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Ryan Leaf Says Teaching Fellow Prisoners How To Read Changed His Life
NY
Daily News: 4.12.2017 by Jake Becker
Drug
addiction, attempted suicide and felony convictions once derailed the life of
former quarterback Ryan Leaf, the NFL's biggest draft bust whose failures on
the field led to serious struggles off it.
But
during his 32-month stay in a Montana prison between 2012 and 2014, the
once-promising 1998 second overall draft pick found light amid his personal
darkness by — perhaps unknowlingly — taking a page out of The Shawshank
Redemption.
Leaf,
40, was doing time for breaking into the homes of friends and strangers in
order to obtain oxycodone and Vicodin, and found himself sharing a cell with a
combat veteran who pushed Leaf to help himself by helping others.
"About
26 months in, he got on me real hard one day about having my head buried in the
sand," Leaf wrote in a story for The Los Angeles Times. "He said I
didn't understand the value I had, not only to the guys in there but when I
would get out. 'Because Ryan,' he told me, 'you're going to get out at some
point.' So he told me that day that we were going to go down to the prison
library and teach some other inmates how to read.
"So
it went. It was the first time in my life that I had ever been of service to
anybody but myself. Ever. These men were vulnerable enough to ask for help at
40, 50, 60 years old, and they didn't know how to read." READ
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