SKIP DILLARD`S STORY: COCAINE, CRIME, PRISON, HOPE
By Bill Jauss
Chicago Tribune • Jan 15, 1989 at 12:00 am
Like the seasons of the year and the gospels in the Bible he reads in his prison cell, Skip Dillard`s life can be divided into four sections.
Dillard didn`t define them as such. But as he described his plunge from De Paul basketball star to cocaine addict to inmate in the maximum security Joliet Correctional Institution, the divisions became obvious: The Dream. The Nightmare. The Resurrection. The Future.
The inner-city environment on Chicago`s West Side, his own short-sightedness and what he calls the ''spoiled'' life of a high school and college star thrust Dillard into his lifelong dream that he would play pro basketball. His trauma when that dream died turned him to the nightmare of drugs and prison.
He says he`s been reborn in prison. He dreams now of earning his college degree, being paroled in 1992 and working with kids.
When Dillard cocaptained coach Ray Meyer`s De Paul team in 1981-82, he was nicknamed ''Money'' because his free-throw shooting was considered ''money in the bank.'' Today, Dillard is identified as N84149.
Dillard, 28, is serving an 11-year sentence after pleading guilty to committing 15 armed robberies in the summer of 1987. Dillard, who said he committed the crimes to support a cocaine habit, recently was assigned to Joliet after serving more than 15 months in Cook County Jail.
In the first interview he has granted since his arrest, in September of 1987, here is how he defined the four stages in his life:
- The Dream. ''The professional teams in Chicago had not won anything in 1981-82. We (De Paul) were put in a professional atmosphere. Going places. Signing autographs. Everywhere I went, people knew me. It amazed me. We walked on the clouds. The popularity was incredible!
''I feel I was a professional. I just was not getting paid. For three years, I had a taste of it. I thought it would go on forever.''
- The Nightmare. ''My being here is 100 percent because of drugs. Drugs drive you insane. I had a fear of facing a world when I wouldn`t anymore be Skip Dillard, the basketball star. No more signing autographs. No more being told: `It`s a long line, Skip. You don`t have to stand here. Come to the front.`''
- The Resurrection: ''My life has been rescued! When I was strung out on drugs, I started seeing death. I wouldn`t be alive if I had stayed on the street and not been incarcerated. I would have overdosed or been killed.''
- The Future. ''I really feel I will have a great impact telling things to young kids, things about nonviolence and say `no` to drugs. I already tell them to people here where the population is 18, 19, 20 and where, I believe, 90 percent of the population is here because of drugs.''
''I think Skip needed to be obscure, at least for a time,'' said Joey Meyer, who recruited him from Westinghouse High School and served as assistant coach until he succeeded his father five years ago.
Dillard agreed with Meyer. He said, however, that several reasons make this the time for him to break his silence.
''I`m clean now!'' said Dillard joyously. ''I`m a recovered addict, thanks to Bobby Matuzak (who`s with Gateway House and directs the drug unit at Cook County Jail). I`ve been clean 16, 17 months now. I feel good about myself. I can weigh the scale. I can be successful in any number of things if I put into them the energy I put into basketball.
''And,'' he added, ''I still have an ego, too. I don`t want them to forget me.''
Dillard blamed only himself for the nightmare he has survived. His story, however, reveals a system that, from cradle to college, coddles a gifted athlete and suggests to him that the world owes him special favors.
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''I was always big for my age,'' said Dillard, who grew into a 6-foot-3-inch guard for the Blue Demons. ''And I never played on a losing team.''
Dillard`s home seemed a winning one. He came from a stable, two-parent family. His grandparents owned the two-flat in which he grew up on West Monroe Street. His father, Charles, had been a policeman. His mother, Jewell, was a teacher`s aide.
''I was blessed in being brought up right,'' said Dillard. ''I knew the do`s and don`t`s about drugs. I`d never been involved in gang-bang things. The gang leaders gave us a pass if we were athletes. We didn`t have to join the gangs.''
''In high school, I`m sure Skip had thousands of opportunities to smoke grass or toot cocaine,'' said Frank Lollino, Dillard`s coach at Westinghouse who visited him frequently when Dillard was in Cook County Jail. ''But he turned it down. He knew how to say no.''
But, Dillard explained, he was ''growing up fast,'' even without drugs.
