HELENA, Mont. -- On Sept. 12, 2003, former Montana State
assistant football coach Joe O'Brien remembered thinking, "Why
don't you just shoot me now?"
Once a Big Sky Conference defensive MVP and All-American with
Boise State as well as one of the top coaching prospects in the
nation, O'Brien stared down the barrel of a gun as he was arrested
for possession of methamphetamine with the intent to distribute and
money laundering.
O'Brien pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute
methamphetamine, distribution of meth near a school and 24 counts
of money laundering. He was sentenced to four years in prison,
eight years of supervised release and 500 hours of community
service.
Monday, in front of more than 400 student-athletes and coaches
from Carroll College and local schools, O'Brien told the story of
his journey from childhood through prison during his first public
speaking since being released from a halfway house a month ago.
Invited by Carroll athletics director Bruce Parker and the
athletics department, O'Brien conveyed a simple message: take the
weight of your problems off your shoulders before they sink you
down.
"In prison they have a saying: 'You don't change because you
see the light, you change because you feel the heat," O'Brien
told the students. "I'm here to talk to you so you don't have to
feel that heat."
Growing up in the San Francisco Bay area, O'Brien was constantly
surrounded by drug abuse. During his senior year of high school,
his father, a member of the local Hell's Angels, died of a heroin
overdose.
The next day he played in a football game in front of half his
father's cheering comrades, making 25 tackles and easily being
considered the most valuable player of the game.
"I was the MVP in every sport I ever played," he said.
But beneath it all, he knew he had a problem.
Having started meth when he was just 15 years old, O'Brien
graduated from high school and began playing for nearby Santa Clara
University. When the football program was dropped, he transferred
to Boise State, where he starred as a player and hid his drug
abuse.
Well known as an intense player and coach, he eased the stresses
of life by using meth, and hid his problems from everyone but those
friends who were using with him.
And, he said, that was his greatest problem.
It wasn't until the conviction, until the sentencing and until
he had every second of his life to focus on what he had done that
he was able to speak about his problems.
He told the students about his days in prison. On one occasion
he was invited with two other inmates to speak to a young group of
girls in a "scared straight" program. He remembered the other
inmates -- one a tattooed man with a beard down to his belly, the
other a young, good-looking man doing a decade for cocaine
possession -- yelling at the teenage girls about the decisions they
had made. Many of the girls had been busted for drugs or petty
crimes; some were pregnant.
But for O'Brien, the trip was a bit of self-realization.
"I envied (the teenagers), and I told them that," he said.
He wished that somebody had confronted his problems earlier,
just like with those girls. Then, he might not have hurt so many
who loved and trusted him, including the thousands across the state
with so much pride in him.
Now a construction worker living in Great Falls, O'Brien
encouraged those watching, many the best and brightest in their
fields -- just like he was in college -- to seek help when they have
problems. To talk to someone -- anyone if they will listen.
"It is a cliche," he said. "You have to admit to yourself
that you have a problem and do something about it."
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Information from: Independent Record, http://www.helenair.com