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A survivor walked into Starbucks on the corner of Waukegan Road in Lake Forest, Ill., a few minutes after 11 a.m., on Aug. 14, a sunny Friday, and made a beeline for the front counter and his first cold brew coffee of the day.
He sat down at a table nestled in the back — a gray Lake Forest football hat pulled low over his bald head — and smiled.
Tom Zbikowski’s eyes were clear.
His perspective, too, was distinct — shaped by 22 years of competitive football, by nearly 100 amateur boxing matches, by countless Saturdays in South Bend and Sunday afternoons in Baltimore.
By alcoholism and rehabilitation. By redemption. By family and faith.
Engulfed by the conventional — a stock photo of grapes framed and hanging on the wall across from the register, rows of identical mugs presented for sale on a nearby bookshelf, the subtle staples that make every cookie cutter Starbucks look and feel alike — Zbikowski was the opposite. For better or worse, he’s one of a kind.
One of the most beloved Notre Dame football players in recent memory took a sip of coffee and leaned forward in his chair.
“To fully understand joy, you have to hit rock bottom. The bottom of the pit,” Zbikowski said, cloaked in a baggy white T-shirt and sweatpants that concealed his muscular frame, his words registering above a soundtrack of humming blenders and sleepy ballads.
“I like to, obviously, live in extremes. So my pit is going to be as extreme as you can get. But there’s strength in your ability to conquer that.”
In many ways, Zbikowski hasn’t changed.
Sure, he’s older now, and markedly wiser. His knuckles sport permanent bruises that tell you where he’s been, stained with the memory of heavy bags and vulnerable chins. Madison Square Garden main events and million dollar contracts are likely behind him; there’s no telling what’s ahead.
But now, same as ever, Zbikowski chases the rush.
Since he was 5, the undersized kid from the suburbs of Chicago has hopped from challenge to challenge, from sport to sport, an adrenaline addict in search of the next climbable mountain. He played on his brother’s peewee football team, despite being four years younger, regularly borrowing E.J.’s oversized pads to make the minimum weight.
And when it wasn’t football, it was baseball. Or wrestling. Or boxing. Or track.
“We told him, ‘You’ve got to slow down. You can’t play everything,’” recalled his father, Ed Zbikowski. “He would always quit the sport that he just finished up with. He would say, ‘I’m not going to do that anymore.’
“And then the next year, he’s doing it again.”
Tom Zbikowski needed to be challenged, to bask in the struggle of a long, difficult climb. He pined for the chase, not the catch. And he craved competition — in any form, however unlikely.
“I’ve seen this guy eat an uncooked steak with the blood dripping off of it,” Rhema McKnight, Zbikowski’s teammate at Notre Dame, said with a laugh. “It was just Zibby being tough, having that attitude. ‘I can do it.’ He’ll take on any challenge.”
That inner drive propelled Zbikowski to a starring role as a safety and return man at Notre Dame, then to the NFL. It carried him into the boxing ring, too, one of the few places where his insatiable hunger could be satisfied.
“A fighting high, it’s got to be close to the high of death,” said Zbikowski, who remains undefeated in four professional bouts. “That’s where you’re taking it. It’s fun to be in that mind-set … and it’s not. It gets ugly. You think about knocking someone’s face off. You try to keep it to boxing, though.
“It’s like in football. Anything combative, you have to teeter on chaotic disaster. You just have to try to balance that.”
For years, Zbikowski walked a perpetual tight rope, struggling to maintain the divide between athletics and everything else.
The same cravings that made him famous also threatened to rip him apart.
“I’m an adrenaline junkie, so the amount of alcohol it would take for me to do something I’d view as ‘crazy,’ it’s probably going to be a significant amount,’’ Zbikowski said.
“And for me, ‘crazy’ is probably going to be near death.”
***
If he closes his eyes, Zbikowski can feel that moment.
October 15, 2005. Second quarter, 10:38 until halftime.
Notre Dame 14, USC 14.
Zbikowski, surrounded by more than 80,000 Irish faithful, stood all alone at his 40-yard-line.
