Jon Spencer: Don't bet against Art Schlichter
Former OSU quarterback rebuilding life he destroyed by gambling
MANSFIELD -- It was just like any football Saturday in Ohio Stadium from 1978 thru 1981, when Art Schlichter had the rapt attention of his audience.
He had just finished speaking to a group of high school athletes and their parents, his riveting 30-minute address equal parts gut-wrenching and inspirational, when he reached down from the podium and squeezed my shoulder.
?This guy right here,? he said to the banquet crowd, ?threatened me that if I didn?t do a good job tonight, he was going to call my parole officer.?
At least Schlichter still has his sense of humor.
This fallen hero, whose downturn in life would mock the title of his 1981 biography, ?Straight Arrow,? has lost just about everything else because of a well-chronicled addiction to gambling.
It ruined his marriage, separated him from his two daughters for most of their lives, tainted his legacy at Ohio State, turned the once-famous No. 10 into a more infamous number in the U.S. penal system, destroyed relationships in and outside of his family and cost him his career in the NFL.
Not to mention at least $1 million he is believed to have squandered while swindling, stealing and conning, all to feed his addiction.
?I think about gambling every day, but the one thing I can?t do to be free is gamble,? Schlichter said, addressing the participants in the 30th News Journal All-Star Classic, a basketball game that benefits physically-challenged children. ?I want to be free. I want to be with my children. I lost my family and nothing can replace that. To build that back is very hard.?