Speaker 1: Hey, Queen of the conn listeners, Jonathan Walton here with
Speaker 1: a brand new podcast for you to listen to. It's
Speaker 1: called The Quarterback and the con Artist. You thought the
Speaker 1: Irish Heiress was bad? Who will get a load of
Speaker 1: this psychopath? Here now is episode one. This series deals
Speaker 1: with troubling topics including suicide, drug overdosing, and dependent adult abuse.
Speaker 1: If you or someone you know is struggling with depression
Speaker 1: or suicidal thoughts, call her text nine to eighty eight
Speaker 1: right now and speak with a counselor for free.
Speaker 2: Dearly beloved and honored guests, we are gathered here today
Speaker 2: to witness the coming.
Speaker 3: Together with these TV.
Speaker 1: It's ten am on December twenty second, twenty sixteen. Fifty
Speaker 1: two year old Eric Kramer is standing with his forty
Speaker 1: three year old bride, Courtney Baird, about to get married.
Speaker 2: Marriage is a sacred institution. It's a tradition of partnership,
Speaker 2: of trust, and of dependence on one another.
Speaker 1: The setting is just beautiful at the picturesque Santa Barbara Courthouse,
Speaker 1: a cavernous historic ninety year old building with Spanish Colonial
Speaker 1: Revival architecture, terra cotta tiled floors, Baroque old world murals
Speaker 1: on the walls, illuminated by gargantuan antique chandeliers.
Speaker 2: Eric Kramer, do you take Courtney bar as your lovely
Speaker 2: wedded wife? Will you honor and cherish her love, trust,
Speaker 2: and commit to her through joy and pain, sickness and
Speaker 2: health until death stayed part.
Speaker 1: This is actually a civil ceremony, one of several civil
Speaker 1: ceremonies scheduled at the courthouse today, But this wedding is
Speaker 1: uniquely different from the rest.
Speaker 2: Courtney Bear, do you take Eric Kramer as your lawfully
Speaker 2: wedded husband?
Speaker 1: You're actually witnessing a top secret event. No one in
Speaker 1: the groom's life knows this wedding is even taking place
Speaker 1: today because the groom, Eric Kramer, a retired NFL quarterback
Speaker 1: with millions of dollars in the bank, is suffering from
Speaker 1: a severe traumatic brain injury. He's got the mental capacity
Speaker 1: of a six year old. At this point, he should
Speaker 1: not have the ability to consent to getting married. Yet
Speaker 1: here he is saying, I do.
Speaker 2: By the power of a shid in me by the
Speaker 2: State of California, I now pronounce you husband and wife.
Speaker 2: You may kiss the bride, but.
Speaker 1: The bride in this case is a conniving con artist,
Speaker 1: and at this very moment, she's exploiting a gaping loophole
Speaker 1: in the criminal justice system.
Speaker 4: Courtney was stealing from him.
Speaker 5: Oh she was milk and I'm for every cent he had.
Speaker 1: What do you think she was thinking this marriage would
Speaker 1: do for her?
Speaker 4: This secret marriage was a way to keep taking his money.
Speaker 6: It would give her immunity from any type of criminal
Speaker 6: prosecution because they're married.
Speaker 5: What's his hers? What's hers?
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Walton and this is The Quarterback and the
Speaker 1: con Artist, Episode one. She was a gold digger. I'm
Speaker 1: not a football guy. I don't think I've ever seen
Speaker 1: an entire football game from start to end. It's November
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. I'm sitting at a table now in
Speaker 1: the Greater Los Angeles area home of retired NFL quarterback
Speaker 1: Eric Kramer, confessing my object ignorance and my lack of
Speaker 1: passion for the sport of football. Like football holds no
Speaker 1: interest for me. But I just finished reading Eric Kramer's
Speaker 1: book titled The Ultimate Comeback, and it blew my mind.
Speaker 1: It starts out being about football, but then it turns
Speaker 1: into this insane, sweeping tale with crazy twists and turns
Speaker 1: not to mention the rise and fall of a sinister
Speaker 1: con woman who infiltrates Eric's life and steals hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars from him. And I just can't help
Speaker 1: but gush about the book now that I'm sitting in
Speaker 1: front of the Eric Kramer himself. But your book, your
Speaker 1: story is just so compelling and so dramatic and gut wrenching,
Speaker 1: and it has a happy ending, right, It's inspiring, It
Speaker 1: has a hopeful ending. Why write it? What made you
Speaker 1: think you could or should or would? Why did you?