He took the punt and burst around the right edge, a blur of green and gold, chugging through a seam as the volume cranked with each purposeful stride. He shed his first tackle just inside the USC 25, then another at the 20, and another at the 10, obliterating Trojans like a monster truck crushing rows of broken cars.
Then, the goal line. The celebration. The rush.
“I don’t really see it. I just feel it,” Zbikowski said with a widening grin. “It didn’t matter how big, or fast, or strong you were. You weren’t tackling me. You weren’t tackling me. I had enough steam, I had enough momentum going forward, that it didn’t matter.
“I was attacking each individual. That’s how I return, though. You have to make those first couple miss, but then you have to attack people that are trying to tackle you. That time, I was attacking them pretty violently, with bad intentions.”
That’s how Zbikowski attacked his entire college career. The 5-foot-11, 200-pound All-America safety squeezed every drop of ability out of his frame, racking up 300 tackles, eight interceptions and seven touchdowns in five memorable years. He earned his degree in sociology and computer applications, becoming the first Zbikowski to graduate from college.
But most notably, he was the face of Notre Dame’s defense during the program’s modern renaissance, attacking ball carriers and tacklers alike.
“He added a toughness to our group,” former Irish quarterback Brady Quinn said. “When their backs were against the wall, our defense looked to guys like Tommy to make a play and respond.”
And game after game, year after year, Tommy responded.
“It was almost like rigor mortis for a second,” Zbikowski said of his return in the now-iconic “Bush Push” game against USC, a 34-31 Irish last-second loss to the top-ranked Trojans, who barely extended their winning streak to 28 games.
“You have all that go through you and then you get a sip of water, sit down on the bench. And when I went out for the next series, I was dead for the next three plays.
“That’s when everyone knew it was a party … a good one, too,” he added with a laugh nearly 10 years later. “Probably the best one they’d seen there in a long time.”
***
Zbikowski took a sip from his second cold brew coffee of the day, stirred fruit into a bowl of yogurt, leaned back and considered the question.
When did alcohol first become a problem?
“Indianapolis started it, right around when I got injured. Maybe even a little before.”
He paused.
“It actually started in 2011, when I got benched in Baltimore.”
Another pause, this time longer. He shook his head, took a deep breath and conceded.
“It started in 2005. Need I say more?”
The drinking may have started in South Bend, but Zbikowski’s vices caught up with him in Indianapolis, on the back end of a professional career that spanned five seasons, two teams, 11 playoff games and countless high-speed collisions. After playing his first four seasons and making 14 starts with the Baltimore Ravens, Zbikowski signed with the Colts in 2012, following defensive backs coach Chuck Pagano from Baltimore to his first head coaching gig in the NFL.
Soon enough, though, sunshine gave way to a relentless storm. A shin injury forced Zbikowski to miss the final five games of what he now calls the worst season of his career. And Pagano, a mentor and role model from the very beginning in Baltimore, was diagnosed with leukemia in October of 2012. He took a leave of absence to battle for his life.
Zbikowski, meanwhile, had nothing worth chasing. No structure. No discipline. No drive.
“Me and my father hadn’t talked for maybe two years,” said Zbikowski, who declined to elaborate on their rift. “Chuck was like a father figure, too, and I was at his bedside. To get emotionally tied up with him and maybe have him pass away and not be on good terms with my own father, that was something I couldn’t do.”
Without football, or family, Zbikowski lost his balance. His passion quickly evaporated, replaced by a sinking depression. He drowned his problems in liquor and pills.
“I was a full blown alcoholic and addict at that point,” Zbikowski admitted. “Just sleeping pills, pain pills and eight fingers of scotch every day.”
When the season ended, he didn’t wait to be released. Zbikowski flew to the Caribbean, to a faraway paradise, to a place with no memory of his pain and disappointment.
“I wasn’t coming back. Honestly, that was a thought,” Zbikowski said. “You can imagine, under the circumstances, what a Caribbean trip was like for me.”
But what he found wasn’t comfort, a clean slate or a second chance.
“I was drinking way too much,” Zbikowski said. “It was trying to catch up with what you missed, doing in your late 20s what you thought you should have been doing at 23, 24, 25.
“I was there for probably like two and a half weeks, two weeks. I don’t know. A lifetime?”
