Former Hoosier Todd Jadlow finding purpose in life

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) - With his foot on the gas pedal and his eyes on the horizon, Todd Jadlow barreled down State Highway 10 in Kansas and drove himself straight to hell.

There was traffic in the lane ahead, a line of three cars set to slow him down, but Jadlow pushed on the pedal and sent his BMW 750Li zipping away. Alcohol wafted from his pores as the engine revved and the speedometer tilted toward 100 miles per hour as he passed the cars. In the back seat, his 2-year-old daughter, who Jadlow had just picked up from daycare, sat strapped in for the ride.

It was the afternoon of Dec. 11, 2013, the day this former Indiana basketball player was due to acknowledge his demons.

A Johnson County Sheriff's Deputy watched the scene unfold and pulled Jadlow over on the side of the K-10 between Lawrence and Overland Park, Kan. Inside the car, the deputy discovered Jadlow - hours removed from his first driving under the influence charge that day - drunk again and this time carrying a passenger.

It led to a list of reported charges: endangering a child, reckless driving, driving with a suspended license, and DUI.

And a 21-month incarceration.

For a man who had spent the previous two years spiraling into a pit of substance abuse, there was finally a nadir.

There he was at his bottom, a man who long ago determined he was ready to die.

The hardest part was letting go.

Basketball was all Jadlow had known until the day he retired from playing in 2001, a career that saw an NCAA national championship in 1987, a solid three-year run for the Hoosiers and an 11-year professional career, which included summer league stints with the New Jersey Nets and stops in Europe and Argentina.

Basketball gave him purpose, and by the time he was done playing, it was a purpose Jadlow found difficult to replace.

"When you get done playing, there's nothing," Jadlow said. "It's done. There's no crowd, no fans, no adrenaline rush. You completely lose your identity. It was extremely hard. I think what got me in trouble was I tried to maintain that lifestyle of a professional athlete, and I did it to excess. I never grew up. I was trying to find happiness. I was trying to find something to fill that huge void. (Basketball) was something I had worked so hard to accomplish, and it was just gone. Now what do you do?"

That's a question Jadlow has long tried to answer.

At the end of his playing career, he returned home to Kansas and took a job as a mortgage lender at a local bank. He later held a job for nine years in the medical sales industry until 2011, when a serious car accident left him unable to work.

He suffered a concussion and a long list of additional injuries when a semi rear-ended a vehicle he was in. Severe memory loss accompanied his injuries, and he was forced into a series of mental rehabilitations that led to bouts with depression.

"I wasn't able to do anything," Jadlow said. "Then the drinking got bad. I was drinking on top of all the medications - anything I could just to numb life and end the day. I was in a dark place. It wasn't good. It wasn't good at all."

Here was a man already carrying a heavy burden of resentment.

Jadlow swore off Indiana University after the school fired Knight in September 2000. Of the scores of players who came forward to denounce Knight's ouster, Jadlow may have been the most vocal.

In one letter to the editor he submitted to The Herald-Times, Jadlow wrote at the time that the university had lost his support forever. It was a bitterness he carried with him through the end of his professional career, into his transition to civilian life and later into the darkness of depression and isolation.

Without the ability to work, without the understanding that he was losing the grip on his life, Jadlow kept drinking.

Jadlow picked up his first DUI in May 2013 and was stopped for his second nearly a month later. Then came Dec. 11, and the two more DUIs that he picked up in the span of hours.

"We had a close relationship prior to him getting into trouble and having the series of DUIs," said his girlfriend, Jamie Carpenter. "During that time, you can only help someone as much as they want to be helped. I was there for him as much as I could be. At the same time, I struggled watching what was happening."

After going out for drinks on the night of Dec. 10, Jadlow returned home to sleep when his phone rang in the early-morning hours. A friend needed a ride, and Jadlow agreed to help.

So he left his home in Overland Park, Kan., drove a short distance down the road and was pulled over by police. Jadlow was taken into custody and later released. Later that day, Jadlow drank before picking up his daughter nearly 40 miles away in Lawrence, Kan. That's when the sherrif deputy stopped him on the side of the highway and put him in jail, where he remained for nearly two years.

He spent 12 months in a cell, before moving into an addiction recovery center and therapeutic community.

While locked up, Jadlow tried to make sense of his poor decisions and self-destructive path through a series of journal entries. Almost every day, he spent time writing and searching for a meaning to the rest of his life.

When he was released from a rehabilitation center last year, he believed he found it.

Through telling his story through speaking engagements, Jadlow is in the process of getting a new foundation off the ground. It's called the Give It Back Foundation, and Jadlow is aiming to make whatever money he can from public appearances and set it aside for those in need of recovery, or for those who don't have the means to get into rehab or sober living situations.

"I'm excited about what I'm doing," Jadlow said. "For the first time since I left the basketball court, I have that rush again of feeling worthy. I'm helping people and actually doing some good. It's a growing process of truly finding out who I am. I think I'm on the right path."

That path brought him back to Bloomington last week for the first time in 27 years.

As part of his recovery process, Jadlow is seeking to forgive himself and move beyond past resentments. That includes all the frustration he harbored against IU after Knight's dismissal in 2000.

He attended last week's game against Wisconsin, visited practice and - after a long separation - began to feel like a Hoosier again.

"It was really an honor and rewarding for all of us to be a part of Todd's first trip back to IU," IU coach Tom Crean said. "It was obvious to all of us that Indiana basketball means a lot to him and to share in that was a lot of fun.

"Having him at practice, and especially in the locker room before and after the game was the way it should be. He should always feel a part of it. He's a champion here, and he's family. He was so appreciative and, really, we are the ones that should appreciate him."

Jadlow's recovery is a day-by-day process, one that he is motivated to see through.

He wants to help himself by helping others understand that past mistakes don't dictate the future, even after falling hard and falling often.

"I have a purpose now," Jadlow said. "I have a will to live."

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Source: The (Bloomington) Herald-Times, http://bit.ly/1WftEx6

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Information from: The Herald Times, http://www.heraldtimesonline.com