''Coach Ray once made a quote about us,'' said Dillard. ''He said that when you came out of high school in my neighborhood, my minority neighborhood, you were more like 25 than 18. In the city you have to grow up fast. You kind of lose your childhood.''
Dillard had a son, now 10, when he enrolled at De Paul after a year at Casper Junior College in Wyoming (he also has a 7-year-old daughter), and he also had this dream of playing pro ball, a dream that got stronger and stronger.
Perhaps Dillard had reasons to assume he would make it in the National Basketball Association. For three seasons, while the Demons won 79 games and lost only six, Dillard was the team`s No. 3 scorer. He ranked right behind Mark Aguirre and Terry Cummings, both of whom left school early to become rich in the National Basketball Association.
''I lived my whole life to be a professional athlete,'' said Dillard. ''I didn`t leave any other opportunities open for myself. It wasn`t that they weren`t there. I just didn`t want anything else. Nothing else would do.
''This one professor once confided in me. He said: `Skip, your mind and energy is focused just on basketball. You`re just doing C`s so you`ll be eligible to play. Don`t you want to do more?` And I told him: `You`re right. I don`t need to do any more.` ''
Dillard said the Meyers, as well as his father, cautioned him about ''putting all his eggs into one basket.'' But Joey Meyer said: `When you go to school with players who make it, guys like Mark Aguirre and Eddie Johnson (Westinghouse teammates), it gives you a false sense of security. You feel destined.''
Looking back almost a decade, from his perspective behind bars, Dillard described that feeling as if it had hit him just yesterday.
''The No. 1 in the nation thing just erupted,'' Dillard recalled. ''In the media, the fans, the town, it was all No. 1. It was new for everybody. Even Coach and Joey. I had never been on TV before. Now, I`m on Channel 9 as much as Andy Griffith. I`m on Channel 2 and Channel 5.
''I`d be at Water Tower, and I couldn`t even shop because people recognized me. I thought, `Wait, shouldn`t this be Mark`s and Terry`s role?`
And I realized, `No, I`m a personality, too.`
''Oh, we had tutors, yes. Only they weren`t as strict on the academics then as they are now. There were demands on our time. We were catered to. We were spoiled. There were the girls and the clubs. Tutors were there, too. But you can`t be two places at one time.''
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What about that missed free throw on Dillard`s 21st birthday, in 1981?
Nathan Diamond-Falk, the lawyer who represented Dillard, says people are mistaken if, in trying to pinpoint when Dillard`s dream started to fall apart, they stress the free throw he missed in De Paul`s shocking 49-48 NCAA Tournament loss to St. Joseph`s on March 14, 1981.
And yet, as Dillard reflected on that shot almost eight years later, he made it clear how significant it was.
''I honestly believe that was my career,'' he said. ''With that free throw made, I`m in the pros.
''It really hurt my career tremendously. I found out professional scouts don`t watch you play in the regular season. They wait for the playoff games.'' Pro scouts will contend that Dillard was rationalizing when he talked about the missed foul shot, and the same thing probably applies to his charge that his friendship with Earvin ''Magic'' Johnson contributed to his failure to make the Bulls, who drafted him in the ninth round in 1982.
''I think I played better than I ever did in my life,'' said Dillard of his tryout with the Bulls. ''But through Mark (Aguirre) and Isiah (Thomas), I had become good friends with Earvin `Magic` Johnson. I had been to Magic`s house and been a guest to his games.
''Then (former Lakers coach) Paul Westhead got into that controversy with Magic and got fired and came to the Bulls. Westhead knew I was a friend of Magic`s. I assume that`s what happened, because as far as ability, I played as good as anybody there.''
But the dream was shattered. The nightmare had begun.
Dillard insisted he never touched cocaine until after he left De Paul and was playing for the Maine Lumberjacks in the Continental Basketball Association.
''I snorted it at first,'' he said. ''Then I smoked it.''
From this point, Dillard`s life follows the all-too-familiar case history of an addict. He floated from job to job. He hit friends and coaches for loans to pay imaginary bills. He was normally well-dressed and neat, but his appearance deteriorated. He rejected efforts from people such as Ray Meyer and former De Paul star Dick Heise to get him back on his feet and back into school.
''The Dick Heise family did everything it could to try to help me. They were wonderful,'' said Dillard. ''But I couldn`t face life on life`s terms. I was miserable. I was physically, emotionally and mentally beaten.
