.
Reading this, I wanted to feel like the old Scott again and have the same kind of positive impact I’d had in college. Given my recent discoveries about my other past behavior, I wondered how the old Scott could have had such polar opposite impacts on the people in his life.
Despite the bittersweet nature of these emails, I always thanked the sender and asked for more stories because they made me proud of who I’d been, what I’d stood for, and how I’d dealt with adversity and success. I now had the chance to pick and choose what characteristics I wanted to keep or discard as I transformed into the man I wanted to become.
These messages inspired me to remember that the leadership I showed at NIU was based on simple morals and values. Thinking perhaps that my legal problems had come about because money issues had blurred my integrity, I vowed that when making decisions in the future, I would adhere to the pure, grounded, and untainted values of my NIU days.
Over the next several weeks and months, the story of my accident and recovery caught on with a wider audience as Joan and I were interviewed by other newspapers, radio shows, and local television news stations. Soon a producer from ABC’s 20/20 called to tell us they were interested, then called back a few weeks later to say Nightline was going to interview us instead because its producers could air my story much sooner.
In the meantime, I followed up on my doctors’ recommendations to see a therapist, and I met with Dr. Philip Barry, a neuropsychologist, to help me improve my coping skills. I didn’t see this as a long-term project, but he told me progress wasn’t going to happen overnight. This, of course, was not what I wanted to hear. I felt like I wanted—and needed—to get better now, as in right now.
Dr. Barry made me realize that life is full of challenges, and just because my previous life had been deleted didn’t mean I wouldn’t face some of the same obstacles as before. He also gave me some helpful advice: it was okay to be scared and frustrated, and if people didn’t understand what I was going through, to hell with them. Let the new memories come, grab them, and make the most of them. So that’s what I set out to do.
After just two sessions with him, I felt like I had things under control so I stopped going. Looking back later, I realized that this, sadly, was nothing more than wishful thinking on my part. Other than Joan, I still had no one to vent to, so I kept the things I couldn’t share with her locked up inside, and they began to fester. I had thought I was strong enough to figure out how to deal with my daily challenges all by myself, but I was mistaken. Frankly, I’m not sure anyone is.
Chapter 21
GRANT GOT KICKED OUT OF the Donna’s House program for using drugs six weeks after arriving there in late June, and we later learned that he’d been using all along. There went another $1,600 down the tubes. Out of options in southern California, we brought him back to Arizona and into the house, where we thought we could keep an eye on him. But, as I’d been learning, addicts can be sneaky and cunning.
At times I found myself looking at him, searching for some kind of connection between us so I could try to understand why he was making the choices he did, who he was, and how he felt inside. Maybe if I understood him better, I could find a way to help him more than I had been able to up to this point.
I could see from family photos that Grant had resembled me more when he was younger, but only until he hit sixteen. Today he didn’t look much like Joan either, except for his deep blue eyes.
I didn’t understand why Grant dressed the way he did or had mutilated himself by stretching giant holes in his earlobes with rings called gauges. This seemed so disrespectful to his mother and me, who had brought him into this world in one perfect piece. So, after Grant’s relapses that summer, I told him so. “I don’t want you wearing your pants so low that I can see your underwear,” I said. “I don’t want to see your piercings or your gauges in, either.”
Grant didn’t fight me on the pants, but he refused to remove the gauges. “I can’t take them out because they’ll close,” he said.
Our strongest commonality was our athleticism, but even that was in the past. Joan told me that back in his motocross days, Grant seemed to have little concern for his body’s safety, probably the same indifference I’d had to play football and get smacked around for as many years as I did.
Could I have taught that to him in some way? And does that have something to do with the self-destructiveness he is now wreaking on his body with drugs?
Grant had risen to the top in hockey and motocross because of his natural talent but had lost that edge once his teammates started to work harder to make up the difference. Joan said the difference between us was that, when faced with a challenge or hard work, Grant lost interest whereas the old Scott had dug his heels in even harder.
I also struggled to understand why he felt the need to cover himself with tattoos. I didn’t have anything against them per se. I’d actually discovered in the hospital that I had one myself. Not knowing what it was, I tried to rub it off—hard, but it didn’t budge, and I didn’t mention it to anyone for fear of looking stupid.
Once I started watching TV at home, I started seeing other people with these colored markings and also learned that the five-by-five-inch design near my right shoulder was an American flag, an eagle, and the letters USA.
“What do you think of my tattoo?” I asked Joan.
“I don’t like tattoos, but it’s something you wanted, and it’s your body,” she said. “But it’s not a shameful tattoo. It’s a nice tattoo, and it’s covered.”
I figured I must have had a good reason for getting it in the first place. I’d already asked Joan how I’d gotten all the scars on my body, and she said most of
them were from surgery to fix injuries. But getting a tattoo was a choice.
“Why did I get this?” I asked.
Joan explained that I’d gotten it in 2002—after September 11, 2001, which she and everyone else called 9/11—because I’d always been patriotic and had a tremendous respect for people who served in the military. The eagle and the flag represent courage, dignity, freedom, and my pride in my country.
The tattoo was something Grant and I had in common; I just felt he took his interest to an extreme. So what, I wondered, did Grant’s tattoos mean to him? I’d seen the two on the inside of his wrists—Truly on the right and Blessed on the left—after I got out of the hospital. But the first time I saw the one over his heart with Taryn’s name in black cursive letters was that summer, when he took off his shirt to go swimming. It put me off, and I hoped he had a good reason for getting it.
“Why do you have Taryn’s name on your chest?” I asked.
“To keep her close to my heart,” he said.
“Are you still happy that you got that tattoo, or do you wish that you’d never gotten it?”
“Are you happy that I got this tattoo?”
“No, honestly, I would prefer if it wasn’t over your heart. She has a very special place in my heart and your mother’s heart, and I don’t think that she’s in your heart.”
I wasn’t trying to be mean, but he hadn’t even been born when she died, and he just didn’t seem like the spiritual type. I also didn’t think that he felt or understood the true meaning behind his words. When Taylor ultimately turned eighteen, she too got a Taryn tattoo, but it was a delicate one with angel’s wings, hidden at the base of her neck. That didn’t bother me at all because she was more of a spiritual person.
“Why do you like tattoos?” I asked.
He said he saw himself as a free spirit, a rebellious nonconformist, and wanted to be a body piercing artist, but all I could think was that he couldn’t be more different from me, who, from what I’d heard, had always wanted to be normal and even now just wanted to fit in. I couldn’t see how Joan and I had raised a son who was so outside the norm, especially when we’d also raised a daughter who was so much more like us.