lol......i really went so blank i thought they were the same....lol
26th August 1996
The Dayton Daily News featured a front page article on this past weekend's visit by Jake Roberts to an area church. While Alex Marvez usually carries pro wrestling for the DDN, this article was penned by Tom Archdeacon, who I feel is probably the DDN' premier "profiler." Whenever the Daily News wants to print an article that goes beyond the surface of a popular sports figure or event, they send Archdeachon, and he *always* produces. In this case, what he produced was an in-depth look at the real man behind the character of Jake "the Snake" Roberts. As always, I reproduce this document without anyone's permission, so read at your own risk! Enjoy:
He relays message of pain from the pulpit "Pro wrestling-turned-evangelist Jake the Snake Roberts preaches at an East Dayton Church" by: Tom Archdeacon, Dayton Daily News Norman Meska is a soft-spoken, 68-year-old retiree who has traded 28 years as an analyst for the chance to watch his grandkids in the Beavercreek High marching band, travel with his wife, and maybe play a round of golf. He's also a longtime elder in the Church of Christ of East Dayton. It was from this footing in life that he made Sunday's observation: "The Good Lord sometimes uses the most unlikely people to spread His Word." He said this while looking the direction of a massive, long-haired man with a gravely, whiskey-cured voice, faint scars on his forehead from two decades of other men's elbows, fists, and forearms, and deeper scars on his soul and psyche after enduring everything from sexual abuse to drug and alcohol addiction, his own infidelity, botched suicide tries and "just so much self-hate." And then there were the guy's bulky shoulders, around which he so often wraps a 16-foot, 130-pound Burmese python.
In one of the more unlikely alliances you could have found around the Dayton area Sunday, Norman Meska, his fellow church members and the rest of the 600 people who answered the call for an outdoor community service found themselves face to face with Jake "the Snake" Roberts. The colorful pro wrestler, long a World Wrestling Federation headliner, now is a born-again Christian evangelist. On Sunday, he made more of an impact at this East Dayton church than he ever did wrestling at Hara Arena or on those big pay-per-view shows like the one last Sunday in Cleveland. As Robert Floyd, a 26-year-old Huber Heights manager of a pizza store brought to tears by Roberts talk, would say later: "He was powerful. He pulled no punches with us today." The Church of Christ of East Dayton and especially its Recovery Ministry, a special program for recovering addicts and alcoholics, brought Roberts in -- for about $1500 -- for a five hour session to talk not only to the youth and parents, but people not generally drawn to church. He drove in early Sunday morning from a Saturday talk in Buffalo. His wife, Cheryl, and three children were with him. Roberts' ring persona, in the sport where he claims once to have been making $500,000 a year, was always that of a cocky dominator who would drape the python over his fallen, often writhing, opponent.
Sunday, there was more pain -- his. "I'm here to tell you the real story of Jake the Snake," said Roberts, which meant he was telling the tale of Aurelian Smith, his real name. His mother, he said, was 13 when he was born and, by the time she was 17, she had had two more children. He was raised by his grandmother until she died when he was 12. That's when his father re-entered the picture with a new wife. "We went to live with him and soon I was being sexually and mentally abused by my stepmother," he said. "My father did the same to my 10-year-old sister." It was then that Roberts gave one of his heartfelt pleas: If any children were being molested he said he knew what they were going through and they should tell him, their pastor, a school counselor, or the authorities. As the day went on, he talked to kids about not feeling guilty for the parents' divorces. He had messages about racial tolerance and fathers telling their young daughters they were pretty and smart and how proud of them they were. "If you don't, someone else will, and sometimes they end up with more than they ask for."
That's what happened to his sister, who had three babies of her own when she was a teenager, ended up marrying an older man, and then being murdered, he said. As Roberts built a professional wrestling career to prove his own worth to his father, he fortified his wounds with alcohol and drugs -- he claims to have had a $4000 a week crack habit -- and a sexual addiction that had him sleeping with prostitutes, groupies, and addicts. He lost most of his savings, his home, and almost his family. Roberts finally thought up one last scam to get him back into his wife's graces. He told her he had "accepted the Lord" and she believed him enough to take him with her to an Easter service not far from their Georgia home. It was during a re-enactment of Christ's life and crucifixion that Roberts said he had a spiritual awakening. That was five years ago; and since then, he was worked at getting himself better physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
He retired from wrestling for four years, but now is back with the WWF, which allows him to intertwine his spiritual rebirth into his ring character. "That's why I keep wrestling," he said. "It's given me the platform to get my message out." And that meant after he finished in East Dayton Sunday afternoon, he had to catch a flight to New York. Forget the lack of sleep; he was wrestling in Nassau Coliseum Sunday night. Then again, after the wrestling match he's been through, this one would be easy. Unlike earlier in the day, on Sunday night he could pull the punches.