Speaker 3: It was something that I want. I wanted to do
Speaker 3: initially for Griffin and Dylan, Eric's two sons. The feedback
Speaker 3: I got from other people was unexpected. How other people
Speaker 3: relate to what happened for me has happened to millions
Speaker 3: of others. And I think that's what's become most gratifying
Speaker 3: is it's gone beyond what I even thought it would be.
Speaker 1: Eric Kramer rises to fame in the early nineteen nineties
Speaker 1: as a celebrated quarterback. He plays for the New Orleans Saints,
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Falcons, the Calgary Stampeders, the Detroit Lions, the
Speaker 1: Chicago Bears, and the San Diego Chargers. But what's truly
Speaker 1: fascinating about Eric Kramer's career is growing up, it didn't
Speaker 1: really seem like he'd ever make it to the NFL.
Speaker 5: We went to those little, tiny Catholic high schools Angenevi.
Speaker 5: Who's high school OUP in Panorama City.
Speaker 1: That's Chris German, one of Eric's childhood friends.
Speaker 6: We would carpool together, we played on the same team.
Speaker 6: You know, we were just high school buddies, you know,
Speaker 6: little knuckleheads rolling to school together.
Speaker 1: And could you see back then that he was destined
Speaker 1: for the NFL? Was that obvious?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: He was good.
Speaker 6: He was a good athlete, definitely had the drive, you know,
Speaker 6: and he was a good quarterback, but pro caliber not
Speaker 6: so much.
Speaker 5: At the time.
Speaker 6: And what changed, obviously his perseverance and his drive and
Speaker 6: his vision and the people he surrounded him with. I mean,
Speaker 6: you meet that guy, you know, he's he's got a drive,
Speaker 6: just putting his nose to the grindstone and going for it,
Speaker 6: and he's stuck with it, and you know, he made
Speaker 6: it find it.
Speaker 1: Eric Kramer is living proof that it doesn't really matter
Speaker 1: what kind of hand your delt in life, you can
Speaker 1: still end up winning the whole game.
Speaker 3: I worked hard at it. I physically train all the time,
Speaker 3: I watched a ton of film. I was naturally very tight,
Speaker 3: like non flexible, so then I stretched and I was
Speaker 3: naturally very slow, so then I got faster just because
Speaker 3: I ran. I was everything physically you wouldn't want to be,
Speaker 3: but then decided to be something different.
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about football, but I've read a
Speaker 1: lot about you, and I've read a lot about what
Speaker 1: other players and coaches have said about you publicly in
Speaker 1: the press. I get the impression you weren't the fastest player,
Speaker 1: you weren't the strongest player, you weren't the best performing player,
Speaker 1: but you were the smartest player. You treated that football
Speaker 1: field like a chessboard, and you planned your moves, and
Speaker 1: you studied harder than anyone else. Is that a fair assessment?
Speaker 1: Is that how you see yourself? Am I wrong? Am
Speaker 1: I crazy?
Speaker 3: I think that is right. I don't think you're wrong,
Speaker 3: and I don't think you're crazy. Other than being the
Speaker 3: most obviously talented physically or otherwise person, there are other
Speaker 3: ways to do the job and get it done. Because
Speaker 3: a lot of this, I don't care what sport it
Speaker 3: is you're playing, or whatever it is you're doing in life.
Speaker 3: It's not always filled with success. The process of getting
Speaker 3: better is filled with falling down and then hopefully getting
Speaker 3: back up and finding ways to get back up only
Speaker 3: do it better next time.
Speaker 7: We always struggled with talent, I mean the talent in
Speaker 7: that division. It was Brett Farb and Reggie White and
Speaker 7: Barry Sanders.
Speaker 1: That's former NFL coach Dave Wantstad. He hand picks Eric Kramer.
Speaker 7: Eric checked all the boxes that we were looking for.
Speaker 1: To be starting quarterback for the Chicago Bears in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four, and Eric goes on to win some big
Speaker 1: games while playing for the Bears, especially against the venerated
Speaker 1: Dallas Cowboys.
