After Football, a Tragic Free Fall

Firemen douse the Sept. 30 crash that killed Justin Strzelczyk after he led police on a long chase that neared 90 mph. He was thrown 80 yards from his pickup upon impact with a tanker truck. (Patrick Palladino -- Utica Observer-dispatch Via AP)

"I met him at about 6:30 that night. He looked good, his weight was down, but once he started talking, my heart just sank. I realized he was manic, almost acute psychotic. He was telling me he couldn't sleep, he was hearing voices. I asked him if he thought he was a danger to himself, was he planning to kill himself? Then the old Jugs came out. He looked at me and said he was having too much fun in life to kill himself."

Doran tried to persuade his friend to go with him to an emergency room, but sensed that Strzelczyk was growing suspicious and hostile. Strzelczyk told him he believed devils had been knocking at his door. When pedestrians walked by, he would ask them if they believed in God, and when they said yes, "he literally jumped for joy," Doran recalled. Strzelczyk said he believed the end of the world was coming, that the government was trying to control his life. He railed about the Patriot Act. He said the hurricanes that had battered Florida late in the summer were signs of impending doom, as was the recent volcanic activity at Mount St. Helens.

As they were speaking, university security officers occasionally passed by, and Doran said he was almost hoping that Strzelczyk would do something -- hit him, strike an officer, get too aggressive with someone walking past -- to provoke them into taking him into custody, the only way Doran figured he could get him evaluated in a hospital. But it never happened.

"He was in a manic state, and most people like that don't end up in an emergency room until they do get in trouble," Doran said. "He refused to go with me to the hospital. That's just the way he was. I tried everything I could. After a couple of hours of this, he said he was going inside to the church to pray. I told him that if he thought God was talking to him, he really needed help from his friends and family, and he agreed. That was the worst part about it."

Doran went home and called Strzelczyk's ex-wife and his sister, Melissa. He told them he'd stay in touch with Strzelczyk "the next day and every day until he calmed down and I could try to get him some help."

But Strzelczyk did not calm down. A neighbor recalled hearing Strzelczyk barrel out of his driveway at 2 a.m., the beginning of the journey toward western New York. Along the way, he stopped at a gas station outside Rochester, N.Y., where a woman later told police he had warned her to take her family to higher ground and asked if she believed in God.

At another stop, according to the police, he offered a stranger $2,600 he was carrying with him. The man declined, but Strzelczyk paid for his gasoline with a $50 bill before roaring off. Not long after that, police received a report that someone in a pickup truck had rammed two cars from behind and was driving erratically at high speeds. Their pursuit began, and Strzelczyk's life ended shortly afterward.

"All we can do now is try to understand why he acted in such a manner," said James Hunt, another police investigator. "His previous behavior could help explain it. An aunt who was a psychiatric nurse thought he might have been bipolar, or manic depressive. Some people said they could see it coming. We don't think he committed suicide, and if he was truly suffering from a mental illness, he had to believe he was invincible and wouldn't be hurt. Why did it happen? We may never really know."

One of Strzelczyk's best friends, Buffalo policeman Dan Horan, said Strzelczyk, who stood 6 feet 6, had used steroids for about 10 months in 2002 but had quit when he had slimmed down from more than 300 pounds to around 270. Experts say it seems unlikely that past use could have caused his agitation.

"If, indeed, he had stopped [using steroids] a couple of years ago, I would doubt it," said Gary Wadler of the New York University Medical School, who has done extensive research on steroid use among athletes. "Usually the psychiatric symptoms occur while you're using. The biggest problem after you stop is profound depression, but the real psychotic swings in behavior are while you're on the drug."

Many athletes struggle to adjust to the real world after they retire, and Strzelczyk apparently was no exception. At one point, Horan said Strzelczyk was taking anti-depressants but stopped because he didn't like the side effects. Keana, his former wife, said his problems adjusting to life after football played a role in their 2001 divorce, and added, "It's a shame they don't have counseling and support groups for guys like him. They're so used to being the center of attention, but when they're out [of football], people stop coming around and no one really helps them through the transition to a regular life."

After NFL Peak, Downward Slope

Strzelczyk grew up in the Buffalo area, where his father, Connie, was a teacher and house painter. His dad, a college basketball player at Montana State, started his son in hockey, basketball, baseball and football. He usually attended his son's games, even after divorcing Justin's mother when he was 7. Connie Strzelczyk liked to spend many evenings in neighborhood bars, and one of his drinking pals was Joe Horan, who had a son Justin's age.

The boys, Justin and Dan Horan, got to know each other on a football recruiting trip to Kent State after their junior year of high school. Strzelczyk had been a high-scoring forward on West Seneca's basketball team and a tight end and defensive lineman on the football team. Horan had gone to a Catholic high school, Bishop Timon, where he'd played tight end. Horan rode back from that recruiting trip in the Strzelczyks' car, and the teenagers became immediate best friends.

"His dad was a big drinker and mine was, too, though neither one of us paid much attention to it at the time," said Horan, who played football at Marshall. "His father was always there for him. He had a very structured life, and it was always about sports."

After playing defensive tackle at the University of Maine, Strzelczyk was invited to the 1990 East-West Shrine game in Palo Alto, Calif., and Steelers coach Chuck Noll drafted him in the 11th round. He converted Strzelczyk to the offensive line and by 1992 he was a starter.

"He was tough, an overachiever, extremely unselfish. Contracts were never a problem, playing hurt was never a problem," said Tom Donahoe, the Steelers' general manager who now is president of the Buffalo Bills. "He came to work every day, worked like crazy in the weight room. . . . He was a free spirit, too, but there was never any indication of anything that might cause what happened to him."

Strzelczyk's career essentially ended in a Monday night game against the Kansas City Chiefs in 1998, when he tore his quadriceps and underwent surgery. He hurt his left knee in a bar incident in March 1999 and had another operation that forced him to miss the next season, as well.

In January 2000, at a time when he soon could have filed for free agency and likely made millions as a versatile veteran, Strzelczyk hurt his left knee in a charity hockey game. The Steelers released him two weeks later and, although Donahoe brought him in for a look when he joined the Bills in 2001, "he had nothing left. He wasn't the same guy."

Strzelczyk had faced loss in recent years, too. In 1998, the year of his first injury, his father was in a car accident that left him paralyzed for several weeks before he died. In 2001, his marriage ended. Last April, a favorite cousin died.

Over the years, several business ventures failed. According to Horan, Strzelczyk lost several hundred thousand dollars on a chain of health clubs. The hubcap business was breaking even, though Horan said his friend was not having financial problems at the time of his death. He had appeared on stage in several local theater productions, and thought he might have a future as an actor. He was writing his autobiography. And then he seemingly slipped away.

"Dan [Horan] and I have talked quite a bit about it. I just think there were a lot of stressers in his life that may have pushed him over the edge, probably even going back to his father's death," Doran said. "There was the divorce, and then [his ex-wife] recently got engaged. That was tough on him, too. He'd really been at a crossroads ever since he retired from football. He just dabbled in so many different things and never settled on anything."