REDEEMED: The Scott Reynolds story

By JON KLEINKNECHT

Inquirer Sports Editor

sports@galioninquirer.com

A stout 6’7” tall, Scott Reynolds doesn’t just enter a room … he takes it over.

“I’m hard to miss,” the 1976 grad­u­ate of Galion High School laugh­ingly said dur­ing an inter­view last month in the Galion Inquirer office when he returned to his home­town for Con­nec­tions Weekend.

These days, the mid-50s for­mer prep and col­lege bas­ket­ball star is not only a giant of a man, he has a heart just as big for those who are down and out.

The fact that he is alive today is a mir­a­cle in itself.

But then … Scott Reynolds him­self is a miracle.

****

“Be sober-minded; be watch­ful. Your adver­sary the devil prowls around like a roar­ing lion, seek­ing some­one to devour.” (1 Peter 1:5–8)

“I started drink­ing, prob­a­bly, when I was 17 years old,” he said. “I always had drugs for free. I never had to pay for them, and that was my dirty lit­tle secret,” explain­ing that a rel­a­tive was a promi­nent drug dealer in cen­tral Ohio. “The alco­hol wasn’t a secret, but the drugs were. Most peo­ple who knew me in Galion had no idea. When I went off to col­lege, it got worse and worse.”

What began as typ­i­cal, school­boy par­ty­ing where he grew up, quickly turned into full-blown cocaine and alco­hol addiction.

Addic­tion that led to him drop­ping out of col­lege … twice.

Addic­tion that was par­layed into the sell­ing and even inter­na­tional smug­gling of drugs while he was a mem­ber of the United States Marine Corps.

Addic­tion and drug deal­ing that resulted in him being arrested, charged and con­victed over­seas where he was sen­tenced to serve five years in prison.

“My life was such a mess,” Scott humbly said as he shifted in a chair. “There were times in prison where I sat and won­dered how it all got so out of con­trol. It was surreal.”

Things use to be so much better.

And sim­pler.

As a youth in Tiger­town, Scott was what a for­mer team­mate described as “fun lov­ing” and “easy going.” Bas­ket­ball was his game and he was a stand­out player.

A three-year var­sity let­ter­man, Scott was a junior on the win­ningest team in GHS hoops his­tory, the 1974–75 Tigers. That squad posted an 18–4 record and was the last boys’ bas­ket­ball team in Galion to win a league cham­pi­onship. All five starters — seniors Jeff Fis­cher, Bill Fox and Chuck Roser, sopho­more Mike Nicholls, and Scott — went on to play collegiately.

Another mem­ber of the those Tigers, Glen Nog­gle, was a sopho­more. He, too, played ball in college.

A year later, it was Scott as a senior post player and Nicholls as a junior guard star­ring on a team that went 10–10. Scott led the Orange-and-Blue in scor­ing aver­ag­ing 15.7 points a game, and was the top rebounder in the North­ern Ohio League. In NOL play, he had the three high­est scor­ing games of the sea­son. His per­for­mance earn-ed him First Team Dis­trict and First Team NOL honors.

“I had a good senior year, but we didn’t win a lot of games,” said Scott. “Bowl­ing Green (State Uni­ver­sity) and Mid­dle Ten­nessee State were inter­ested in me.”

He set­tled on a schol­ar­ship offer to attend Cum­ber­land Col­lege in Lebanon, Tennessee.

He wasn’t there for long.

“I hated school,” Scott matter-of-factly stated. “I wanted to go to play bas­ket­ball. I wasn’t inter­ested in studying.”

While at Cum­ber­land, he was the dri­ver of a car filled with teenagers that ended up in an acci­dent. Scott and sev­eral of the youth were hurt. Scott sus­tained a severe head injury and dropped out of school soon after.

A few months later, tragedy struck again.

Enjoy­ing a Lake Erie fish­ing trip with three other men from Galion, the boat cap-sized. One of his fish­ing bud­dies drowned. Scott and the other two were res­cued by the Coast Guard.

“All four of us should have drowned,” he said before going on to describe how a dra­matic effort by the Coast Guard saved their lives.