Speaker 7: I remember being in that locker room and winning that
Speaker 7: game on national TV and just looking at the players,
Speaker 7: and I remember specifically Eric, obviously because he was a quarterback,
Speaker 7: saying we're going places.
Speaker 5: We're going to make some noise this year.
Speaker 1: And Eric credits part of his success as an NFL
Speaker 1: quarterback to doctor Kevin Wildenhaus and the visualization technique he
Speaker 1: showed Eric how to utilize to dial in his game.
Speaker 3: He taught me about this sort of deep breathing and
Speaker 3: meditation and sort of guided imagery where you could put
Speaker 3: yourself somewhere in a relaxed state before you ever got there,
Speaker 3: and you could start imagining what would happen, whether it
Speaker 3: be during a game or not during a game, and
Speaker 3: kind of sees the world as it's going to happen
Speaker 3: before it happens, and then it can happen.
Speaker 1: So while the fans are screaming and coaches are barking orders,
Speaker 1: Eric gets quiet, goes inside himself and maps out what
Speaker 1: to do next.
Speaker 3: It was the calmest I'd ever been while things were happening.
Speaker 3: So Kevin Wilbinhouse, he was the glove that all the
Speaker 3: other fingers finally fit into.
Speaker 1: Add to that, Eric Kramer has a drive and a
Speaker 1: determination that goes far beyond most other athletes. For instance,
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety, when he gets dumped by his agent
Speaker 1: after being cut from the team he was playing for
Speaker 1: at the time, the Calgary Stampeders, Eric's future looks bleak
Speaker 1: and his prospects are nonexistent. No agent wants to sign him,
Speaker 1: and it really looks like his career in the NFL
Speaker 1: is over. But instead of quit football and giving up
Speaker 1: agents be damned. Eric actually picks up the phone himself
Speaker 1: and makes calls to all twenty eight teams in the NFL,
Speaker 1: offering them his services as quarterback.
Speaker 3: I would call the main number and you know, asks
Speaker 3: to speak to their I don't know, scouting department. Whoever
Speaker 3: answered the phone was like, sure, we'll connect you with that.
Speaker 3: You know, no one ever picked up, or if they did,
Speaker 3: they're like, okay, thanks. There was kind of my last
Speaker 3: ditch effort.
Speaker 1: Really, and all those teams pretty much ignore Eric Kramer.
Speaker 1: You can hardly blame them. That's just not how the
Speaker 1: NFL works. You can't randomly call up a team and
Speaker 1: tell them you're available and expect them to hire you.
Speaker 1: And yet, out of the twenty eight phone calls Eric makes.
Speaker 3: The Lions were the one team that called me back, and.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety one, Eric becomes starting quarterback for the
Speaker 1: Detroit Lion.
Speaker 3: I mean it was just serendipitous, I guess, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just somehow meant to be. I don't
Speaker 3: know too many guys have called their way onto a team.
Speaker 1: Another really fascinating moment in Eric's NFL career happens when
Speaker 1: he's playing for the Chicago Bears.
Speaker 3: It was I don't know, game four or five or
Speaker 3: something in nineteen ninety four, and I come out of
Speaker 3: that game with a separated shoulder, right shoulder.
Speaker 1: And Eric is in tremendous pain as a right handed quarterback,
Speaker 1: having a separated right shoulder means he can no longer
Speaker 1: throw a football like at all. But Eric hires this
Speaker 1: magical guru herbalist, guy who reportedly helps NFL great Joe
Speaker 1: Montana Antenna beat Chaste. He throws on the right.
Speaker 5: Oh what a thrill.
Speaker 1: How's that bred heal his throwing arm after he was
Speaker 1: badly injured. So Eric flies this herbalist out to Chicago
Speaker 1: and he sets up shop in Eric's kitchen. He's got
Speaker 1: all kinds of weird potions and powders and ingredients that
Speaker 1: he's mixing up and it smells like the stench of death.
Speaker 3: He's over the stove eventually cooking something in there. I
Speaker 3: don't know. He tells me there's deer tendon and there's
Speaker 3: other kind of stuff in here, and I was like,
Speaker 3: I didn't think twice about it. I'm like, all right, great,
Speaker 3: and he's like, here, drink this.
