Ex-football star turned felon ‘beyond rehabilitation,' but is he beyond pity? | Opinion
There must be a way to do this, to make people understand. Sorry, having a conversation with myself here about Art Schlichter, who has spent the better part of his adult life hurting everyone around him. People have been punished by the court system, because of him. People have lost millions of dollars, lost their marriage, lost their farm, because of him.
His own father committed suicide, in part, because of him.
He’s a con-artist and a thief, Art Schlichter, who has left misery in his wake. Fair to say, this world would’ve been better had he never been born.
But there’s another part of this story, and it feels as tragic as almost everything else about the carnage he created. Is there a way to tell that part without making you sick, without making you angry? Maybe not, but it’s a story that needs to be told, once and for all, before Art Schlichter writes his inevitable final chapter.
And with Schlichter discovered not so long ago in a modest hotel five miles from the Ohio State campus where he became a football god, unresponsive from an apparent overdose of cocaine, resuscitated and taken to a local hospital, we better tell that story fast. He has Parkinson’s. He has dementia. He is dying, and while death comes to most of us when it’s good and ready, Schlichter nearly took a shortcut in June at a hotel in Hilliard, Ohio. He was resuscitated, then charged with felony cocaine possession.
He is not a victim, Art Schlichter. To be clear.
But for years, I’ve pitied the man. Because – what is it they say? – there, but for the grace of God, go I.
SCHLICHTER: Out of prison less than a year, charged with cocaine possession
Schlichter took people down with him
No, this isn’t a personal story. Not in that way. But it could have been personal for me, very easily. Could’ve been personal for you, too.
It could’ve been me, born on that farm in Fayette County, Ohio, wandering innocently into that barn, seeing that farmhand dangling from a noose, dead of suicide. It could’ve been you, a few years later, burned from thigh to shoulder in a household accident, screaming at your brother to let you die.
There, but for the grace of God … right?
We do not choose to be born who, when or where we are born. Total luck of the draw. Me, born into a wonderful family? Jackpot. Some of you, probably, feel the same. But not everyone. Children everyday are born hungry, born into a war-torn country, born into abject poverty in India or Indiana or, like my own father, Oklahoma.
Art Schlichter was born with gifts. Make no mistake about that. Mom, dad, life on a farm. He grew to be 6-3, 200 pounds of athletic marvel, an all-state basketball player in Washington Court House, Ohio, who once scored 47 of his team’s 49 points, and was even better at football. He went to Ohio State. All-Big Ten twice. Drafted fourth overall by the Baltimore Colts in 1982, two years before they moved to Indianapolis.
In so many ways, Schlichter hit the jackpot.
Cruel term for this story, jackpot. A gambling term.
Nobody knows when Schlichter placed his first bet, but by high school he was going to Scioto Downs just south of Columbus, to bet the ponies. He was chasing something. Self-medicating, you could call that.
You also could call it the beginnings of a degenerate gambler, and you’d be right. At Ohio State he was a regular at Scioto Downs, but by his junior season he was gambling on basketball. That was easier, just a phone call away. That spring he was thousands of dollars in debt, a revelation he made in his own 2009 book, “Busted: The Rise and Fall of Art Schlichter.” That’s where he told the story of the suicide he saw at age 6.
It's possible Schlichter is lying about the suicide. He’s spent his entire life lying, all to fuel his voracious appetite for gambling, and going to prison for it.
'SAD AND TRAGIC: Ex-Colts QB Art Schlichter's life behind bars
His gambling addiction cost him his NFL career, then his freedom. He has spent time in more than 50 prisons and jails, and even that hasn’t stopped him. He has gambled with inmates. He has brought down his public defender, convincing Linda M. Wagoner to smuggle a phone into the Marion County Jail for him so he could make more bets, leading to two years of probation for her.
Schlichter brought down the widow of a former Wendy’s CEO, taking Anita Barney’s money and then talking her into stealing nearly half a million dollars from her own friends. Barney pleaded guilty to two felony counts of theft but spent no time in prison. The courts, apparently, took pity on her.
Has anyone ever taken pity on Art Schlichter?
Is that even possible?
Art Schlichter, 'past the point of rehabilitation'
Art Schlichter has been beyond help. Lord knows his parents tried. Max and Mila Schlichter tried to cover his legal fees, eventually losing the family farm, then getting divorced. Max Schlichter later died by suicide.
It is not uncharitable to say: Art Schlichter helped cause that.
But it’s not inaccurate to say: He couldn’t help himself. Addiction is deadly and it is real, whether to alcohol or drugs or gambling, and if you’ve never experienced it or seen a loved one go through it, well…
There but for the grace of God, go you.
Schlichter was convicted in September 2011 of robbing victims of millions of dollars for phantom Super Bowl tickets, all to feed his addiction, then gambled behind bars after being sentenced to nearly 11 years in prison. This was after he was found to have violated the terms of his house release in January 2012, testing positive twice for cocaine.
To prison he went, gambling behind bars. Around August 2020, with his attorney prepared to file a motion for early release, Schlichter convinced an inmate to have a family member buy phantom Super Bowl tickets. That family member paid Schlichter, who also was having women outside prison place bets for him.
When all of that came to light, his attorney withdrew the motion for early release. The Franklin County, Ohio, prosecutor on that case, Ron O’Brien, put it like this in a 2021 interview with IndyStar reporter Dana Hunsinger Benbow:
“(He) is a career criminal engaged in fraud as a career. He just cannot help himself.
“He is past the point of rehabilitation.”
He is 62, diagnosed with dementia and Parkinson’s. He shakes. He gambles. He forgets. These are things he has shared with Benbow in emails from prison, before his 2021 release, before he was found unresponsive recently in a Hampton Inn in Hilliard, Ohio, before he was resuscitated, before he faces felony cocaine charges. More time in prison seems likely. So does more gambling. Don’t bet against Schlichter finding a way.
He is past the point of rehabilitation, the prosecutor says, and this could be true.
Is he past the point of pity? I’d hope not. Because there, but for the grace of God, goes any of us.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.