''The drugs drive you insane. You have no morals, no principles, no values, no priorities anymore. But you got a habit to feed, and you got to have it. It`s not the physical addiction. It`s the mental addiction, because you`re trying to bury life.''
George Andrews, a Chicago attorney who has represented superstars such as Aguirre and Thomas, said Dillard wanted to be caught when police arrested him in front of his home in September, 1987. ''Skip was crying for attention,''
said Andrews. ''He was on a one-way trip to hell, and he wanted someone to stop him.''
''He didn`t even cover his face,'' said Lollino, referring to the robberies Dillard was convicted of committing at knifepoint, many in his own neighborhood. ''I get the feeling he wanted to get caught.''
Dillard confirmed those feelings.
''I had started seeing death,'' he said. ''If you recall, I confessed to seven crimes. Written statements. I didn`t feel I was going to have my parents or anybody in my behalf. I confessed like, `Throw away the key!` That`s the way I felt at that time.''
Although Dillard was sentenced to 11 years by Criminal Court Judge William Cousins, he will be eligible for parole after 4 1/2.
''I could be out in 1992,'' Dillard said. ''I did a crime, and I must pay for that. I would like to give a lot of credit to my judge, Judge Cousins. I feel he was compassionate. Fifteen crimes, and each carries 6 to 30. Look at it: I didn`t get a year apiece.''
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''People who see me today and saw me addicted can`t believe the difference,'' said Dillard. ''I`ve grown a lot spiritually.''
Asked to explain his spiritual growth, Dillard said:
''Growing up in the basketball world, you get catered to at a young age. You don`t have to do basically anything for yourself. Your priorities and values get mixed up. You take things for granted.
''Instead of waking up in the morning and saying, `Lord, you blessed me for letting me wake up and have this day. Give me strength,` you look in the mirror and your ego says, `Everything I`ve accomplished is because I`m so good.` ''
Dillard figures he`s 6 to 12 months away from completing his college work and getting his degree. He plans to take courses from Lewis University while working a prison job, perhaps around the gym.
Dillard will not have to wait until his parole, he explained, to begin what he prays will be his lifelong job of working with young people.
''The population at County (Jail) and here is a lot of 18-, 19-, 20-year- olds,'' he said. ''A lot of them know me. Their first opinion of me is a big disappointment. They say: `What happened? How could it happen to somebody like you?`
''Somebody will say: `I`m 20 now, and I remember when I was 10 years old I used to watch you, and you were great. What happened?` ''
Dillard answers his fellow inmates with the same explanation he hopes to someday deliver to young people on the outside.
''I wake them up,'' he said. ''I show them somebody up there can fall. I go into detail about drugs, and how they can ruin anyone`s life. I believe 90 percent of the population here is here for drugs, either using it or selling it.''
While at the county jail, Dillard said he talked ''almost every week'' to Ray Meyer. ''Me and Coach have been through some things,'' said Dillard, dropping his voice. ''We have a great relationship.''
Aguirre, Cummings, Johnson, Thomas, his former teammates and neighbors have not visited him, Dillard said. ''But they`ve called my parents. I keep in touch with them through my parents. When I watch them on TV, I feel they`re playing for me.''
Dillard looks good. He`s put on almost 40 pounds over his playing weight, up to 220 pounds, but doesn`t look fat. ''I`m big-boned,'' he said, ''but I`m eating only one meal a day here, breakfast, trying to lose weight.''
He was asked if he had any message for kids who aspire to play in the NBA or for any 20-year-olds averaging 20 points a night and dead sure they`ll be playing pro ball.
''My friends Isiah and Magic smile on TV and say, `Say no to drugs,` and that`s good,'' said Dillard. ''I think I can relate to kids and have a great impact on them because of where I`ve been.
''As for the 20-year-old averaging 20 points, that`s tough, because he has a helluva ego. But there are 1,001 other guys out there scoring 20. It`s a numbers game. I`d definitely tell them to take the academics seriously. Leave themselves some other outlets in life.''
Does Dillard resent basketball?
''Definitely not,'' he replied. ''Basketball always was a place where I could get away from everything. No matter what type of depression I was having, family or financial, I could play basketball. It was my way of getting away from things. I love basketball because it makes me happy.''
A final note: In his last phone call to Joey Meyer, inmate N84149 asked him for a new pair of sneakers.
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