Speaker 1: The herbalist hands Eric a cup of this death smelling swill,
Speaker 1: this deer tendon djure, and Eric gulps it down because
Speaker 1: he's desperate to get his throwing arm back at this point,
Speaker 1: and he'll try anything lo and behold. A couple hours later,
Speaker 1: Eric's shoulder actually feels fine. The pain is gone.
Speaker 3: I'm out in the backyard out throwing to him, and
Speaker 3: it was feeling really good, literally throwing passes in the
Speaker 3: backyard with a separated shoulder that now doesn't hurt. So
Speaker 3: there was some time there that like, I be okay,
Speaker 3: this is actually gonna work. I can go practice tomorrow.
Speaker 1: So Eric goes to bed that night feeling great. But
Speaker 1: the next morning he wakes up and kneels at the
Speaker 1: altar of the porcelain God and barfs his guts out.
Speaker 3: I throw everything up and I couldn't feel worse like sick.
Speaker 1: And Eric's shoulder pain is back with a vengeance.
Speaker 3: So so apparently it wasn't as magical as it may
Speaker 3: have seen it first, my shoulder whatever a little glimmer
Speaker 3: of hope I had, thinking I could play with this thing.
Speaker 3: I could.
Speaker 1: Eric Kramer endures a lot of stops and starts like that,
Speaker 1: and a lot of highs and lows during his storied
Speaker 1: thirteen year professional football career. Though it's not until he's
Speaker 1: recovering from a traumatic brain injury that a tall, blonde
Speaker 1: con artist she was a goalbigger named Courtney Baird.
Speaker 8: Well, first of I don't call off Courtney to me.
Speaker 1: Her name is Corny sinks her hooks into a severely
Speaker 1: brain damaged Eric Kramer.
Speaker 4: We're just looking for him to get better, get better,
Speaker 4: get better. Do your treatment go in He was being
Speaker 4: treated every day, five days a week. We would not
Speaker 4: think that anybody would be coming in here and trying
Speaker 4: to steal from him. That would just be cruel.
Speaker 1: But to understand how a devious con woman can gain
Speaker 1: access and control of a mentally infirmed Eric Kramer, you
Speaker 1: have to understand the root cause of Eric's brain injury
Speaker 1: and the clear and present danger of playing professional football.
Speaker 9: This morning a devastating blow to the NFL. Ninety nine
Speaker 9: percent of deceased players' brains examined in a new study
Speaker 9: showed signs of CTE, a degenerative brain disease linked to
Speaker 9: repeated hits to the head.
Speaker 3: This is much more common in football players than we
Speaker 3: previously anticipated.
Speaker 1: CTE or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, is a brain disease that
Speaker 1: causes depression, anxiety, mood changes, memory loss, erratic behavior, and
Speaker 1: a host of other neurological disorders.
Speaker 10: There's been a number of football players that have committed
Speaker 10: suicide right that have had these brain injuries, and it's
Speaker 10: been ascribed to this repeated head trauma.
Speaker 1: In his line of work, I'm.
Speaker 10: A head and neck surgeon, a maxillofacial trauma surgeon in Northridge, California.
Speaker 1: Doctor Mark Kerner sees brain injury every single day.
Speaker 10: CTE is neurotrauma, brain trauma that's from repeated injury to
Speaker 10: the head, so repeated blows to the head, and it
Speaker 10: was first described in football players by a pathologist. The
Speaker 10: theory is is from repeated blows to the head as
Speaker 10: football players get it causes this prolonged and profound brain
Speaker 10: damage that was initially very difficult to diagnose but now
Speaker 10: can be seen on autopsy. So it has some very
Speaker 10: characteristic findings on pathology correlated with their pre death behavior.
Speaker 10: And I'm a big, huge football fan. I watch it
Speaker 10: every weekend. When you see these guys hit the turf
Speaker 10: with their helmet, you know that's a blow too, And
Speaker 10: even though they don't have quote unquote a concussion, I
Speaker 10: mean they hit their heads pretty hard on this turf
Speaker 10: or even on the grass, and you just like I
Speaker 10: always cringe when I see that. So it's not only
Speaker 10: just a blow to the head, but it's these swipes,
Speaker 10: it's these hitting the ground hard, it's all these things.
