I liked Bruce McNall. He was one of the few guys I met on the West Coast that I could truly relate to, and in the months prior to his incarceration in 1997, Bruce and I became good friends. Cammy and I enjoyed many great evenings with Bruce, and we remain close to him to this day. On the morning Bruce surrendered himself to the federal prison in Lompoc, California, Cammy and I drove him and his longtime girlfriend, Mara, to the institution. An interesting thing happened that is worth telling.
Bruce had asked me what he could bring with him, and I had told him that very little would be allowed at first. Only the essentials. "Later, you can accumulate things little by little," I told him. But when I picked him up that morning, he had with him a huge hockey equipment bag filled with all sorts of things. He had packed not only many types of clothing but also books, notebooks, and other things he had imagined would be useful to him in prison. One look at the bag and I told him that I seriously doubted he would get it in. "But, we'll try," I encouraged, seeing that the thought of going in with so little bothered him a lot.
As we neared Lompoc, the imposing towers of the fortresslike structure raised their forbidding heads, and Bruce's mood dropped even further. Although an all too familiar sight to Cammy and me, Bruce and Mara were clearly affected by the image in front of them.
Lompoc is made up of three facilities. The camp where Bruce was assigned was a satellite facility of the penitentiary, which meant that he would first surrender to the pen, then be transferred to the minimum security facility. We entered the small reception room and were greeted by a gruff, no-nonsense lieutenant. His very first command to his new detainee was to get rid of the bag and everything in it. Bruce was visibly shaken. We were then ordered to say our good-byes, and Bruce was escorted inside the maximum-security facility.
As we were walking toward our car, hockey bag in tow, I spotted an inmate trustee working on the grounds around the penitentiary. I explained to him that I needed to get the bag inside for Bruce McNall, who would probably be transferred to the camp that evening.
"There's no contraband in the bag," I assured him, "just personal stuff. How do we get it inside?"
Quick to oblige, he pointed to a wheelbarrow alongside the road.
"Drop the bag in the wheelbarrow and I'll take it from there," he instructed.
"Got it!" I replied. "Make sure he gets everything in the bag. He'll be calling us tonight."
I knew how important it was for Bruce to get his belongings. Little conveniences mean an awful lot to an inmate. It is hard to believe just how much a man can appreciate wearing his own underwear.
My instruction clear, I told Cammy I needed her to drive as we approached the car. Seeing the prison hadn't made her nervous, but my plan did. She wasn't about to start visiting me in prison again. She felt very bad for Bruce and Mara, but not bad enough to have me keeping him company for the next five years. She protested, and so did Mara, but I insisted that it would be okay.
Cammy got behind the wheel, and I told her to drive slowly as we approached the wheelbarrow. But she was so nervous that she couldn't take her foot off of the gas pedal. I had to open the door and jump out because she was actually picking up speed. Practically tripping over myself, I ran to the wheelbarrow, dropped the bag, and sprinted back to the moving vehicle.
The moment I jumped back into the car, a siren started blaring, lights began flashing, and a voice yelled out from a tailing prison vehicle, "Stop the car!"
Mara was so visibly shaken that she was gasping for air. Cammy gave me a look that said, How are you going to get out of this one? I jumped out of the car and approached the correctional officer.
God was really with me that day because I knew the officer from my days in the correctional facility. I explained to him as quickly as I could what had happened, that Bruce had brought too much and that I had just wanted to get his personal belongings to him.
"There's no contraband in there," I assured him. "You have my word on it."
The officer was a prince. He gave me a nod then told me to get back in the car and get off the grounds "ASAP." I didn't wait around. I jumped back in the car.
I also didn't have to tell Cammy what to do. She drove out of there in a flash. Soon, the color began to come back into Mara's face, and, within a few minutes, the three of us were laughing about the adventure. The women clearly thought I was crazy, but at least I was free.
Bruce called later that evening, and, to no one's surprise, he was sleeping in his own underwear.
41
My friendship with Howard and Bruce brought Cammy and I together with many NHL players, their wives, lady friends, and agents. One player stands out in my mind as being a great guy, as well as a tremendous player-Luc Robitaille. Cammy and I have enjoyed some nice times with Luc and his lovely wife Stacia. We had the pleasure of vacationing with them and a number of other players and their wives one February in Maui. It was Luc who graciously introduced me to the wonderful world of golf one gorgeous Maui afternoon. You can count me among the ranks of those weekend golfers who have developed a love/hate relationship with that little dimpled demon they call a golf ball. Pat Brisson is Luc's agent and one of the premier agents for NHL players in the business. He's also a premier guy and I consider him a dear friend.
As I was developing these friendships, my accidental career as a speaker was beginning to develop and bear fruit. I was contacted by Major League Baseball and the NBA and asked to come and speak to their players and league personnel about gambling and organized crime. The leagues were becoming very proactive in attempting to educate the players about the dangers gambling and organized crime could present to their careers and to their very lives.
Imagine, a former organized crime member actually standing in the middle of a group of professional ball players and telling them to beware of gambling, bookmakers, and men in pin-striped suits.
