Art Schlichter

Art Schlichter was born in Bloomingburg, Ohio, on April 25, 1960. He played basketball and football at Miami Trace High School, where he showed enormous promise as a quarterback and never lost a game in thirty starts; his record was only blemished by one tie. In his four years as a Buckeye, between 1978 and 1981, Schlichter tallied 7,547 passing yards and 50 touchdown passes, with 46 interceptions. He also rushed for 1,303 yards and 35 touchdowns. At the time, Schlichter was OSU's all-time leader in total offense; he was passed in passing yards by J. T. Barrett in the 2010s, while Dwayne Haskins broke his single-game passing record of 458 in 2018. He finished in the top six of Heisman Trophy balloting during his last three years—fourth as a sophomore, sixth as a junior and fifth as a senior. In his sophomore year, Schlichter led the Buckeyes to an undefeated regular season. They had a chance to win at least a share of the national championship in the 1980 Rose Bowl but lost to the USC Trojans by one point. In 1981, sportswriter Ritter Collett published a biography of Schlichter entitled Straight Arrow. During his college career, Schlichter was frequently spotted at Scioto Downs with a prominent Ohio gambler. Although the Columbus and OSU police departments became suspicious, the athletic department felt it lacked enough evidence to notify the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Schlichter turned his attention from horses to sports betting by his junior year at OSU; by the end of that year he had lost thousands of dollars gambling on college and professional sports. On several occasions he was seen at Scioto Downs with Hayes' successor as head coach, Earle Bruce, a fact which helped cover up early problems emerging while Schlichter was at OSU. ==Professional career==

Schlichter was picked fourth in the 1982 NFL draft by the Colts franchise, then based in Baltimore, Maryland. Expected to be the starter, Schlichter lost the job to Mike Pagel, the Colts' fourth-round pick in that year, when he appeared at practice out of shape and in a distracted state of mind. However, he was expected to be the Colts' quarterback of the future. Schlichter's gambling continued unabated, to the point that he blew his entire $350,000 signing bonus by midseason. Even before the Colts picked him, he already owed bookies several thousand dollars. By the end of the strike, he had at least $700,000 in gambling debts. Years later, Schlichter said his massive losses stemmed from desperate efforts to make good his previous losses. After losing $20,000 in the first week of the strike, he doubled up the next week and lost again—starting a cycle that would continue for over a year. Schlichter was reinstated for the 1984 season but later admitted that he'd gambled during his suspension (though not on football). He was released five games into the 1985 season, in part because the Colts heard rumors that he was gambling again. It would be Schlichter's last meaningful action in the NFL. He signed as a free agent with the Buffalo Bills in the spring of 1986. However, his tenure with the Bills effectively ended when the United States Football League (USFL) collapsed. Jim Kelly, the Bills' 1983 first-round pick, had bolted to the USFL instead but signed with the Bills when the league "won" its antitrust lawsuit ($1.00 damages trebled to $3.00); the Bills had intended all along for Kelly to be their quarterback. With Kelly now firmly in the Bills fold, Schlichter's services were no longer necessary. He sat out the 1986 season after no other team expressed interest. In January 1987, Schlichter was arrested in New York City for his involvement in a multimillion-dollar sports betting operation. He pleaded guilty to illegal gambling in April and was sentenced to probation. In an updated list from 2010, Schlichter was moved to the #4 draft bust of all time, and in a video listing the top ten quarterback draft busts of all time, Schlichter was listed #3, behind JaMarcus Russell (#2) and Ryan Leaf (#1). In 2007, Charles Robinson of Yahoo! Sports named Schlichter the worst #4 pick since the AFL-NFL merger, writing that Colts fans long felt chagrin that Jim McMahon was taken by the Chicago Bears with the very next pick. McMahon would lead the Bears to victory in Super Bowl XX during Schlichter's final NFL season. In 2021, The Athletic named Schlichter the worst #4 pick since the merger, noting that the Colts selected him with McMahon and future Hall of Fame running back Marcus Allen on the board. Schlichter said years later that he was distracted for much of his NFL career. He went through a messy break-up with his girlfriend before his rookie season with the Colts, and the ensuing depression led him to gamble more. Schlichter believed the accolades he received after his sophomore year at OSU diminished his drive, and the pressure of living up to that praise led him to gamble as an outlet. His AFL success was attributed to his frequent deep passes, which caught opposing defenses off guard in an era when most AFL offenses relied on short passes. Ahead the 1992 season, Schlichter was traded to the expansion Cincinnati Rockers, with league officials believing his popularity in Ohio would generate interest for the franchise. Schlichter helped lead the Rockers to the playoffs in their inaugural season, evidence later came to light that Schlichter was forced to retire rather than face being banned from the league for betting on AFL games. ==Radio career==

While co-hosting a Rockers-focused radio show on Cincinnati station WSAI, Schlichter did well enough that he became the station's afternoon drive-time host. During this time, he appeared on The Phil Donahue Show to discuss his gambling addiction. In 1994, Schlichter moved to KVEG in Las Vegas, Nevada, but was fired after a few months for stealing checks from station owner Jerry Kutner in order to support his addiction. ==Extent of addiction==