Speaker 10: And I think the helmets have improved dramatically. Even though
Speaker 10: it doesn't reduce the severity of these injuries to zero,
Speaker 10: we still see a lot of players get concussions.
Speaker 1: And I've seen the imaging of the head getting hit
Speaker 1: and just the brain just slashes around. It's like a
Speaker 1: car accident in your head.
Speaker 10: Yeah, So exactly what's happening is the brain's encased in
Speaker 10: a pretty tight cavity, and just like you said, as
Speaker 10: it gets it goes hits from side to side, you
Speaker 10: get shearing of neurons, and that sharing trauma not only
Speaker 10: probably kills off some neurons, but creates sort of micro
Speaker 10: scarring in the brain in different areas of the brain,
Speaker 10: which results in the symptoms and the memory loss and
Speaker 10: maybe even the depression and some of the other psychiatric
Speaker 10: type diseases that comes with that, and the behavioral changes
Speaker 10: and impulse control that football players who have been known
Speaker 10: to suffer from have, and I think the NFL is
Speaker 10: trying to deal with it. It's why they have the
Speaker 10: new trauma specialists on the sidelines. And you know, it's
Speaker 10: basically from having repeated concussions, but.
Speaker 1: The symptoms of CTE are many and they can really
Speaker 1: wreak havoc in a person's life.
Speaker 8: It's akin to like a personality disorder, and it's like
Speaker 8: we're one second everything's fine, and then the next it's
Speaker 8: it's not. It's like turbulent in that way.
Speaker 1: That's twenty six year old Dylan Kramer, Eric's son.
Speaker 8: My dad was my hero growing up, and I wanted
Speaker 8: to be just like him. I always looked up to
Speaker 8: him to the way that he went about doing things
Speaker 8: that you know, he would set a goal and then
Speaker 8: stick to it with a high level of discipline.
Speaker 1: You really do look a lot like your dad, Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot. You got you got the Eric Kramer face, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get that a lot. What's it like being the
Speaker 1: son of an NFL quarterback?
Speaker 8: You know, it's definitely an excuse to get picked first
Speaker 8: in whatever sport they thought.
Speaker 1: You're Eric Kramer's kid, you must be good yeah, and
Speaker 1: they pick. Yeah.
Speaker 8: So, like a year or two before high school, I
Speaker 8: kind of gave up football and picked up lacrosse. And
Speaker 8: I was really happy I did that at the time
Speaker 8: because I was tired of dealing with all the expectations
Speaker 8: and stuff to be good at football and whatnot.
Speaker 1: Wow, you know, I never thought of that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess they do expect you because you're like this
Speaker 1: big guy, you look like Eric Kramer. You must be
Speaker 1: a good quarterback, or you must be good at football,
Speaker 1: right right, exactly. So that's a lot of pressure.
Speaker 8: Yeah, oh yeah, Well that doesn't make it clear. My
Speaker 8: dad never put pressure on me to play football or
Speaker 8: anything like that. I think he experienced that from his
Speaker 8: family growing up, and he didn't want that for his kids.
Speaker 8: So he did a great job of not doing that.
Speaker 1: Like you were free to pursue anything, anyone, anything you
Speaker 1: want to be. He supported you anything.
Speaker 8: For a little bit there, I wanted to be a pilot,
Speaker 8: so on my birthdays he got me a flying lesson.
Speaker 1: Like a pilot, like an airline pilot, or like a
Speaker 1: jet fighter in the military in the US Air Force.
Speaker 8: Like somehow, some way, we had gotten to go to
Speaker 8: a legitimate flight simulator at some military base, but that
Speaker 8: was almost autistic in a sense, like I knew every
Speaker 8: plane that was around, I knew like all their specifications,
Speaker 8: all like everything like that. So I was really into it,
Speaker 8: and he very much fostered that.
Speaker 1: Dylan is just ten years old at that point, but
Speaker 1: as the years pass, he notices drastic changes in his
Speaker 1: dad's personality. Do you blame CTE for what happened to
Speaker 1: your dad? Yeah?
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, in a huge ass and I think it's
Speaker 8: the biggest factor.
Speaker 1: Can say, you can totally say huge ass dude in
Speaker 1: a huge ass way.