Scott enrolled at the for­mer Mount Ver­non Nazarene Col­lege. At what is now a uni­ver­sity, he was reunited with for­mer GHS team­mates Jeff Fis­cher and Glen Noggle.

“The three of us even started some games together down there,” he said with a smile.

On March 1, 1978, Scott had a record-setting game for the Cougars. His 17 field goals against Grace Col­lege remain the school stan­dard nearly 35 years later.

But fur­ther­ing his edu­ca­tion still wasn’t a priority.

After drop­ping out again, he found him­self in trou­ble because of the demons from his teenage years that still con­trolled him — alco­hol and drugs.

In 1979, he joined the Marine Corps.

The first three years, “I really excelled,” he said. “I wanted to make a career of it. I still drank and did drugs a lit­tle bit. That was before the mil­i­tary started drug testing.”

After re-enlisting for another three years. It hap­pened. “It” being Scott was caught trans­port­ing drugs.

“We were smug­gling drugs to Thai­land, Japan, and the Philip­pines,” he said. “It was easy money and secu­rity wasn’t as tight as it is now.”

He con­tin­ued, “I got caught in 1983 smug­gling 500 tabs of LSD from Cal­i­for­nia to Tokyo. I got caught in Tokyo. The guy I bought the LSD from in Cal­i­for­nia got caught and told on me, so they were wait­ing for me in Tokyo. I was con­victed and sen­tenced to five years in prison,” he added as he drew a breath and looked up toward the ceil­ing. “So, I went into a Japan­ese prison sys­tem that is not like the Amer­i­can prison sys­tem, to say the least. I was given a cou­ple of bowls of rice and a cou­ple of fish heads a day.”

After being released from prison, Scott did what Scott knew how to do best.

“I got drunk,” he men­tioned while shak­ing his head. “Can you believe that?!?!?”

More years of poi­son­ing his body and mind via drink­ing and drugs fol­lowed. “I had some really good jobs, but the drugs and alco­hol still chased me around and haunted me.”

His life had bot­tomed out.

“In 1990, I decided to com­mit sui­cide,” he stated. “I car­ried guns with me wher­ever I went. For some rea­son, I ended up at my aunt Alice’s house. I began cry­ing and she started talk­ing to me about God and how much God loved me. I gave her all my guns, my sis­ter [Sara­beth] came and got me from Fort Wayne, Indi­ana and she took me to a place in Muskegon, Michi­gan called Teen Challenge.”

****

“For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shep­herd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scat­tered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will res­cue them from all places where they have been scat­tered on a day of clouds and thick dark­ness.” (Ezekiel 34:11–12)

Founded in 1958, Teen Chal­lenge is a Christian-based orga­ni­za­tion that spe­cial­izes in help­ing adults and youth who strug­gle with destruc­tive, life-controlling prob­lems. There are more than 200 res­i­den­tial cen­ters in the United States and inter­na­tion­ally — in excess of 1,000.

Doc­u­mented stud­ies done at North­west­ern and Ten­nessee uni­ver­si­ties, ver­ify that five years after grad­u­at­ing from the Teen Chal­lenge pro­gram, 86 per­cent of for­mer clients are free of sub­stance abuse, employed and reg­u­larly attend church.

Typ­i­cally, res­i­dents — who are admit­ted vol­un­tar­ily and referred to as “stu­dents” — stay for 13 months. Dur­ing their stay, they are not only coun­seled and treated for their prob­lems, they are min­is­tered to regard­ing their spir­i­tual walk. Many for­mer res­i­dents remain or return as vol­un­teers. In some cases, that leads to becom­ing full-time staff mem­bers. Such is the case with Scott.

****

“He has deliv­ered us from the power of dark­ness and con­veyed us into the king­dom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemp­tion through His blood, the for­give­ness of sins. (Colos­sians 1:13–14)

While a stu­dent at Teen Chal­lenge, Scott accepted Jesus Christ as his per­sonal sav­ior. “I devel­oped a per­sonal rela­tion­ship with God and my life changed,” he said with a wide smile. “He saved me. Jesus died for my sins, and I am for­given for all the bad things I’ve done in the past. It’s amazing.”