"Okay, Barry Bonds, make sure you stay away from guys like me. They'll bring you down."
"And you, too, Shaq. Watch out for that bookmaker. He can put a real blemish on that otherwise untarnished image."
There is truly a dark side to an athlete's involvement with gamblers and organized crime figures, and I knew it firsthand. There was the Norby Walters/Lloyd Bloom fiasco, and much, much more that I could tell these players about. Even though I had never done anything like this before, I agreed to go and speak.
Inviting me was a bold move on the part of the heads of security for both leagues and the NCAA, which also participated in the program. They were agreeing to bring a genuine, notorious mob capo into the midst of their leagues' most prized assets. It was a risk, a huge gamble with a potentially devastating downside. What if I wasn't on the level about this transformation thing from mob guy to good guy? Just let me get the ear of one athlete. Oh, what I could have done.
But I believe it was apparent to them that I now served a different boss. Jesus was my new Master, and He had put it in my heart to glorify Him by ministering to professional athletes. I am grateful that I was given the opportunity to do so.
I continue this ministry today, some seven years after it began. I thank Kevin Hallinan from MLB, Horace Baumer from the NBA, and Bill Saum from the NCAA for giving me the opportunity to serve in this way. And I thank God for allowing me to glorify Him in my ministry to the players.
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Never in a million years would I have expected to be invited to speak to professional athletes-or to anyone else for that matter-about gambling or any other subject. When I was still entrenched in mob life, participating in the activities of organized crime, how could I ever have believed that one day I would be addressing professional athletes and informing them of how to avoid getting tripped up by a guy like me? That was never part of the program. It was not on the agenda that Halloween night, 1975, when I was sworn in. Not only am I talking to athletes directly, but also I'm writing a book about it (among other things). Amazing!
Believe me, this was not my plan, and I did not see it coming. My
plan when I Joined the Mafia was to be the multimillionaire mob capo who beat the system and ruled his own little empire. Why? Because I could! But what an absolute fool I was to believe that I was in control of my life here on earth. I wasn't. And I'm still not.
Are any of us in control of our destinies? Did Christopher Reeve plan to be thrown from a horse and become paralyzed? Did Sharon Osbourne plan to contract a potentially deadly disease? Did Ronald Reagan plan to be afflicted with Alzheimer's disease? Did America's troubled CEOs plan on trading in their Armani suits for prison khakis? Did the people in the World Trade Center plan to get blown up by a plane-turned-bomb on 9/11?
Our plans can be changed at any moment. In an instant! And yet we don't seem to get it unless it happens to us or to someone we know or care about. The Bible tells us that it is God who is in control of our destinies here on earth. The evidence in support of that truth is so visible that we can discount it only if we choose to reject the truth. While I was doing my own thing, God was slowly and methodically setting the course my life would take.
It all makes sense to me now. Growing up idolizing my dad. Leaving college to become a member of the Colombo family. Taking the oath. Experiencing the violence and treachery. All the trials. Searching for evidence. The conflict with Dad in the driveway. Walking into a possible death trap. Falling in love with Cammy. My meeting with Pastor Myron Taylor. Taking a plea. Going to prison. Being baptized. Discovering the Bible and then the evidence-the unmistakable, irrefutable evidence.
Why hadn't God forsaken me? Why did He turn it all around? Why did He save my life and my soul? It was His plan for my life. Not my own. I was in control of nothing.
I can see it all now, very clearly. Thank You, Lord!
He did, however, allow me to make a decision that forever affected the one plan I did have control of-the plan for my eternity!
43
Now that God is at the center of my life and has so mercifully redirected my misguided plans, you might be curious to know what I am doing with myself. During my second stint in prison, I had the opportunity to meet with many young gang members who had come into the federal system under harsh new drug laws. I'm talking nineteen- and twenty-year old kids who were slapped with ten-, fifteen-, and twenty-year sentences. I really felt sorry for these young men, and I understood their plight.
Most of these young men had grown up under severe conditions and had decided that their best option for survival and success was on the streets. I'm not justifying their actions, and I'm not saying that they shouldn't be held accountable for their crimes. All I'm saying is that I can understand where they're coming from. Been there, done that!
Because of my high prison profile and mob affiliation, these young men would seek me out just to talk. I enjoyed ministering to them and tried to make them realize that they needed to redirect their lives. They paid attention. We would talk about their gang affiliations and how difficult it was to sever their ties with the gang. I told them I understood, but that I had severed my ties with the biggest gang in the world. I told them that with God at the center of their lives, anything was possible. I truly believe that if these men had been given a better option than joining a gang when they were facing life's difficulties, many of them would have taken the higher road and tried to do something constructive with their lives.
I was encouraged by the way these untamed junior gangsters reacted to me. I had credibility with them. I spoke their language, the language of the streets. It didn't matter that I was Italian and many of them were young black or Latino men. We were all the same.
This experience led me to want to do something for young men before they got caught up in gang life. This desire was intensified one evening when I visited a juvenile boot camp in Manatee County, Florida, to speak with about fifty young inmates. It was the spring of 1996, and I was visiting the training camps of Major League Baseball teams, delivering my anti-gambling message to the players, managers, and other team personnel. Kevin Hallinan from MLB asked me to visit the boot camp at the request of the sheriff's department that runs the facility.