Speaker 8: In a huge ass way, that is easily the biggest
Speaker 8: factor in my opinion. Yeah, because I think that affected
Speaker 8: his ability to connect with people like his family, his son,
Speaker 8: both sons, you know, and that was kind of a
Speaker 8: hard thing for me to sort of grasp. I definitely
Speaker 8: think he is the biggest contributor by far. I don't
Speaker 8: think that he was aware of what was going on,
Speaker 8: I genuinely don't. I think he was trying an absolute
Speaker 8: artist to figure it out, like going to a bunch
Speaker 8: of different doctors and professional help and all that sort
Speaker 8: of stuff, and you know, obviously nothing really works.
Speaker 5: And.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think he is a huge reason for that
Speaker 8: for sure.
Speaker 1: And it was during the height of his NFL career
Speaker 1: that Eric Kramer starts becoming sort of a different person. Listen,
Speaker 1: head trauma is a hell of a thing, and in
Speaker 1: Eric's life, violent hits to the head start young. Looking back,
Speaker 1: it's hard to even calculate just how many times Eric
Speaker 1: is either hit in the head by another player or
Speaker 1: how many times his head actually hits the ground during a.
Speaker 3: Tackle without having to go back and do all the resource.
Speaker 3: I would say five hundred wouldn't seem like a lot.
Speaker 4: Well, you're also talking during practices as well.
Speaker 1: That's on a Jurgen. She went to high school with
Speaker 1: Eric and she's known him and watched him play since
Speaker 1: they were both teenagers.
Speaker 4: How many days of practice did you get in youth football,
Speaker 4: high school and stuff, but in college too during practices
Speaker 4: because you're trying, everyone's trying to make the team, so
Speaker 4: you're going to try extra hard, harder, and you're going
Speaker 4: to hit that ground. And that's why I always kept saying,
Speaker 4: it wasn't the little concussions, it's that hits that when
Speaker 4: he fell to the ground, your neck hitting the ground,
Speaker 4: your neck head hit the ground. I don't care if
Speaker 4: you have that helmet or not. I would say it's
Speaker 4: well over two three thousand.
Speaker 1: Three thousand hits to the head over a person's lifetime
Speaker 1: is inordinately damaging.
Speaker 3: Not to mention, there's all kinds of ways for you
Speaker 3: heading to hit. It could be slammed on the ground,
Speaker 3: it could be a helmet to helmet with somebody else.
Speaker 3: It could be someone's nee to your head who's trying
Speaker 3: to jump over you but don't quite get over you.
Speaker 3: There was only one time I was ever knocked out,
Speaker 3: and that was in high school playing safety, and my
Speaker 3: helmet while playing safety hit someone else on offense and
Speaker 3: I got knocked out. So if you would have asked
Speaker 3: me ten years ago how many concussions you had, I
Speaker 3: said one. But knowing what we know now and what
Speaker 3: constitutes a concussion, I would say many more than that.
Speaker 1: And the cumulative effect of all those concussions and all
Speaker 1: that brain trauma sneaks up on Eric Kramer one day.
Speaker 1: His brain just stops working right, and suddenly, for the
Speaker 1: first time in his life, depression hits him hard, seemingly
Speaker 1: out of nowhere.
Speaker 3: Depression. When it seizes you, it by definition dry you inward.
Speaker 3: It does the opposite of what you would think. It
Speaker 3: kind of takes your whole perspective of this era of
Speaker 3: view of your life and it shrinks it down into
Speaker 3: the size of a key hole. And then sometimes there's
Speaker 3: not much light in there. Now.
Speaker 1: Eric Kramer has always been a fighter. He's always persevered
Speaker 1: through tough times, and he's always found victory on the
Speaker 1: other side. Remember, this is a guy who after his
Speaker 1: team and his agent dump him and he has every
Speaker 1: reason in the world to wallow and self defeat and pity.
Speaker 1: He gets up, dusts himself off, and makes personal phone
Speaker 1: calls to twenty eight different teams and actually gets picked
Speaker 1: up by one of them. So Eric Kramer has a
Speaker 1: documented history of pushing through hard times. But in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four, when he's playing for the Chicago Bears, something
Speaker 1: changes in Rik Kramer's brain.
