Defending the family name
By Tom Archdeacon
Dayton Daily News
WASHINGTON COURT HOUSE | Miles Schlichter always has been good throwing at ghosts.
"When I was real little and we lived on our old farm, I used to like to go out in our yard and throw the football," said the Miami Trace quarterback who'll lead his unbeaten team against Chaminade-Julienne in Saturday night's Division III playoff game at Northmont. "But I got it into my head that I couldn't throw at targets. If I threw at trees, I could never hit them. So I started taking real old shirts and nailing them to the trees — turning them into people — and that worked great.
"I'd make it the stuff you dream about. It'd be a big game, the playoffs, and I'd go through the plays in my head:
" 'Schlichter rolls out... he spots a man in the end zone... he throws... the receiver's got it!' "
Anybody who knows anything about Miami Trace football knows those words are not now — nor were they ever — just a young kid's inflated fantasy. And that brings us to the other ghost of Miles Schlichter's career.
Miles is the nephew of Art Schlichter, one of the best schoolboy quarterbacks and basketball players this state has ever known. In his main three varsity football seasons at the very same Miami Trace High — where his picture and jersey now hang in honor — he threw for more than 4,300 yards and was recruited by everyone.
"It was nothing for Joe Paterno, Woody Hayes and a lot of other big-time coaches to come walking into the school back then," current Panthers coach Jeff Conroy said. "Art was the No. 1 college recruit in the country."
He landed at Ohio State, became a Buckeye legend — winning All-America honors and setting several career passing marks that still stand — and ended up a first-round pick of the Baltimore Colts in the 1982 NFL draft.
Soon after, everything started to come undone. A charming farm boy and great athlete, he also was compulsive, pathological gambler who wagered away his $350,000 signing bonus and bet on NFL games during his rookie season. He was suspended by the league, came back, was suspended again and soon his uncontrollable sickness took him on a downward spiral that ruined his career, wrecked his marriage and hurt his family and friends.
From pawning his wife's wedding ring and selling his memorabilia and awards to pay gambling debts, he slipped even further and has been convicted several times of everything from forgery to fraud and theft. Currently, he's jailed again, this time serving four years in an Indiana prison.
Yet, while the 44-year-old Buckeye great is locked up and being treated, the Schlichter name has been set free on the football field again. It's made for a cleansing tale of triumph, backbone and the overcoming of a burden that would be unfair for any 17-year-old to face.
"Whatever it is I do, people always compare me to my uncle," Miles said after practice this week. "When I throw a football, they talk about it. When I run, when I walk, every interview I do, every conversation I have, they always measure me against him. Since I've been little it's been that way."
On the football field, Miles is becoming every bit the prep equal of his uncle. This season, he led Trace to a 10-0 record and its first playoff berth in six years as he threw for 1,652 yards and 18 touchdowns while running for 517 yards and three more scores. Had the Panthers not blown out many of their opponents, he would have had far gaudier numbers.
As it is, he's passed for 3,998 yards in his career and he's just a junior. Art — who played mostly cornerback as a freshman — threw for 4,397 yards in high school.
"Miles has lived with the comparisons from day one," Conroy said. "People don't understand what awful big shoes those are to walk in. When he was a seventh-grader, people were saying Art was better at that stage. As an eighth-grader, they said Miles was better. On and on it went, and after awhile you've just got to say, 'C'mon, let him be a kid. Let him live his own life and be who he is.' "
The more you talk to people at Trace, the more you find out that Miles is many people.
He's the son of state representative John Schlichter, the Fayette County farmer and Art's older brother, who easily won re-election on Tuesday.
Miles also is the player, Conroy said, who on one hand "likes the glamour and glitz" that comes with his prowess and pedigree and on the other is "a very humble kid" who goes out of his way to befriend grade-school players at the coach's camp.
"He gets a lot of notice and it makes him uncomfortable," Conroy said. "He wants his teammates to share in it all."
And, of course, as Art's nephew, he's someone who every Friday night in the fall stirs the ghosts of glory past.
"But a lot of baggage comes with that," John admitted.
Earlier this season, a Dayton television station came to Washington Court House to do a story on Miles.
"When it aired, we all were pretty disappointed," Conroy said. "It opened up with a shot of Art walking down a hallway to prison. That makes it hard on Miles."
Friday nights can be worse.
"I've heard a lot of stuff," Miles said quietly and a bit reluctantly. "People tackle you and they say, 'This is for your uncle.' We played Circleville in basketball last year and I stepped to the foul line and they started chanting 'How's your uncle?' Freshman year, my grandpa died after my first game at quarterback. We played Wheelersburg right after that and some guy slams me down and says, 'How's it feel without your grandpa or uncle you (expletive)?' All the linemen heard it — they grew up with me — and they took offense to it, too.
"It used to hurt, but I've learned to let it go. They just don't know anything about my uncle. He's my family and I've still got to love him. He was a great football player, a good guy, but he's sick. It's an addiction, an illness. He made some mistakes and now he's paying for them. I just hope he gets better."
John — Art's tight end for a season — said his brother never has seen Miles play in person or on tape.
"I know people send Art newspaper clippings, and though Miles is our youngest and doesn't know Art as well as our other two kids, they have talked in the past."
Miles said he's gotten quarterbacking tips from his uncle on form, field leadership and how to "never let them know they got to you, that they hurt you or that you're feeling it."
He needed that last suggestion in his very first start.
"That's one game where the comparisons were pretty true," Miles grinned. "We played against a good Olentangy team and a lot of people said it reminded them of my Uncle Art's first game at Ohio State against Penn State. I was intercepted four times, they picked him off five."
Since then, Miles has grown — he's 6-foot-2 and 205 pounds — and continued to improve. Last summer he lifted three times a week with college players at a private gym in Columbus and attended the Ohio State, LSU and Pitt football camps. He's started 29 straight games for the Panthers and this season four of his receivers were among the leaders of the South Central Ohio League.
Yet, amidst all the good times, Conroy sat there after practice this week and soon found himself visited by yet another ghost.
"I'll never forget that first game Miles played as a freshman," he said. "They were beating the snot out of him and I can still see him after he threw his third interception. He comes to the sideline all teary-eyed and I said, 'What's wrong with you? Isn't this what you wanted?'
"He just shook his head and I told him to 'get your butt back out there and show 'em who you are and just what you're made of.' "
And Miles Schlichter has done that every game since.