When we arrived at the facility, one of the deputies told me that I had twenty minutes to give the juvenile delinquents an anti-crime pep talk. Great! Like I could really turn their lives around in twenty minutes. Almost three full hours later, I'd had the experience of a lifetime, and so had many of the young men. It was a blessed opportunity for all of us.
At the end of the session, many of the young men had tears in their eyes when they were told to return to their dorms. And so did I. I could never have imagined the effect I could have on these young men. It made me realize even more that it is God who deserves all the glory, for I would surely have never reached out to these young men while I was selfishly pursuing my mob interests. It was God who set me up to help these young men and others like them. It was God who changed my heart. I just thank Him for blessing me with the opportunity to serve Him.
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My desire to help these young men and women and others like them motivated me to create a program called Breaking Out. Its mission is to reach out to at-risk youth through the sports and entertainment industries. We are developing a program and curriculum that can be introduced in schools, youth centers, and churches throughout the country. The program will inform young people of the hundreds of career opportunities available to them in both of these industries. The idea is to get their attention and direct-or, in many cases, redirect-their focus from the negative influences in life to the goal of establishing a career that they believe is possible for them to achieve.
I have no desire to reinvent the wheel. There are many great programs directed at helping young people, and they are run by dedicated and caring people. I am just hopeful that my approach will be effective and that, along with the information and training we provide, we can create a foundation in the lives of young people that is centered around God.
Aside from developing the Breaking Out program, I continue to be invited to speak and give my testimony to church congregations and men's groups throughout the country. I am very grateful to God for blessing me with this ministry. It is amazing to me just how fascinated people seem to be with mob life. I am always quick to point out how the apostle Paul was the self-proclaimed worst of the worst and that I am at least his equal in that regard. We both had our Damascus Road experiences (Paul's was far more impressive in my opinion), and our testimonies are about repentance, forgiveness, and the blessing of being in the service of the almighty God. While I could never come close to being the amazing servant of God that Paul was, I am thankful that the Lord has provided me with a platform that gets the attention of my audiences.
I love this part of my ministry, especially speaking to the men's groups. At times, I must admit, I do miss the camaraderie among the men in my crew back in the mob days. Part of what attracted me to the life was what appeared to be the bond between men: "You watch my back. I watch yours." The loyalty, the closeness, drew me to the mob. Of course, it didn't prove to be what it was cracked up to be, but the concept was and is very attractive. Now, I talk to a new "crew" of men in church groups. It's like we're all soldiers in the "family" of God. There are books, speaking engagements, and television appearances-and all for the glory of God.
In Mark 16:15, Jesus gave every believer an assignment. The great commission, as it is more commonly known, is for all of us: "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation." I'm just thankful to God that He is merciful enough to allow me to do my little part. I'm thankful that, in spite of my many faults, my continuous mistakes, and my dreadful past, God has wiped the slate clean and forgiven my sinspast, present, and future. I'm grateful to have come to know and love Jesus Christ, my Redeemer and most trusted and faithful ally.
This former mob capo is honored to proclaim that I am a soldier in the army of Jesus Christ and that He is Lord.
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In 1996, Cammy suffered a miscarriage. It would have been our fourth child. This wa
s a very traumatic experience for both of us. We went to her doctor one day for what was expected to be a normal checkup, but the doctor couldn't find a heartbeat. The fetus, he discovered, was dead. The doctor's conclusion, after examining blood samples, was that the child might have suffered from Down's syndrome.
Cammy felt responsible for the death of her unborn child in an odd sort of way, and I, too, was shaken by it because I had never experienced a real crisis with any of my children. I began to feel that perhaps the miscarriage was God's way of dealing with what might have been a serious disability for the child.
But Cammy didn't get over this loss nearly as easily as I did, and her response to the whole situation only caused me to love her even more. How wonderful to see a godly woman treasure her unborn child in this fashion!
I did all I could to comfort her over the next few weeks and months and to try and make her understand that the miscarriage was not her fault. A miscarriage, I explained, was sometimes a natural part of the childbearing process. I also assured Cammy that we would try again to honor God and our marriage by having another child. But, although I was committed to trying again, she was frightened at the prospect. What if something went wrong again? We prayed about this together, and Cammy was able to give the situation into God's hands.
Cammy did become pregnant again, but she was on edge throughout the entire pregnancy, worrying about the outcome constantly. I wasn't unduly concerned. We had given the matter to God, and I was ready to deal with whatever resulted. God had already blessed me with six beautiful, healthy children, and I loved Him for that. I knew His will for this seventh child was good.
As Cammy entered her eighth month of pregnancy, I decided to cancel our annual family trip to Hawaii. I didn't feel that it was wise to travel so late in her pregnancy, even though her doctor had said that it was all right. Instead, we drove a hundred miles to Carlsbad, California, and stayed at the Four Seasons Hotel there for five days. We would have been in Maui for two weeks, but, as it turned out, Cammy went into labor the day after we returned from Carlsbad.
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