Schlichter often stole and conned money from friends and strangers when he ran low on funds to support his gambling. He also passed bad checks, as casinos still accepted personal checks when he started gambling. Schlichter wrote that he would write a check to the casino and use the money to gamble, believing he would win enough money to pay the casino back and keep the profit, but he almost always lost. Even then, Schlichter's gambling continued unabated; at various points in the 1992 season, there were police waiting for Schlichter in the locker room. The pattern continued during Schlichter's time as a sports talk host. According to longtime Cincinnati radio personality Mike Wolfe, who worked with Schlichter at WSAI, Schlichter was known to try to wrangle money out of callers. Station management covered for Schlichter when a victim of one of his cons came after him. Kutner recalled that at KVEG, his penchant for bilking his friends and bouncing checks was a topic of on-air discussion. By one estimate, he owed half a million dollars in restitution. Schlichter founded a non-profit organization, Gambling Prevention Awareness, to educate others about the perils of problem gambling, including college and NFL players. In late 2009, Schlichter and his mother appeared in television ads opposing a statewide ballot issue legalizing casinos in select cities of Ohio. He also wrote an autobiography, Busted, with sportswriter Jeff Snook. Also in 2009, he began working at Columbus radio station WTVN, joining longtime host John Corby on Wednesdays. ==2011 arrest==

Around the same time, Schlichter visited a church in Westerville, Ohio, to speak about his addiction. There, he reunited with Anita Valko Barney, a Columbus heiress and the widow of a former CEO of Wendy's. Her son, Alan Valko, had been gravely injured in a 1981 plane crash that killed his father and three others; Barney believed that Alan's recovery was due in large part to Schlichter visiting his bedside. Over the next two-plus years, Schlichter conned over a million dollars out of Barney, nearly depleting her fortune. It subsequently emerged that Schlichter had conned thousands of dollars under the pretense of buying prime seats at OSU football games. He was charged with a first-degree felony in connection with the theft of more than $1 million on February 14, 2011. Prosecutors later said that Schlichter resumed his gambling almost as soon as he had left prison in 2006. They discovered he'd visited gambling dens in Nevada, Indiana, West Virginia and riverboat casinos along the Ohio River. Schlichter also relaunched his ticket-buying scheme as early as 2009. Corby recalled that in that year, Schlichter had suggested that he had connections to get OSU basketball tickets. Corby almost went along but thought better of it after his wife noticed it was very similar to a scheme Schlichter described in his autobiography. As it turned out, Schlichter got tickets from brokers across central Ohio, often paying four times face value. As the scheme went along, Schlichter manipulated Barney into soliciting her wealthy friends for money and helping him buy tickets. While under house arrest awaiting assignment to a state prison, Schlichter tested positive for cocaine while serving house arrest on federal charges resulting from the same case (and while still on probation from his Indiana sentence) on January 19, 2012. On May 4, 2012, as a result of the positive drug test, he was sentenced to ten years, seven months in federal prison (up from an original eight years, four months originally agreed to on the fraud case) to be served concurrently with the Ohio sentence, plus $2.2 million in restitution; the Indiana probation was canceled with the federal sentence. Barney admitted her role in the scheme and cooperated with prosecutors and law enforcement to bring Schlichter down. She was later sentenced to three years' probation. She was also ordered to pay $400,000 in restitution, forcing her to auction off nearly everything she owned and give up her house. Schlichter was released from federal prison on August 18, 2020, and transferred to Ohio state custody to serve the remainder of his sentence. Schlichter's lawyers had attempted to get the remainder of his sentence waived for health reasons. However, Franklin County Common Pleas judge Chris Brown took a dim view of the request, saying that Schlichter was "past the point of rehabilitation" and had not shown that he would "conduct (himself appropriately)" if released. Brown added that he was sympathetic to Schlichter's health concerns, and would have been more than willing to grant an early release if there was any evidence of remorse. However, Brown said, Schlichter had "demonstrated over and over" that he could not be trusted. He was paroled on June 14, 2021; his second day of eligibility. ==Further arrests==

On June 6, 2022, Schlichter was found unresponsive by police at the Hampton Inn in Hilliard, Ohio. Police, who were responding to a report of an overdose, used Narcan to resuscitate Schlichter and took him to a hospital. A substance was found in his room which was later revealed to be cocaine after testing. Schlichter pleaded guilty and was subsequently charged with cocaine possession on October 11, being sentenced to one year of probation on September 13, 2023. A few months later, on February 2, 2024, an Ohio Highway Patrol officer found Schlichter on a street in Columbus, standing beside his disabled vehicle. The officer would discover drug paraphernalia on the car's floorboard. Schlichter was subsequently searched and handed over a pair of glass pipes. He was arrested and charged with cocaine possession, as well as possessing drug paraphernalia. On August 25, 2025, he pled guilty to felony drug possession that saw him sentenced to two years of probation with weekly drug tests. ==Health issues==

Doctors have diagnosed Schlichter with Parkinson's disease and dementia—the side effects of numerous concussions (between fifteen and seventeen, depending on the source) suffered over twenty years of football at the junior high, high school, college and professional levels. His public defender in the 2011 case, Steven Nolder, said that Schlichter has been diagnosed with "deficits" in his frontal lobes, which have been linked to depression, impulsivity and impaired judgment. According to Snook, doctors believe that Schlichter has chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative disease caused by repeated blows to the head which has been found to be common among football players. Protective equipment (especially helmets) was inferior during much of Schlichter's high school, collegiate and NFL days. Even during his CFL and Arena League days, concussions and head injuries were just considered part of the game. ==In popular culture==

Schlichter was mentioned in the 2006 Prison Break episode "By the Skin and the Teeth" and in 2017 was the subject of Season 11, Episode 14 of American Greed titled "Art Schlichter, All American Fraud." ==See also==