After his 13 months as a stu­dent, Scott said, “I had a car lot and was a part­ner in a mort­gage com­pany. I did vol­un­teer work then.”

But he wanted to do more at Teen Challenge.

“I always hung around because I want to help peo­ple who have the kind of prob­lems I did,” he stated.

****

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to pros­per you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jere­miah 29:11)

In 2004, Scott received cre­den­tials and became an ordained min­is­ter. He even­tu­ally was named the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Teen Chal­lenge Cen­ter in Mid­land, Texas, and four years ago was a recip­i­ent of The Pres­i­den­tial Call to Ser­vice award. He was instru­men­tal in the rais­ing of $5.5 mil­lion in 3 1/2 years while in The Lone Star State.

“The only way we get money is for peo­ple to give us money,” he mentioned.

Cur­rently, he is a senior pas­tor at Teen Chal­lenge in Lans­ing, Michi­gan. There are 20 staff mem­bers and all but one are Teen Chal­lenge grad­u­ates. Lans­ing is one of only five preg­nancy cen­ters in the country.

Scott spends a lot of time on the road, doing in excess of 100 speak­ing engage­ments a year, telling his story and shar­ing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

“This is what I’m called to do,” he softly spoke. “I don’t have a lot of money, but I can’t imag­ine me doing any­thing else. God saved me and I want to share what He’s done for me with oth­ers because He can do the same for them.”

Sober for nearly 23 years, nonethe­less, his body has paid a heavy price for the decades of sub­stance abuse and his over­seas imprisonment.

“I caught a virus while in prison in Japan,” Scott said. “I have a pace­maker and lost most of my toes. The virus and the abuse have taken a toll on me. I don’t get around as well as I use to, but God has given me the strength to do what I’m called to do.”

It was men­tioned ear­lier that a for­mer team­mate of Scott’s in high school and col­lege described Scott as “fun lov­ing” and easy going.” Jeff Fis­cher was recently told about Scott’s transformation.

“I remem­ber Scott as we were close friends in high school and a year or two in col­lege due to the fact we played bas­ket­ball together for sev­eral years,” Jeff stated. “Our dads were also close as they worked together at the old Galion Iron Works.

“Scott was always a ‘fun lov­ing’ easy going guy. I remem­ber well his com­pet­i­tive spirit, and he was a key com­po­nent of our bas­ket­ball cham­pi­onships (NOL and sec­tional) in 1974–75. I remem­ber to this day going to McDon­alds for lunch after Sat­ur­day morn­ing films and walk-throughs with Scott.”

Jeff added, “Our friend­ship con­tin­ued on at Mount Ver­non Nazarene Col­lege we, along with for­mer Galion stand­out Glen Nog­gle, played for the Cougars. It was sad to watch Scott, with so much tal­ent and abil­i­ties, begin to slowly pull away from his good friends and make other ‘friends.’ It was obvi­ous they were a ter­ri­ble influ­ence on Scott and his pri­or­i­ties. Scott left school, and I totally lost con­tact with him at that point.”

But, through the won­der of inter­net tech­nol­ogy, the old friends have become reacquainted.

“… I am so happy and relieved to now find the healthy, lov­ing, car­ing and God-centered man that Scott has become,” Jeff noted. “He is now giv­ing his life to the Lord, and help­ing so many peo­ple by his life and exam­ple. He is such an influ­encer, and he is doing that now for good. It is awe­some to have Scott ‘back.’”

****

“He who has an ear, let him hear what The Spirit says to the churches … (Rev­e­la­tion 2:11a)

This Sun­day, Scott will be min­is­ter­ing at the Galion Com­mu­nity Chris­t­ian Church located at the cor­ner of State Route 19 and Bid­dle Road. The ser­vice begins at 10:30 a.m. and he hopes for a nice turnout by old friends and acquaintances.

“I’d like peo­ple to have my email address and my phone num­ber, too,” he men­tioned. “I’d love to hear from some peo­ple in Galion.”

Scott — who has a 10-year-old son, Chase — can be reached via email at pastorscottreynolds@gmail.com. His cell phone num­ber is 517–712-9573.