LINK
A survivor walked into Starbucks on the corner of Waukegan Road in Lake Forest, Ill., a few minutes after 11 a.m., on Aug. 14, a sunny Friday, and made a beeline for the front counter and his first cold brew coffee of the day.
He sat down at a table nestled in the back — a gray Lake Forest football hat pulled low over his bald head — and smiled.
Tom Zbikowski’s eyes were clear.
His perspective, too, was distinct — shaped by 22 years of competitive football, by nearly 100 amateur boxing matches, by countless Saturdays in South Bend and Sunday afternoons in Baltimore.
By alcoholism and rehabilitation. By redemption. By family and faith.
Engulfed by the conventional — a stock photo of grapes framed and hanging on the wall across from the register, rows of identical mugs presented for sale on a nearby bookshelf, the subtle staples that make every cookie cutter Starbucks look and feel alike — Zbikowski was the opposite. For better or worse, he’s one of a kind.
One of the most beloved Notre Dame football players in recent memory took a sip of coffee and leaned forward in his chair.
“To fully understand joy, you have to hit rock bottom. The bottom of the pit,” Zbikowski said, cloaked in a baggy white T-shirt and sweatpants that concealed his muscular frame, his words registering above a soundtrack of humming blenders and sleepy ballads.
“I like to, obviously, live in extremes. So my pit is going to be as extreme as you can get. But there’s strength in your ability to conquer that.”
In many ways, Zbikowski hasn’t changed.
Sure, he’s older now, and markedly wiser. His knuckles sport permanent bruises that tell you where he’s been, stained with the memory of heavy bags and vulnerable chins. Madison Square Garden main events and million dollar contracts are likely behind him; there’s no telling what’s ahead.
But now, same as ever, Zbikowski chases the rush.
Since he was 5, the undersized kid from the suburbs of Chicago has hopped from challenge to challenge, from sport to sport, an adrenaline addict in search of the next climbable mountain. He played on his brother’s peewee football team, despite being four years younger, regularly borrowing E.J.’s oversized pads to make the minimum weight.
And when it wasn’t football, it was baseball. Or wrestling. Or boxing. Or track.
“We told him, ‘You’ve got to slow down. You can’t play everything,’” recalled his father, Ed Zbikowski. “He would always quit the sport that he just finished up with. He would say, ‘I’m not going to do that anymore.’
“And then the next year, he’s doing it again.”
Tom Zbikowski needed to be challenged, to bask in the struggle of a long, difficult climb. He pined for the chase, not the catch. And he craved competition — in any form, however unlikely.
“I’ve seen this guy eat an uncooked steak with the blood dripping off of it,” Rhema McKnight, Zbikowski’s teammate at Notre Dame, said with a laugh. “It was just Zibby being tough, having that attitude. ‘I can do it.’ He’ll take on any challenge.”
That inner drive propelled Zbikowski to a starring role as a safety and return man at Notre Dame, then to the NFL. It carried him into the boxing ring, too, one of the few places where his insatiable hunger could be satisfied.
“A fighting high, it’s got to be close to the high of death,” said Zbikowski, who remains undefeated in four professional bouts. “That’s where you’re taking it. It’s fun to be in that mind-set … and it’s not. It gets ugly. You think about knocking someone’s face off. You try to keep it to boxing, though.
“It’s like in football. Anything combative, you have to teeter on chaotic disaster. You just have to try to balance that.”
For years, Zbikowski walked a perpetual tight rope, struggling to maintain the divide between athletics and everything else.
The same cravings that made him famous also threatened to rip him apart.
“I’m an adrenaline junkie, so the amount of alcohol it would take for me to do something I’d view as ‘crazy,’ it’s probably going to be a significant amount,’’ Zbikowski said.
“And for me, ‘crazy’ is probably going to be near death.”
***
If he closes his eyes, Zbikowski can feel that moment.
October 15, 2005. Second quarter, 10:38 until halftime.
Notre Dame 14, USC 14.
Zbikowski, surrounded by more than 80,000 Irish faithful, stood all alone at his 40-yard-line.