Speaker 3: I kind of lost this sense of I don't know
Speaker 3: purpose is the right word.
Speaker 1: At this point. Eric has sustained thousands of hits to
Speaker 1: the head over the years, playing football in high school
Speaker 1: and college, then playing for the New Orleans Saints, the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Falcons, the Calgary Stampeders, the Detroit Lions, and now
Speaker 1: playing for the Chicago Bears.
Speaker 3: It's a tough hill to climb, and now the whole
Speaker 3: world's watching. If you're told to walk across a line, right,
Speaker 3: you can do that, no problem. But now you put
Speaker 3: that line up five hundred feet in the air and
Speaker 3: it's still the same line, but the consequence is all
Speaker 3: different if you misstep.
Speaker 1: Eric had a bad game playing for the Bears against
Speaker 1: the Green Bay Packers, and he blamed himself for everything
Speaker 1: that went wrong in that game, and suddenly, through the
Speaker 1: lens of depression, that loss eclipses everything else in his world,
Speaker 1: and his outlook on life changes in that instant and
Speaker 1: things get really really dark.
Speaker 3: I all of a sudden felt like, okay, here I
Speaker 3: was scrapping, scratching and clawing just to even be here. Well,
Speaker 3: now I am here, and now I'm not even holding
Speaker 3: up my end of the bargain, and so coming in
Speaker 3: every day was just strange in that way, and it
Speaker 3: was hard for me to walk around with much confidence,
Speaker 3: knowing that I was brought in here to do something
Speaker 3: that I'm now no longer doing, and even one I
Speaker 3: was doing it, I wasn't doing it all that well,
Speaker 3: and so I think that's when it first sort of
Speaker 3: struck me as that feeling of anxiousness, you know, like,
Speaker 3: h do I have to look people in the eye
Speaker 3: to day? And then eventually that led to me not
Speaker 3: even want to get out of bed. And that's the
Speaker 3: first experience I'd ever had with feeling that way. But
Speaker 3: it doesn't go away. So it's not like, oh, it's
Speaker 3: here today and then I'll sleep it off. He'll be
Speaker 3: gone tomorrow. No, No, it's here for day and then another,
Speaker 3: and then another in a week, and then another week.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's here for good and this is how I'm
Speaker 3: going to go to the rest of my life. That's
Speaker 3: the first time I'd ever experienced anything like that, And
Speaker 3: so it was hard. It was just it was hard
Speaker 3: to be anywhere. It was hard to be anywhere that
Speaker 3: wasn't bad. Even bed didn't feel good, eating didn't feel good. Nothing,
Speaker 3: no conversation. It's not like somebody could say, hey, Eric,
Speaker 3: here's something to think about. This will make you feel better. Nope,
Speaker 3: I didn't have me.
Speaker 1: That was back in nineteen ninety four. Eric would start
Speaker 1: battling depression on and off for the next twenty years,
Speaker 1: sometimes through counseling and medication, Eric's depression gets better and
Speaker 1: everything seems to be going okay. But a series of
Speaker 1: unforeseen tragic events pushes Eric Kramer to the brink, and
Speaker 1: he finds himself sitting in a motel room the good
Speaker 1: night in with a loaded gun pointing to his head.
Speaker 4: The thought of him taking his life didn't even never
Speaker 4: even cross my mind.
Speaker 1: When Eric Kramer pulls the trigger that day back in
Speaker 1: August of twenty fifteen, the bullet explodes out of that gun,
Speaker 1: rips through his skull, and comes out the other end.
Speaker 1: There's blood everywhere, on the wall, on the bed, on
Speaker 1: the nightstand. There are chunks of flesh and bones strown
Speaker 1: all over. Parts of Eric Kramer's head are literally blown off.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. Eric shockingly survives, and that actually
Speaker 1: creates a unique opportunity for a crafty con woman to
Speaker 1: insert herself into Eric's life and rob him blind.
Speaker 4: There's eighty pictures or so of her at the ATM
Speaker 4: machine in a two month time.
Speaker 1: Span with his ATM card.
Speaker 4: His ATM card.
Speaker 1: To check out the next episode, just search the Quarterback
Speaker 1: and the con Artist anywhere you get your podcasts and
Speaker 1: subscribe and click play. Episode two is streaming right now.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.