Former Nebraska Running Back and 1995 First Round Draft Pick of the St. Louis Rams, Lawrence Phillips was found dead in the early hours of January 13, 2016. Tragically, he was found in his jail cell at Kern Valley State Prison where he was serving a 7-year term for felony assault with a deadly weapon, to be followed by 25 years for domestic assault on his girlfriend.

Phillips was possibly facing the death penalty as charges were brought against him in the death of his cellmate, Damion Soward, who was found dead in their cell in April 2015. The cause of death was determined to be strangulation. Items marked with the blood of Soward that belonged to Phillips didn’t help his innocence claim. Neither did the letter that he wrote to his mother a month prior where he told her: “I feel myself very close to snapping; my anger grows daily as I have become fed up with prison. I feel my anger is near bursting and that will result in my death or the death of someone else.”

Anger was an emotion that Lawrence Phillips knew all too well. His list of aggressions included dragging his girlfriend in college down three flights of stairs; he was arrested three times before being released by the St. Louis Rams; having been released by the Miami Dolphins after assaulting a woman in the nightclub, he was then charged with sexual assault while playing in the CFL. This was followed by driving a stolen vehicle into a group of teens after losing a pickup football game, and then dragging his last girlfriend down several flights of stairs twice. Anger and Lawrence Phillips could not be separated or controlled.

Lawrence Phillips had a rough childhood. He experienced abuse at the hands of his mother’s boyfriend and was in and out of foster homes before landing in a juvenile detention center. It took years before Lawrence Phillips found someone to see something in him. Barbara Thomas did. She took him in and introduced him to football, an introduction that helped Phillips in the end make a name for himself as a star running back. Football was his ticket into the University of Nebraska. It was his meal ticket to living the life he always wanted. As a sociology major, he had dreams of opening group homes for wayward kids. Despite his issues he wanted to help kids who came from backgrounds like his in the long run. Unfortunately, his dreams and actions on the field were overshadowed by his actions off the field.

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