He took the punt and burst around the right edge, a blur of green and gold, chugging through a seam as the volume cranked with each purposeful stride. He shed his first tackle just inside the USC 25, then another at the 20, and another at the 10, obliterating Trojans like a monster truck crushing rows of broken cars.
Then, the goal line. The celebration. The rush.
“I don’t really see it. I just feel it,” Zbikowski said with a widening grin. “It didn’t matter how big, or fast, or strong you were. You weren’t tackling me. You weren’t tackling me. I had enough steam, I had enough momentum going forward, that it didn’t matter.
“I was attacking each individual. That’s how I return, though. You have to make those first couple miss, but then you have to attack people that are trying to tackle you. That time, I was attacking them pretty violently, with bad intentions.”
That’s how Zbikowski attacked his entire college career. The 5-foot-11, 200-pound All-America safety squeezed every drop of ability out of his frame, racking up 300 tackles, eight interceptions and seven touchdowns in five memorable years. He earned his degree in sociology and computer applications, becoming the first Zbikowski to graduate from college.
But most notably, he was the face of Notre Dame’s defense during the program’s modern renaissance, attacking ball carriers and tacklers alike.
“He added a toughness to our group,” former Irish quarterback Brady Quinn said. “When their backs were against the wall, our defense looked to guys like Tommy to make a play and respond.”
And game after game, year after year, Tommy responded.
“It was almost like rigor mortis for a second,” Zbikowski said of his return in the now-iconic “Bush Push” game against USC, a 34-31 Irish last-second loss to the top-ranked Trojans, who barely extended their winning streak to 28 games.
“You have all that go through you and then you get a sip of water, sit down on the bench. And when I went out for the next series, I was dead for the next three plays.
“That’s when everyone knew it was a party … a good one, too,” he added with a laugh nearly 10 years later. “Probably the best one they’d seen there in a long time.”
***
Zbikowski took a sip from his second cold brew coffee of the day, stirred fruit into a bowl of yogurt, leaned back and considered the question.
When did alcohol first become a problem?
“Indianapolis started it, right around when I got injured. Maybe even a little before.”
He paused.
“It actually started in 2011, when I got benched in Baltimore.”
Another pause, this time longer. He shook his head, took a deep breath and conceded.
“It started in 2005. Need I say more?”
The drinking may have started in South Bend, but Zbikowski’s vices caught up with him in Indianapolis, on the back end of a professional career that spanned five seasons, two teams, 11 playoff games and countless high-speed collisions. After playing his first four seasons and making 14 starts with the Baltimore Ravens, Zbikowski signed with the Colts in 2012, following defensive backs coach Chuck Pagano from Baltimore to his first head coaching gig in the NFL.
Soon enough, though, sunshine gave way to a relentless storm. A shin injury forced Zbikowski to miss the final five games of what he now calls the worst season of his career. And Pagano, a mentor and role model from the very beginning in Baltimore, was diagnosed with leukemia in October of 2012. He took a leave of absence to battle for his life.
Zbikowski, meanwhile, had nothing worth chasing. No structure. No discipline. No drive.
“Me and my father hadn’t talked for maybe two years,” said Zbikowski, who declined to elaborate on their rift. “Chuck was like a father figure, too, and I was at his bedside. To get emotionally tied up with him and maybe have him pass away and not be on good terms with my own father, that was something I couldn’t do.”
Without football, or family, Zbikowski lost his balance. His passion quickly evaporated, replaced by a sinking depression. He drowned his problems in liquor and pills.
“I was a full blown alcoholic and addict at that point,” Zbikowski admitted. “Just sleeping pills, pain pills and eight fingers of scotch every day.”
When the season ended, he didn’t wait to be released. Zbikowski flew to the Caribbean, to a faraway paradise, to a place with no memory of his pain and disappointment.
“I wasn’t coming back. Honestly, that was a thought,” Zbikowski said. “You can imagine, under the circumstances, what a Caribbean trip was like for me.”
But what he found wasn’t comfort, a clean slate or a second chance.
“I was drinking way too much,” Zbikowski said. “It was trying to catch up with what you missed, doing in your late 20s what you thought you should have been doing at 23, 24, 25.
“I was there for probably like two and a half weeks, two weeks. I don’t know. A lifetime?”
